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.

One of the easiest and most basic methods is smart shopping for gas. If you were buying a camera you would shop around for the store with the lowest price.  For some reason most of us were trained to treat gas differently. You probably buy gas where it is convenient regardless of price.  That is what you need to change.

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.

You can try to shop around in your local area for the cheapest gas but you shouldn’t go too far out of your way. The minute you start driving around looking for good gas prices you start burning gas which adds to your gas expense. Since your goal is to save money you would be defeating the purpose by driving around for too long. 

Studies done by the AAA indicate that it costs on average approximately 51.7 cents per mile to operate your car.   So every two miles you drive to find a better price could be costing you $1.00.

That means that if you have a 15 gallon gas tank that you would fill completely, you would have to beat the neighborhood station by about 7 cents.  For every two miles you drive beyond that you would have to save another 7 cents.  You can see after only a short distance any savings would be nullified.

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. 

Later, after reviewing the information you have collected in your notebook, you can plan to stop at the station that has been noted by you to have the lowest prices. Then you can fill up at a location that you would normally be driving near in the course of your daily routine. That way you are not using any extra gas to find your bargain.  The net result is spending less on gas!