If you haven’t started hedging yet, now really is the time to start. Even if you only manage to hedge one tank-full, you’ll be relatively better off than if you don’t. Here’s why:

From next Tuesday (September 1st) the government’s 2p/litre rise in fuel duty announced in the last budget comes into force. Analysts are saying fuel prices will rise far beyond that initial rise due to the renewed increases in the price of oil, partly thanks to world economies picking up again as the recession eases worldwide.

Get Hedging – If you haven’t read my ‘Part 1′ on doing it, now is the time to do so.

Give Some Love – Your vehicle is a complex piece of machinery that works at its best when well cared for. Clean out or change that air filter, give it an oil change, or drop it in a little early for that annual service. A well-serviced vehicle can improve your MPG by up to 15%.

Clear the Crap – Is your vehicle used like a secondary storage cupboard? Do you have a boot filled with ‘stuff’? Every time you accelerate your car down the road, you’re using fuel unnecessarily by having to accelerate that ‘stuff’ as well as you and the vehicle itself. Take 5 minutes today and assess what is in your car. Do you need it? If the answer is no, take it out.

Inflation is Good – When it comes to your tyres, anyway. Dig out the owners manual for your vehicle and find out what tyre pressures you should have, then check them. If you don’t have any method of doing this at home, next time you’re passing a Shell petrol station, dive in. They offer free Water & Air at every garage. If you do a lot of high milage high speed driving, consider pumping 1 PSI above the recommended level for a little bit more of an efficiency edge. Check them monthly to keep your edge.

Kill Your Speed – Speeding might hurt your pocket in obvious ways, i.e. 3 points on your license and a £60 fine in your wallet. But it hurts in less obvious ways as well. If you get caught, you lose time. An average traffic stop consumes around 30 minutes. Your insurance premium may well go up if you get points on your license, which will keep costing you for up to 4 years. But going faster also consumes more fuel as well; Slowing down and keeping to the limit will keep the police off your tail, and more miles traveled between tanks.

Drive Smoothly – Harsh acceleration drinks fuel. Harsh braking eats brakes. Cut your maintenance costs and fueling costs by anticipating further ahead than you might be accustomed to by training yourself to look to the horizon. Anticipating events that appear to be brewing ahead (traffic lights, queues, junctions etc) and laying off the accelerator 20 seconds earlier will reduce your speed, and cut the amount of petrol you burn. As an added benefit, your passengers will enjoy being in the car with you as they no longer feel like they’re in an Exocet missile.

Idle Waste – It happens, and yes it is annoying, but it doesn’t have to cost your wallet as well as your timepiece. The gates come down at the level crossing just as you approach. Kill your engine: chances are you’re going to be there for at least 5 minutes. In a modern engine, 1 minute of idling is the same as driving 1km. Save yourself 5km’s of road driving, and switch off while you wait. You’ll also help cut emissions and noise pollution at the same time.

Find Cheap Fuel – A little forward planning goes a long way. Don’t wait until your car is complaining you’ve got less than 2 minutes to find it some fuel or it’ll dump you on the side of the motorway. While I advocate only buying half a tank at a time (remember – extra weight costs money to shift, and fuel is heavy!), I recommend doing your homework first before pulling in to any random garage. Today, the prices range from 110.9 in my area, to 100.9 for a litre of diesel! That’s a whole 10p per litre difference. If you’re buying 50 litres, that’s a whopping £5 difference! Sign up at PetrolPrices.com and you can see what stations near you are charging right now. A few minutes work here will save you potentially hundreds of pounds over the course of a year with minimal effort.

Quite often I’ll sit here for 20 minutes or so having hashed out a post, changing the order of things, changing words and generally trying to make it flow on paper how it sounded in my head. I was reviewing the wording on my post about my method of fuel hedging just now, when a family member walked in.

They saw the title of the post and looked at me wide-eyed, a hint of genuine fear in their voice, as I explained the general premise behind it in a few sentences. “I hope you’re not risking your money”, they said, despite the fact the only financial product I’d mentioned was “high interest savings account”.  They saw hedging and the fact I was not using my “every day” bank to do this, and immediately decided I was gambling with my life savings and stood to lose thousands.

To an extent I understand. I’m no financial genius, but their concern comes not from my history, but theirs. They got burned in 2006 and lost over £1,500 by using a financial investment product they didn’t understand – which incidentally was recommended by their Independent Financial Advisor – and assumed it was safe on that basis. While I’m sure it was explained that they were ‘investing’ rather than ‘saving’, it likely didn’t register. The difference between the two terms to lay-persons is minimal? Perhaps even none?

Since this event, they have an inherent distrust of anything financial that might make or save them money in real terms. Their life savings sit in a savings account that they’ve had for decades, with a bank they’ve been with for decades, that pays them a measly 0.75% APR. I’ve suggested time and time again that they move it to somewhere that pays 5%, convert it to 3 year bonds, or a combination of both, but they view it as “too risky”. In their mind, moving again could cost them dearly, despite the fact not moving is costing them dearly.

Up to the point that my life began to change for the worse, I had never considered the worth of debt. Sure, like everyone else I’d felt the consequences of debt: less disposable income; having to work harder just to stay stationary; and the niggling feeling of not quite owning whatever I was supposed to actually be enjoying. But did I ever stop to consider whether debt was worth all that?

Of course not. Debt is just the way our society works. We want things now, and we have them now. Does it matter if we might still be paying premium, hard-earned pounds for them long after they’ve depreciated to the point of being worth a fraction of their purchase price (in the case of cars, for example)? Does it matter that the high spec laptop you got on a 4 year finance deal 3 and half years ago is now just decidedly average, but you are unable to afford to upgrade it because you’re still paying premium for the old one? Does it matter that those home improvements you put on the credit card a year ago with the intention of paying it off in a month or so are still around, costing you hundreds in interest payments? Are you enjoying those improvements, or are they feeling like an elephant tied round your neck?

By and large, I’ve come to the conclusion that yes it matters, and no, debt isn’t worth it.

You can have all these things without the debt negatives by putting the cash you’d pay the finance company in your own savings account. Overpay yourself, make micropayments, work a little extra overtime here and there. If you want it enough, then pay with your own cold hard cash and not somebody elses. That new laptop or car is yours. You own it, and you won’t be making payments on it for the next year or some multiple thereof.

Of course, this isn’t always possible, but by and large it should be your first option before reaching for the credit monster.

Sounds a little preachy doesn’t it? But it makes sense. It also makes you double-check yourself. Buying things on credit is easy, and deliberately so. It’s just £50 a month here, £125 there. But these regular increased outgoings month in, month out, quickly make you poor. When you come to part with your own money though, take that 10-second pause and consider “do I really want this?” or could you make do with something a little cheaper? Do you need it at all, or is it a pure want? If after that 10 second introspection you still want to do it – go ahead. You need it, you earned it, you get it.

There are scenarios where debt can be worth it. Few people can afford to buy a house right out. Sure, a mortgage costs you a fortune over the term, but you get your home out of it. Outside of this realm, I still struggle to convince myself that debt is worth the price it requires anymore.

And I don’t just mean monetary.