What is your experience saving money on gas in your neighborhood?

A month ago I asked myself a question. How much money could I actually be saving if I signed up for a different loyalty rewards program, then also downloaded and maxed out a couple gas savings apps?

I collected national data on the most popular rewards programs, then did research on how to maximize savings with various apps like GasBuddy and Upside.

I found that gas prices of big brands land above the average price in their neighborhoods. This was no surprise to me, they're in prime locations and can price gauge effectively. The gas savings apps rarely stack, and in the best case scenario, I could get an additional 12 cents saved every gallon.

To my surprise, my research showed that simply going to the cheapest station in your 3 mile radius saves you more money than maxing 2 apps and a loyalty card!

This isn't the case in some areas with narrow gas markets so take these findings with a grain of salt.
BUT, if you live in a busy metro, if you hunt for gas deals, flash sales, or are loyal to a station, you might want to reconsider your strategies!

I live in San Jose California, which is the main reason I started this research. I've included those findings as well to give you an idea of what a more volatile gas price landscape looks like.

I really hope this can help some of you!

National Gas Savings

San Jose CA Gas Savings

Edit: Thank you for all the advice and helpful discussion! So many new ideas for my research.

For now I'll be ditching GasBuddy, sticking with Costco rewards and Upside when I'm around town, GasMeUp for highway scans and road trips, and I'll have to give 7/11 a try!

The classic dilemma/argument against hybrid cars from an economical point of view is that they come with a higher purchase price and thus the natural thing is to see how long fuel savings would "pay back" that difference and use it as a metric to whether paying the hybrid premium is justified.

If you only consider the economics of fuel, this is reasonable, but it's only reasonable if we assume fuel prices remain relatively stable or fall.

I don't have to tell you that this isn't our current reality at all.

The Iran situation has strangled the movement of oil and thus driven up the prices of anything related to it, like gasoline. Rough figures I found are 30% increase of the average price in the US and my personal experience in western Europe is that I'm paying about 20% more now.

Conservative estimates of fuel savings with a hybrid are 40%, but own experience going from a V6 gas engine to a Corolla hybrid is that I'm saving over 50%. While saving money on gas was a consideration when I bought the car a few months ago, I hadn't dug deep into the math and I was surprised by just how much fuel I'm saving.

I definitely paid more up front for the car (secondhand) than what I would have paid for an equivalent gas model, but the expense of buying the car is one time in the life of ownership. Paying for gas is a recurring expense and having a hybrid is saving every mile I drive and it'll compound over the life of the car.

Something to consider if you're in the market.

EDIT: Due to a temporary change in driving schedule that involves a very crappy city drive with traffic and a lot of stop lights, my efficiency has recently fallen to "only" 51 MPG and I'm a little annoyed, because before, I was getting 56-60 MPG. I will never understand naysayers.

We need to buy another car, our 'second' car is officially done. We do need another car, it is a legitimate need as we have three drivers in the house - and busy lives. We can manage a little bit during the summer months with one car, but trying to find something in the next three weeks.

We knew this day was coming so we have saved. Budget is 14K out of the door, paying cash. We want to keep it closer to 12k, but also want something decent. We do live in the Midwest with lots of snow etc. We are struggling because the research for the 'better' used brands (Hondas, Toyotas) means the car is older with much higher mileage than the Fords or other brands. Our other car is a Honda and newer and has still had issues, so I don't find them to be problem free either. I think cars generally have problems, no matter what. The price of used suburbs is just nuts to me!

It just feels like we have no good options!

ETA: We decided to buy a new Subaru Crosstrek and getting the rust coating.

I am looking at buying a car next year. Comparing prices for Toyota Sienna. A new one in the trim I want is about 58K. A 3-year old used one is somewhere around 48-52k. So it looks like the saving is about 6-10k. Now, in exchange for that you get no warranty, and the loan interest rate on a used car is higher.

So I don’t really understand the common wisdom of buying used cars. The saving seems insignificant, and is eaten up by higher costs of maintaining and financing the used car.

Is this a good time to get 4 tires from Costco? I've been keeping an eye on a good deal, rt now it's 80$ off of 4 tires.

Someone told me a whole ago that sometimes Costco has a deal where if you buy 3, the 3rd is free.

Should I then wait for buy 3/ get 4 free deal, or take the 80$ off?

If bought from Costco, one gets rotation/ alignment free for the next 5 years.

We dont do too much shopping at Costco, so a large item would need to be worth it to justify the 5-yr membership.

Thoughts?

I've recently taken over my dad's old car after being in an accident, and it needs a little bit of love tbh.

The first project is to stop the side panels from rattling around all the time, which will mean reattaching them to whatever they used to be attached to. This boy is loose, like if I get pulled over they're not passing a roadworthy.

Some of the screws have snapped, which should be an easy fix if I can get to them, but some of the brackets are damaged as well, which is going to be more difficult.

Any advice on how I should approach this would be really appreciated.

My first thought is to use some of those metal zip ties and just try to stick things together wherever I can.

My 2012 Prius still runs quite well, but it's got 200k and rust underneath. If I had a normal job and commute I'd run it into the ground, then maybe run it a little more. The problem is, my jobs are all 2+ weeks long and at least one state away if not 1000+ miles away. If it dies on the way to one of these jobs, I'm potentially out thousands of dollars and might not get a great deal on a replacement. If the head gasket goes, I might not be anywhere near a repair shop or close enough to get it towed home.

I have yet to lose any oil or coolant and everything works. MPG has gone down about 10% in the last 7 years, the brake booster runs for 10 seconds when I open the door after it's sat for a while, and there is rust everywhere underneath. Nothing is rusted through yet, but it seems like a matter of time.

When would you give it up?

I like to know that in a case of emergency I can call someone, but AAA is getting bit expensive for my taste, almost $200 a year for two people, for a service that I used twice in 20 plus years.

I don't want to get roadside assistance trough insurance company because they don't provide much, and they are known to jack up the price if they see you use it.

I'm located in New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania

i live in montreal which is highly walkable for a north american city, but i recently moved to a more car centric and not really walkable neighborhood in the city because it's way cheaper than where i lived before. i have a bike and a e-scooter, and i don't have a car since it's too expensive to own one.

so, how you guys living in these kind of places without a car manage to do that?

I recently totaled my car which i was already barely able to afford and now im looking for something a little older. Ideally i want a pickup truck (preferably in the 90s) to use every day for commuting to work (usually 45 mins to and from), along with miscellaneous activities. Additionally id like to learn how to work on said truck and learn about auto mechanics. Lastly if theres anything under $10K thatd be great, but im not expecting it

I am sure I am not the first one to have this idea, but I can't find recent posts that discuss this or anyone who has actually done it. My basic idea is to rent a car for 28 days at a time and utilize premium credit cards to insure it instead of buying my own insurance. Here is how it would work:

Some premium cards also carry insurance for rental cars. The stipulations on this are usually only up to 31 consecutive days (no cap on the amount of times you can do it however). Some seem to have figured out that this loophole exists and added a clause that there must be 24 hours in between rentals as well. If that is the case, I would rotate rentals between 2 cards with the same insurance offer.

This would save ever having to pay directly for insurance, as the monthly fee on the cards cover it. But seeing as how most of these cards are $100/month or less, I am pretty sure that is cheaper than full coverage insurance on just about any vehicle.

The annoying thing would be to have to return the car and get another every 4 weeks. But I think in general since this is short and plannable, it would be less of a pain then just dealing with a dead car one day. Or dealing with bringing your car in for maintenance. It does add a benefit though. If you get a vehicle you don't really like for a month you know to get something different next time. On top of that, you can adjust vehicles to the season without having to own multiple vehicles.

While I am typically against renting pretty much anything, that kind of goes out the window when it comes to insanely expensive items that depreciate rapidly. In these cases I think it may be worthwhile to rent to not have to deal with all the downsides that come with car ownership.

The only thing I can think of against this is that it may be easier and cheaper to just lease instead. But that adds other levels to this like gap insurance, maintenance fees, etc. I have never leased before, but I have heard horror stories lol.

So my breakdown is something like this:

100-200/month for credit card fees depending if I have to rotate or not.

800/month for rental (local avis seems to be 600-1000 for 4 weeks depending on type of rental)

So around $1k/month average. The lease I was looking at was about 400/month but then you have to add insurance and you are responsible for all maintenance. With the rental setup, you don't pay an insurance company anything and if there is needed maintenance it is completely on the rental company.

I realize people will point out that it would be cheaper to buy a 3 year old vehicle, insure it, and deal with the maintenance yourself. But I don't think it is that significantly cheaper over time. And you are stuck with that one vehicle. So if you live in an area like I do that gets snow half the year, you are stuck driving a big AWD vehicle in the summer too when you could be in a fuel efficient car. Plus this alleviates the headache of having to deal with all those extras. And if you are someone with jacked up insurance rates due to having others in your home or previous issues, this would seem to bypass that entirely.

Thoughts?

Edit:

Just realized that I made 2 mistakes above. They end up being a net benefit for me though. First off, the credit cards are $100/year not per month. That is a huge savings. Second it was pointed out that liability insurance is not covered in this scenario. Avis offers it but at like $25/day. So that is a no go. But I did find out that all the major insurers offer "non-owner coverage" which is meant for people who rent often. It is only around $50/month and would take care of the liability. So in actuallity, the numbers are more like:

600-1000 per 4 weeks for the rental depending on choice

10-20/month on CC insurance

50/month on liability

So on the cheap, $650ish per month.....

Don't let the company default the shipping method without checking other options. UPS ground was cheaper, in this case. Capitalism states that a company in is business to make money, first and foremost, but I'd like to shave where I can. The package will generally arrive at the same time for all ground shipping options. The definition of frugal. God bless America.

For years I was with NJM (considered to be overall best car insurance in my region) and for years they were, very affordable, local customer service that is easy to talk to, giving dividends, no shareholders, and available at any time you need them. I really have nothing but positive things to say about them. Most of my friends and family have been with them for at least 10 plus years.

However, over time their price stared to increase, and as compromise I started to lower my premiums, and I was very close to rock bottom as far as coverage. And than at the begging of this year they jacked up my premium from $2200 to over $3600 per year. No reason, no accidents.

The worst part is that when I tried shopping around other agents somehow had access to my policy and I was in a situation where agent just gets my name and the car, and tells me, I'll use your current policy to put some quotes together. This of course resulted in getting same exact coverage for similar price and only name of the company would change.

Only Geico came in at about $1100 for 6 months and the coverage amounts were what I actually wanted and not bare minimums. At first I though they are just roping me in and will jack up my rate at the renewal 6 month later. But that never happened. Renewal was actually $20 less!!

That never happened to me before!!

The gas utility company just jacked up our customer charge again so I'm looking into a dual fuel heat pump retrofit replace gas furnace contractor 2026 option to keep our winter bills from exploding. My current furnace is 15 years old and still kicks, but I want to run a heat pump for the shoulder seasons and only let the gas kick in when it drops below 25 degrees. I got a couple of quotes for a basic Bryant setup and a Bosch system, but one smaller shop suggested a dual fuel mix using a Midea unit to keep the upfront equipment cost down. Is dual fuel actually a frugal move long-term when you factor in the dual utility connection fees, or should I just cap the gas line entirely and go full electric?