For those of you who don't have smart phones, you may stop reading now. Gasbuddy is an app that runs on smart phones which provides prices and location information for gas in and around your current location. Where I live, there is as much as a 40 cents per gallon spread between the lowest and highest prices. I drive a Suburban to work. It has a 42 gallon gas tank. I fill it up every other week. That 40 cent swing represents $16.80 per tankful saved. Multiplied by 26 that's $436.80 a year. More if I have to do extra driving and use more gas. That's basically 3 free tankfuls of of gas each year. $873 over the course of two years, which would basically buy me a new set of very good quality tires.
But most people don't drive SUVs with these gas prices. So let's examine a "typical" car scenario.
A standard mid-size car has about a 20 gallon gas tank. So that driver saves $8.00 per fill-up. Now because I drive a Suburban I don't drive as many miles as most people do. I do less than 10,000 miles a year. Most drivers will do close to double that. But let's use the old mark of 15,000 miles per year. If that car gets 25 mpg ( I know what the EPA ratings say but most of us know that in reality cars seldom get the mileage they put on those damn stickers.) that driver will burn through 600 gallons of gas in a year which means they save $240 a year. Over a 5 year span that's $1200. Again, if you are independently wealthy, this is no big deal to you. The rest of us like saving money.
How to get it: Go to your provider's app store/marketplace and search for gasbuddy. Download it and install it.
How it works: It's pretty simple, you launch the app, it asks if it can use location services, you answer yes and it comes back with a screen showing a list of the closest gas stations to your location complete with the most recently reported pricing. If you find that price to be inaccurate, there's an easy interface for you to update the current price. You can sort by price or distance. You can also tap on the station you want to go and get directions from your current location. You may also see a map of all the nearby stations. That way you can determine if it's much out of your way to go save that extra 5-10 cents per gallon or if you don't need gas right this second, you can plan to hit the absolute cheapest station when you're heading in that direction.
What it costs: My favorite price in the world.. Free!!
So go get this thing.
Happy New Year!! And Stay Cheap!!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
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