Gas Prices and You

  by: mndsm

So the other night, I was sitting in a hospital room. Yeah, it wasn't for me. Anyhow a person that shall remain nameless visited the person I was there keeping an eye one. She said something rather interesting to me. She was telling me that she was a little late because she went to the gas station. I'm thinking to myself "There's like 50 of them around here. WTF one is she going to?" She told me that she had driven to one that she had heard had really cheap gas, as in 14 cents less a gallon that the closer ones. This got me to thinking....

How much less does gas need to cost per gallon before it's worth it to drive out of your way? I started with the math like this. She drives a 2007 Pontiac G6 with the v6. She told me that this vehicle averages approximately 26mpg. I think this is really high for the 6, but whatever. The math is what amused me. Let's say you're paying a static $3 a gallon, which is pretty common. (Us turbo people know better than that, we only get premium.) That means on your average 12 gallon fill, you're spending 36 dollars. Now, for the interesting part. This unnamed woman told me she piloted her Pontiac 5 miles out of her way to go to this gas station (I'm thinking that she went to a station on the edge of St. Paul, in a sketchy neighborhood) each direction. She saved 14 cents a gallon, as previously stated. That means, at 12 gallons of gas, she save $1.68. Now, if you fill up twice a week, that comes out to $174.72 a year. This equals a solid cheap fare on Southwest, or Sun Country. Not bad right? But wait. Keep in mind she had to DRIVE to this gas station. Unless she somehow got a g6 that can run solely off batteries for at least 10 miles, she was using fuel. 10 miles worth of fuel to be exact, or a little more than 1/3 a gallon. A little more than 1/3 gallon of gas to be more precise, and we can probably round it to 2/5 gallons, factoring in stoplights and random other factors. That means, her cost to drive to and from the gas station was 2/5gal*$3.00gal OR= $1.20. That means, sooner than you can say hookers and blow, she just dropped her average saving per all the way down to a mere 40 cents a fill. That's down from a year savings of almost $175 to a savings of a paltry $41.60. That's the price of a decent dinner with tip, and NO booze at say, The Cheesecake Factory. (I love that place though, so we're still not totally off the wagon.)

But we're not done. This is based all on the fact that we STILL aren't factoring things like spark plugs, tires, belts, oil changes, coolant, and general depreciation per mile on the vehicle. Let's look at it like this. Average oil change with genuine fossilized dinosaurs is running $20 on special at Jiffy Lube. The extra miles you put of from driving to this gas station 2 times a week, amounts to an amazing 1040 miles PER YEAR extra that you're putting on the car, just going to get gas. Huh. That means, 1/5th of one oil change, gone. That's another 4 bucks. You've only got 37$ in your pocket now. Tires, those for this car we'll figure at 400$ a pop for generic+1 all-seasons. (She isn't going to be buying Paradas. Hell, she had the FACTORY tint taken off because she was worried about the cops.) Take that 400$ and divide by 30k miles that said tires will last. that's about 1.3 cents a mile that she's losing. extrapolate that into the extra miles per year, and you spend about $13.87 in tires going to this gas station, per year. Worried? You should be. Your AMAZING 175$ saving is down to a paltry 23$. I'm sure you can figure out the rest. She pretty much spent MORE to go save on gas.

My advice? Ride the bus.

Do you have a comment on the above Blog? Do you have a need to tell your side of the story? Use the following to do so as you wish.

hit counter