One post I've got in the works is a list of websites that will help you save money and fellow freebie friend William sent in two more great additions for the upcoming post – Gas Buddy.com and Gas Price Watch.com!
The basic gist of both sites are to keep track of the ever fluctuating local gas prices thanks to user contributions. Think gas prices meets wikipedia. While Gas Buddy seems to be the larger of the two, Gas Price Watch actually had info on my tiny town thanks to a local resident who seems to make updates every day. Looking at the map, I see the station nearest me (which I usually fill up at!) has gas at $2.10 while half a mile away I can find it at $1.89.
As a matter of fact, I even registered a free account on both sites and updated a price I saw today. That's the beauty of the sites. There's such a wide array of people contributing that the prices stay pretty current. So the next time you realize you may need to fill up soon, find the cheapest gas near and maybe plan your route home from work accordingly. You won't save millions, but even if you only save a few bucks every week, the savings add up quickly over a year!
Dawn says
November 10, 2008 at 06:01 pmAS much as these sites are handy, I find that they aren’t always up to date for my area – or they only give the lowest grade which is below what my car manual says to take.
I find that when I find a low price for gas, I just stick with that one store, it is also nice that it is locally owned and not just locally managed.
Luis says
November 10, 2008 at 07:38 pmWell I use Gasbuddy and another site as well Petrofix.com. I basically was able to hedge my gas for a year at Petrofix, so I never pay more than $2.15 for the next year. Then I use Gasbuddy to find local stations that have cheap gas.
Claudia says
November 11, 2008 at 12:06 amAs a comment to the previous poster…don’t believe the hype. It’s been shown that “premium” gas does little to improve performance or mileage. It’s a ploy by the gas companies.
However, I’d like to note that I’ve been on several of these gas watch sites and they never list the lowest in my town that might be Safeway or Costco or Arco stations. I get the feeling that the biggies..Chevron, Valero etc feed their prices to these sites (surely by a paid staff). I’ve yet to find a site to list any of these. Perhaps the perameters of club membership or ATM/Cash only is a criteria for omiting these?
willow says
November 12, 2008 at 09:42 pmI just wanna know where yu can get gas for $1.89 a gallon………..i live in LA(the like san fernndo valley actually) and i am happy 2 know that such a low price exists somewhere.
Joe says
November 16, 2008 at 03:27 amI paid $1.58 a gallon today in MO.
willow says
November 16, 2008 at 04:03 pmit hasn’t been under 2 bucks a gallon here(LA) in what seems like a very long time….
Serena says
June 17, 2009 at 01:31 pmThere is also a site– http://www.TankOnEmpty.com — that will tell you how many miles farther you can go after the fuel light comes on. It’s pretty handy.