Doing the Gas Price Shuffle

Posted on August 20, 2008
Filed Under budget, economy |

Gas prices are falling! I’m sure that is not news to anyone but here in my little corner of Virginia we are well below the national average. I am driving about 50 miles to work one way and my drive takes me through several small towns. I have been surprised at how much variance there is in gas prices in just that short distance.

The town that I live in is close to the interstate and gas prices are sometimes 30 cents per gallon higher there. Along the way, prices go steadily down the further away from the interstate that I get. This morning prices near home were running about 3.79 per gallon while gas prices where I work are about 3.55 per gallon.

It seems that prices vary daily and I have devised a game of checking prices at stations along the way in the morning so that I will know where to get gas in the afternoon. I am sure that the few pennies that I save per gallon won’t change my life but on the other hand, I like to give my business to the people who are keeping their prices as low as possible. There are a couple of places that routinely have the lowest price and one of them is a national chain but every once in awhile I will find a surprise along the way.

I call this the Gas Price Shuffle. My own personal rules of the game are:

I cannot drive out of my way to find a lower price. This would eat up any savings that I might have pretty quickly.
I can only get gas when I truly need it. No sneaking into a station to top off the tank.
If the price has gone up at the station that had the lowest price that morning, I can drive to the next station but I cannot drive back to the previous one.
I have to put as much gas as I can afford in the tank when I stop. As unstable as gas prices are, I don’t want to gamble that they will be lower again the next day or the day after.

There isn’t much point to the game but I can tell you that the 50 cent reduction in gas prices over the last month has come as a welcome relief. It has brought the cost of my daily commute down from $17.95 per day ($359 per month) to $15.97 per day($319 per month). It’s only 50 bucks but that will pay for any of the following:

internet service
telephone bill
car insurance
a weeks groceries (if I shop frugally)
a healthy snowflake to one of my bills.

What about the rest of you? Are you doing your own version of the Gas Price Shuffle? Do you drive out of your way for the cheaper price? What are you doing with your savings?

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to subscribe to my feed by RSS or get updates in email.

Comments

6 Responses to “Doing the Gas Price Shuffle”

Bouncing Back on August 20th, 2008 12:58 pm

I try to plan my bi-weekly shopping trip so that I can fill up at either the Costco or the Grocery Store. My local grocery store now gives discounts at thier gas pumps-the more you shop, the more your gas discount.
marci on August 20th, 2008 10:05 pm

Here in town the lowest prices are always at Freddies with their customer card. No other place comes within 3 cents of it. So no shopping around for us. If I go out of town, (meaning over 50 miles) I always top the tank on the way back as it’s always lower in the valley than here on the coast.

I don’t figure there is any savings…. Anything over $2.00/gallon - where it was a year ago - is just an added expense
Grace (6 comments.) on August 22nd, 2008 1:21 pm

It’s ARCO for cheap gas in my state. I’m paying 3.75 a gallon right now. $3.55??? Amazing that that sounds cheap to me!
cindys on August 23rd, 2008 10:58 am

Marci & Bouncing Back, I can save a few pennies at a station across town but it’s an extra 5 mile drive. I don’t figure that I really end up saving anything so I just fill up along the way.

Grace, I think it might have to do with living in an economically depressed area. I believe that the state gives tax breaks in this area but I am not sure. Our prices here for everything are lower than just a few miles north but then salaries are lower too.
living green (1 comments.) on October 1st, 2008 8:33 am

Gas prices make a huge difference. Every time I think about how much gas is costing us, it just makes me mad. Our country should be moving in the right direction to cleaner sources of energy, but we continue to worry about gas prices. With the economy struggling now, it pushes the issue even further back. More people are now in favor of further drilling just because it would be a short term fix to our current economic situation.
cindys on October 1st, 2008 8:40 am

Living Green, you are so correct. We should be looking at alternative energy sources. There is so much available. The US has tons of natural gas which is much less expensive to use as well as solar energy and wind power. As a nation we need to reduce our dependency on foreign energy sources.