I’ve always been frugal. I can remember going grocery shopping with my Mom when I was a kid and pointing out the items that were lowest price per ounce. I also learned how to get a lot for my money in many ways, truly trying to stretch each dollar I had, which was never as many as I wish I’d had. It seems gas prices have been causing people to think about buying new cars, scooters, carpooling to work, etc. It’s always good to think of ways to save a buck, but it often takes a nudge like gas prices approaching 5 clams to prod us along.
I’m really glad that I only commute 10 miles each way to work. My truck gets a solid 8 miles to the gallon around town so it still costs me $10 just to get back and forth. I remembered a website that somebody shared with me a while back where you can enter your zip code and find the lowest priced gas in your area. I ran a quick search for my zip code and here’s what I found.
Now this may not seem earth shattering, and it’s really not, but here’s the math on the potential savings. I usually pump at least 20 gallons of the refined black gold into my behemoth every time I fill up and the difference between the lowest and highest priced stations in my search was 22 cents.
.22 Savings per gallon
x 20 gallons
= $4.40 per fill-up – For some of you $4.40 isn’t much but to me it’s a free spicy tuna roll next time I’m eating sushi.
$4.40 per fill-up
x 52 fuel stops a year (if you’re lucky to only stop once a week)
= $228.80 – Now that’s a lot of spicy tuna rolls!
My Dad probably fills up 2-3 times a week so just making sure he hit the right station could save him as much as $686.40 a year. He gets better mileage than me, and has a smaller tank so these are just numbers for examples sake, but it makes a decent point. To drive it home I’m going to take it a step further. Let’s say that you are in a 35% tax bracket, that $686.40 you would have spent by not hitting the cheaper station would have taken $926.64 of earned income to buy. Lastly, if I were to invest that $686.40 savings every year into a interest bearing account earning 6% by the time my oldest daughter would be turning 18 (14+ years from now) the account would have nearly $15,000. All of that just by making sure you pull into the right pump.
Here’s another list of ways to save money on gas, not endorsed by me but it’s out there on the ‘interweb’ so it must be true.
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