Even though Fuelly seems to have too many vowels to be a web 2.0 application it has hit the ground running and provides users with a cool new way to track fuel usage. I had previously written about Fuel Frog, which lets you track your gas usage online at each fill up and it does a great job, but Fuelly really raised the bar. Fuelly has added a social aspect to tracking gas mileage by letting you compare your MPG with others driving your car and also with your friends and family to see who is getting the best mileage.

If you can get your friends to start using Fuelly then you'll have more of an incentive to track your gas mileage and be fuel efficient since we all seem to enjoy a little competition. You may find out some interesting stats about your friend's fuel usage while using Fuelly. While I have a fuel efficient car, I tend to drive like I'm trying to put out a fire somewhere while my friends with bigger vehicles are known to drive more like a 90 year old out for a Sunday drive. I can't wait to see who is getting more for their money.

I'm going to take Fuelly for a spin today when I fill up my car, I have fallen behind in my usage of Fuel Frog partly because I am lazy and partly because I couldn't remember the format for tracking it by text message. The competitive angle of Fuelly may be just what I need to stick with tracking my fuel cost and usage better and figuring out how to best budget for my gas needs. No matter how you track your gas consumption doing so is an easy way to empower yourself to watch your finances.



Hat tip to Lifehacker.

As gas prices rise, so will the importance of tracking gas purchases for your monthly budget. For some individuals tracking fuel purchases and performance is a simple exercise involving a notebook and a pen stashed in the center console. If division and receipt keeping aren't your style then I have a cool new tool for you! Fuel Frog is an online tracking service which measures not only your fuel costs but also your miles per gallon.

The service is easy to use and has a clean and user friendly online interface. Where it really shines though, is that it allows you to enter the information from your cell phone via Twitter. No more bundles of receipts or rushing to the PC as soon as you get home to record your fuel info. Its so simple you can do it in real time while you are waiting for your pay at the pump transaction to complete.

I have just started using Fuel Frog so I haven't had a chance to check out the monthly reporting yet but I expect it will come in very handy. At the least it will solidify my decision to carpool and encourage me to try and find more carpool partners. I am also a little bit scared to see how much I spend per month on gas. My only wish is that Fuel Frog offered a way to track two cars on one account so we could keep our house under one login, but two accounts will do in the meantime.