How the Internet Can Help You Lower Your Gas Costs
There are several ways to reduce your overall expense of gas purchases even before you consider changing your driving habits or taking any actions on your car. The most rudimentary of these is to find the stations that have the lowest prices.
This seems pretty obvious but in most cases when it comes to gas this logical behavior is ignored. If you were buying a computer you would look for the store with the best price. It seems that most of us were trained to consider gas differently. You invariably buy gas where it is easy regardless of price. The gas station in closest proximity to where you live is the most common place for most drivers fill up regardless of price.
When your gas gauge shows your tank is low and certainly when you think you might run out of gas you fill up at the very first station you find. In most cases this station will not have the best gas prices. This is one more instance where you may be buying gasoline at a higher price than you should.
The most efficient way to find the gas stations that have the lowest gas prices is to use the internet. There are a host of websites that provide information about local gas prices. They usually report the prices and the locations of the gas stations listed. Here are a few:
GasBuddy.com
Automotive.com
FuelMeUp.com
Utilizing the internet is a great idea because you can research the best gas prices without driving. By not driving, you are not burning gas to find the best prices. If you burn gas to save money on gas you will find it is a self defeating strategy.
Studies done by the AAA indicate that it costs on average approximately 51.7 cents per mile to operate your car. So every three miles you drive to find a better price could be costing you $1.50.
That means that if you need to put 15 gallons into your car you have to save about 10 cents for every three miles you drive. If you can find low price gas by not driving around to find it, for every three miles in travel you have eliminated, you have gained 10 cents per gallon.
This is also important to keep in mind when you find the best prices online. If the best prices are 6 miles away from your closest station, you would have to beat the price of the closest station by 20 cents to break even.
The best way to take advantage of the online pricing information you have gathered is to make sure you use it in conjunction with planning your driving activities. For example: if you always pick up your dry cleaning on Tuesday and your information shows one of the lowest priced gas stations is near the cleaners, you should plan in advance to purchase your gas at that station in conjunction with picking up your cleaning. That way you are taking advantage of the low price without any extra driving.
The internet can be a great resource for lowering your gas costs. Utilizing the online information in conjunction with advance planning of where and when you will purchase your gas can offer you considerable savings.
Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of automotive industry insider secrets on saving gas and money at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage.
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