Road Trip Budget Sheet
Fuel is the easy number and rarely the biggest one. Fill in the rest before you go and the trip stops producing surprises.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/road-trip-gas-cost
The trip
- From
- To
- One-way miles
- Round trip?
- Vehicle
- MPG used
- Price per gallon
- FUEL TOTAL
- People
- Each
Every fill-up — check your real MPG as you go
| Date | Odometer | Gallons | Price | Cost | MPG so far |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Total distance
- one-way x 2 if returning
- Gallons
- total distance / MPG
- Fuel cost
- gallons x price per gallon
- Each person
- fuel cost / people
- Cost per mile
- price per gallon / MPG
- Included
- fuel ONLY
- Not included
- tolls, parking, food, beds, wear
The costs that are not fuel
- Tolls - check the route, they add up fast on some corridors
- Parking at the destination, per night
- Food on the road - the easiest cost to underestimate
- Accommodation, including anything booked as a fallback
- Vehicle wear - tyres, brakes, the service this trip brings forward
- Anything you are driving there to actually do
- A contingency - somebody will want a coffee stop you did not plan
Before you leave
- Tyre pressures checked - low tyres cost fuel and tyres
- Oil and coolant checked
- Roof box only if you need it - it costs MPG the whole way
- Route checked for tolls
- Fuel split agreed with everyone BEFORE the first fill-up
- Odometer reading written down so you can check real MPG
- Card that works at pumps, and a backup
Agree the split before you go
The per-person figure is not really a maths problem, it is a social one. Agreeing it at the kitchen table costs nothing; working it out at a service station three hundred miles in, when one person has paid for two fill-ups and someone else brought the snacks, is where road trips go quietly wrong.
Check your real MPG on the way
The fill-up table is there so you can find out what the car actually does when loaded, rather than what the sticker claims. Odometer difference divided by gallons put in gives you the true figure - use it for the return leg and for every trip after this one.