Thursday, April 03, 2008

Exploding Gas Pump (Prices)

As I may have mentioned here before, we're attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University classes every Monday night. This past Monday, we got to talking about how to save money on gas prices. One of my friends, who works for Ryder, mentioned 4 potentially money-saving tips:

1) Wednesday early AM best to buy gas (prices go up on weekends, cooler air gets more gasoline into the tank)
2) Fill up when at 1/2 tank (less air in tank = less evaporation)
3) use slowest pump setting (faster pumping causes more gas to escape through vapors)
4) don't fill up when the trucks are there delivering the gas (when the trucks are filling the tanks, sediment can get stirred up and sent into your tank)

Nerd that I am, I decided to research this some more. I trust my friend's advice, but I wanted to find some more sources before mentioning the tips on my blog. From a quick Google search on "gas tank filling tips," I found this Snopes article. Basically (if you don't want to click away from this post), the article says that the tips may be true, but they aren't likely to save you a significant amount of money, even in the long-term. (note: The article doesn't mention Wednesday specifically, just the cool of the morning part. Other searches suggest that Wednesday may generally be the day of the week gas is cheapest.)

So, how can you save significant money on gas? There actually seems to be a lot of advice out there:
1) SolveYour Problem.com has an article on 62 gas pump tips - "Gas Prices Are Outrageous,Save Me Some Money!"
2) BankRate.com has 11 car-care tips that save gas and 10 ways being a smart driver saves you gas
3) AAA has a Fuel Cost Calculator to help determine how much gas costs and how much a given trip will cost you (I notice my friend, Ren, has a similar widget on his blog).

Anyway, I hope this helps someone. I think the "being a smart driver" article might benefit me the most, but that may not have anything to do with saving money.

1 comment:

Tanya G said...

That's the only thing good about living in DC...I don't have to drive. I don't even consider a city a 'real' city if I can't get around without driving.