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Price versus practicality
How far will you go to save a penny on a gallon of gas?
With prices again having edged past $3.50 per gallon, many people will spend some time looking around for the best deal. A savings of 2 or 3 cents per gallon is a worthwhile effort to most of them. Five or 6 cents per gallon probably would seem thrilling. Make it a thin dime off, and they’ll be on their cell phones calling friends and family to tell them where to score the best deal.
But there are two catches to this that I can see: - First, how much are you paying for the extra gas it takes to make it to a more-distant store’s pumps when you would have paid only a few pennies more per gallon closer to home? - Second, how much time are you investing in the search for the ever-elusive best price, and how much is that time worth to you? People with all the time in the world don’t have to worry about this. The rest of us, myself included, can’t find enough hours in the day for everything else we need to do. Should we invest fleeting minutes in the search for the cheaper gallon of gas?
Keep an eye out for a lower gas price while driving home, to the store, to church or to wherever else? Sure, you bet, doggone straight.
Cruise town looking for the best buy? Not hardly. There are better ways to spend gas money and time.
How far will you drive to save on money on a gallon of gas, and how much would you have to save to make this search worth your effort? Share your ideas by commenting on this blog or e-mailing Ross at rchandler@coxnc.com.
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