OT. Gas Pricing

I think the last time I bought gas it was $2.79. Tonight I noticed the signs were reading $3.15. We're a hell of a long way from the Colonial pipeline but any excuse is good for the traditional Memorial Day ramp up.

I use Gas Buddy to check fuel prices, not only for my area but for any area around the country.

Here's Platte City, MO, for example, still at about $2.70.

I use the Gas Buddy app on my smartphone, but the web site works, too. The site and the app are free, and using them to find gas prices is also free.

Do you find any real value to using it? In my area, any station in 20 miles is within 5 cents. On a trip, if you get off the highway and are willing to travel a few miles you can save 10 cents away from the interstate. A typical fill for me is about 15 gallons. How far is it worth traveling to save 75 cents? I burn 11 cents a mile at current prices.

I can save as much as 8 cents a LITER by filling up at a station on one side of town vs a station 5 miles away on the other side of town. When a fillup is 78 liters - so $6.25 savings for 10 mile round trip - a no-brainer if I can plan the fillup around a trip to that general end of town - like to pick somethingup at Costco and fill with gas at the same time.

My governor declared an emergency, even though most of the state is not affected by the pipeline but it does freeze gas prices so greedy station owners can't gouge us.

Here in NJ it can vary by 30 cents, though usually most are fairly close with just some outliers. Right now the lowest is 2.99, most of the bunch is at that price. Also the lowest prices are almost always at the same places, eg Costco. So using Gas Buddy around home isn't that useful, but it is when traveling out of the area.

That is more variation that I ever see. Most is 5 cents but when I go to my daughter's place today it is in a tourist area and it may be 10 cents.

State taxes vary. When I lived in CT I would buy gas when I went to MA and save 20 cents, but I crossed the border every day for work, etc. Again, the state varies but station to station was minimal and I passed on the the cheapest on my way to work.

OK. so I went to the Gas Buddy web site. It did find me gas that was 20 cents cheaper and it is about 100 miles away. I'd bur 4 gallons to save $3.

Glad it works for you, but does not for me.

I used to fill up any time passing through NJ but that advantage went away a year or two ago. Heading north, I think the last cheap gas is VA.

Guess it depends on where you are at.

In NC in the county I live in, in the last 2 hours GB was reporting a low of $ 2.50 and a high of $ 2.99. A 41 cent difference. That would be about a $ 5 saving on a tank.

Being retired I don't drive enough to worry about the gas prices and just fill up when I need gas and pass by a station.

I have started putting the ethanol free gas in my truck as it seldom gets driven now an usually fill it up when needed at the pump I get the ethanol free gas for the small engines. That gas usually costs about 50 cents more per gallon around here.

People come from nearby PA and NJ to buy gas here in Delaware where gas tax is lower. I did pay $2.85 yesterday because of the hacked pipeline. No stations where closed but I heard of a few that only had high test available.

The TV news was reporting about a 75% outage in NC. From the GasBuddy listings in the county I live in, that seems about right. The price is from $ 2.58 to $ 2.99 a gallon for the low end gas.

And remember, at 8 cents a LITER that is3.78X.o8= $0.30 per american gallon - or roughly 10% at $3 per gallon/

At $1.20 per liter that difference would be 12 cents a liter difference for the same percentage.

Back in the early '70s we had somre gas wars - but there was a stretch of Highway 6 between Cambrifge and Hamilton wherre the gas was always cheaper - cheap enough I could drive from elmira to hamilton fillup going down and again coming back, and save enough onthe gas to pay for the trip if I left home with less than 1/4 tank. That was when Iwas paying $0.496 a gallon at home driving a valiant or dart.

Down here the price seems to gain a nickel every 6-10 miles or so from Ft Myers where it is cheapest to Naples where it is most expensive. There are also a few independent "shop and rob" places that are consistently a dime or more higher than anyone around them. I am not sure how they sell any gas.

Because a buck fifty isn't worth the time and inconvienence of checking a dozen stations for the cheapest.

It just hit $2.95 in my nearest town in Nebraska. There were places along my route from St. Louis that diesel was cheaper than gasoline. Ain't that sumthin?

In my local area? No, not any more, but when we had just moved here it was interesting to see which stations _consistently_ had cheaper gas. We've been here two years now, so I know where to go. Even so, I sometimes fire it up on my phone just out of curiosity.

Checking just now, the spread in my area is 40 cents. That seems to be pretty typical around here.

I agree with you there. If you stop and do the math, a few cents a gallon aren't going to make a big difference. I wanted to top off the pickup yesterday so I stopped at one of my main stations. Their credit card readers were down, so rather than pay cash I went across the street where gas was 2 cents a gallon higher, $2.65 versus $2.63. I put in 8 gallons, so the difference was 16 cents.

I remember in the early 2000's some guys bought diesel pickups because it was cheaper. Then suddenly it wasn't.

I don't pay attention to gas prices. I generally gas up at the station nearest my house.

Ok, I pay attention to the price enough to note that shortly after the pump detects my credit card, the price drops about 10 cents per gallon.

Conversely, they seem to have some kind of surveillance on my gas gauge, and raise it when I'm about due for a fill-up.

Cindy Hamilton