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There are a number of methods you can use to reduce your overall expense of gas purchases even before you consider changing your driving habits or taking any actions on your car. These strategies consist of smart buying and good management of your gas purchases. The most basic and logical method is to shop for gas. Look for the lowest priced gasoline you can buy. Sounds so obvious it almost seems ridiculous that this article addresses that solution. But it's not ridiculous because gas is always looked at as something different. If you were shopping for an mp3 player or camera you would try to find the place with the best price. For some quirky reason we have learned to treat gasoline differently. Think about it, you most likely purchase fuel at stations where it is the most convenient rather than where the price is the lowest. You also find that you will fill up at any station you are near if you are running low on gas regardless of the price. That behavior is what needs to be unlearned. As with any other commodity you want to save money on, shop around for the lowest price. Of course if you waste 10 gallons of gas driving around to find the lowest price it defeats the purpose of finding the lowest price. The trick is to do the shopping without wasting gas doing it. Shop around in your neighborhood for the lowest price gas that you can find but don't go too far out of your way. As soon as you start driving the meter starts running. Since the idea is to save money you would be working against yourself by driving around for too long. The AAA has done studies that indicate that on average it costs approximately 51.7 cents per mile to operate your vehicle. That is the number for cars so if you drive an SUV or truck it is higher. At 51.7 cents per mile every two miles you drive to find a better deal could be costing you $1.00. If you have a 15 gallon tank that you would fill (assuming you were empty) to the top, you would have to find a price 10 cents lower than your usual station. Every three miles after that you would need to save another 10 cents. You can see that very quickly over a short distance the potential savings decreases and in fact if you drive too far you could end up spending more money. The smart way to shop around is to find the low price stations during your normal daily driving. By doing that you will not be using any extra gas. Keep a small notebook in your car. As you see stations that have low prices note the location in your notebook. After reviewing the information on pricing and locations of gas stations collected in your notebook, you can decide to stop at a gas station that has been flagged in your notebook to have the lowest prices. Fill up at that station as you will be driving near it in the course of your daily route. You saved all the gas you would use driving around looking. Instead you are following your normal route and still able to take advantage of the best gas prices. The bottom line is you will spend less on gas!
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Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page book of automotive industry insider secrets on saving gas and money at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to discover how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage. You can get a unique content version of this article.
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