How Much Can You Really Save by Going to a Cheaper Gas Station?

I follow gas prices at gasbuddy.com. The Costco station in my town is almost always the cheapest in my region. Today it’s $2.10 per gallon. The Costco station is 7.2 miles round trip from my house. The 76 station about 300 yards down from my house is $2.21 today. I usually get about 10 gallons of gas at a time so overall I save $1.10 by going to the cheapest station vs the closest station.

My car averages 27.21 miles per gallon (I also track this using gasbuddy.com‘s fuel logbook feature). It takes me 0.26 gallons to get to Costco and back. Thus I calculate that I use $0.55 worth of gas to get there and back.

$1.10 – $0.55 = $0.55

After calculating the cost of gas to get to a further station, I’m only saving $0.55 by making the trip. Costco also almost always has a line so I waste quite a bit of time to save that $0.55. I only get gas three to four times a month so making the trip to Costco every time to save $2.20 a month just doesn’t add up. I’ll be going to the closest station from now on.