The BIGG Successs Show
Is the Cheapest Place for Gas Costing You Money?
We calculate the cost to determine if cheap gas is really worth the drive. We also share other online tools to gauge gas costs. Find a written summary of today's show along with links to all of the tools we mention at BIGGSUCCESS.COM.
Welcome to The Big Success Show. Today we ask, "Is the cheapest place for gas costing you money?" The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. We've been talking about different ways that you can save money. Last week we talked about coupons. This week we're going to talk about the thing that's probably top of mind for almost all of us. Gas. That's right. Now that sounds kind of weird to say, doesn't it? It sounds like we need to break into an ad for Pepto Biz and all of something. Well, you know, the prices have been going up and down. Wouldn't it be nice if you could gauge that? Well, that'd be fantastic. Well, you can. All right. At oilprice.net and it's basically like watching the stocks. You know, you can see when they're going up, when they're going down. It helps you to figure out when you should buy and when you shouldn't buy. Make them feel like that can be a speculator, Mary Lynn. Yes. Well, and the other thing, and I noticed this when I was on my service businesses because we drove to our customers' homes and businesses. So, gas was a big expense for us even when it was, you know, a couple dollars a gallon. Right. You had a bunch of vans you had to fill up. But one thing I noticed was it seemed to me like the price always went up as you neared the weekend. And in particular, it seemed like holiday weekends. Man, it was brutal. So try to fill up maybe in the middle of the week or early part of the week. Another way to save money on gas, you know, look for credit cards with ramped up reward points for some initial period. And if you have good credit, you can employ a strategy where you get the card, use it for six months, and then get another one. Yeah. And our grocery store actually offers a deal to try to promote their new gas stations. They've opened a chain of convenience stores near their grocery stores. And they're given five cents off for every gallon of gas whenever we buy $25 worth of groceries. Recently, we filled up and got a 60 cent per gallon discount on gas. You can't beat that. That was awesome. Now, there's lots of sites to help you find the cheapest gas, gas buddy, gas price watch, fuel me up. And we like gas buddy because it gives more information for our area. But you might want to check out some of these others to see which one works best for you. You know, my nickname is buddy. Yes, I know. And my sister said I was a gas buddy. I mean, I said I was full of gas. I don't know. One of the two. Well, we all know people I'm sure who just drive out of their way to get the cheapest fuel. And you always wonder, is it worth it? And coming up, we're going to calculate whether it is worth it to drive for cheaper gas. Today we're talking about ways to save money on gas. And now we want to look at, is it worth the drive to find the cheapest gas? To come up with our calculation, we use some simple tools. MapQuest, gas buddy, the IRS mileage reimbursement rate, a calculator, and pen and paper. And so for our example, and this is real, we used MapQuest to determine that it was a three mile round trip from the big studio to the closest gas station. That turned out to be almost the most expensive gas in our area. No figure. Well, so then we looked at the station with the cheapest gas, and it was an eight mile round trip. Well, so there's 19 cents a gallon between the two. Our car has a 17-point 4 gallon gas tank, so the most money we could possibly save if the car was bone dry would be $3.31. But the thing is, we'd have to drive five more miles to get to the cheapest station. Well, if you use what the IRS says it costs us to drive, which is 50 and a half cents a mile, multiply that by five, you see that it costs us $2.53 to save $3.31. In other words, we only net 78 cents for all this driving. And you know, George, that's assuming that our time is worth nothing because my dad always said, you know, he had more time than money. So that's true. Well, here's what we took away after calculating this for ourselves. It's great to find the cheapest gas, but if you are driving out of the way to get it, then you're probably wasting time and money. Yeah, but here's a way that it might work. If you can combine your errands, you know, not long ago, we did a show on coupons. If you can find coupons to a store and just so happens, there's a lot of stores at near the cheapest gas here in town. If you can combine your trips, it just might pay off. And we have one more final tip on saving money and gas. And that's simply to pay attention. And George, you've got a story to share where we got completely busted on a recent trip. Yes. Unfortunately, we're saying don't do what we did, right? Because we're driving down the interstate. We needed gas. We pulled off to the right and just immediately pulled into the gas station on the right. And I'm sitting there, filling the car up with fuel. I looked at the sign across the street and I don't remember now, but it was either 20 or 25 cents a gallon less. Had we just made a left turn? Had we just looked before we pulled in. Yes, there you go. Just paid attention. You can find a written summary of today's show on our site at Big Success. That's big with 2gsuccess.com. We also have links to all of the tools that we mentioned today. Next time we say, if you want to succeed big, stop working. Well, to heck with the 4-hour work week, take it down to zero. Until then, here's to your Big Success. The Big Success Show at B-I-G-G Success.com. [MUSIC]