So I get an  email today from one of those friendly family members that likes to forward things on to everybody in his address book.

name removed wrote:

Hi All,

Found this today and it seems to be pretty accurate. MSN does some sort of polling and checks gas prices every night. You just enter your Zip code and scroll down and find the stations near you. It actually has a wide radius.

Anyway, it’s fun to play with and you can check out which way to head when looking for your next load approval when you fill up!!!

Best to ALL….     

http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx?zip=&src=Netx

Hmmm. The difference between the most expensive place on the local list and the least expensive place is 20 cents…

But those are the two extremes. If I look at the possibility of all of the gas stations that are on the list that I’ve ever gone to, and are likely to be the ones that I continue to go to, the difference between most expensive and least expensive is about 8 cents a gallon.

So for my 15 gallon tank, on a fill from empty, I’m looking at paying around $55.80 or $57.00.  That’s a $1.20 difference.  If I’m filling only a half a tank, then that’s a $0.60 difference.  Put a different way, we’re talking about a 2% savings.

Is it even worth the extra effort to consult the map, figure out who’s the cheapest and then make the effort to choose a station that isn’t on your normal path just to save that little?

While the technology is interesting, and the idea that you can pull up the data and give it a quick review, the amount of time you waste in doing so is more than what you’ll probably save.

My suggestion for saving real money on gasoline:  Drive less!!  ;-)

All of the penny pinchers that I know never hesitate to put 20 miles on a car to pick up a gallon of milk!

UPDATE: Within 10 minutes of me writing this, a buddy calls me up and says, “Holy Cow! I can’t believe how much gas is! I just put $62 in my car to fill it up!”

Look… if you need to drive, do you have a choice? You have to buy gas. When it’s basically the same price everywhere, you are going to have to pay the price. Complainin’ ain’t going to do you any good and you just wasted 5 minutes of my time that I could have been off doing something to make some more money so that I can afford gas too!

;-)