Credit Card News Room - Tips And Advice To Help You Save Money At The Gas Pump
Spending money on gas can be extremely painful, in these days of climbing fuel prices. We review many techniques that drivers can employ to save money at the pump.
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Spending money on gas can be extremely painful, especially in these days of climbing fuel prices. High gas prices can be crippling for someone with a large vehicle or one that simply has poor gas mileage.
Our last time out to the car lot, we purchased a 4-cylinder SUV with very real expectations of getting good gas mileage on our less than 2-year-old vehicle. Disappointment hits us every time we calculate the fuel mileage on that truck… We would have bought a full-size truck with an 8-cylinder engine if we had realized that we would get such poor gas mileage from our underpowered 4-cylinder.
There are many techniques that drivers can employ to save money at the pump.
Basic Money Saving Tips
1. Observe speed limit. All cars have different optimum speeds that will allow them to utilize fuel most effectively. This varies between vehicles, but something that doesn’t vary is the decrease in fuel efficiency over 60 mph.
2. Maintaining a consistent speed also saves gas. Accelerating and decelerating reduces the gas mileage of a vehicle. When feasible, cruise control should be used to preserve a steady speed. When possible, be sure to use the overdrive gear, which lowers the engine speed, saving gas and reducing engine wear.
3. Starting and stopping repeatedly can wreak havoc on a vehicle’s gas mileage. Planning and avoiding driving during peak times can save a considerate amount of money. If driving is unavoidable during peak traffic times, then making sure to break and accelerate slowly can help conserve gasoline.
4. Errands are a fact of life. Everybody has to run them. Planning all of the day’s errands and running them all in one trip could saves on gas that would be expended on back and forth return trips home.
5. A light car will achieve better gas mileage. Cleaning out the car’s trunk or doing anything conceivable that would lessen the cars weight can make it run more efficiently.
6. A properly maintained car gets much better fuel mileage than a neglected vehicle. Replacing the filters regularly, monitoring tire inflation, regular oil changes and engine tune-ups are vital to the health of a car. A healthy car will perform better and last longer than one that is not. Better gas mileage is only one benefit of this preventative maintenance.
7. Check your car’s manual to determine the ideal octane for your vehicle. A lot of marketing has been done to convince consumers that higher premium octane fuels are better for cars than regular octane. In truth, a higher octane will not always produce better performance in your vehicle. If your car manufacturer tells you that you should use the 87 octane fuels, then the higher-grade 92-octane fuel would be wasted in your vehicle, which in turn would waste money in your budget.
8. Trade in your gas-guzzler for a more fuel-efficient car. Hybrid cars are increasing in popularity all of the time. Much of their appeal comes from the government sanctioned tax breaks that are offered to hybrid owners.
9. Finding the lowest gas prices in any given area is often easy with online help. Many websites are dedicated to compiling a thorough list of area gas stations with current and up-to-date fuel prices posted on the website. Effectively utilizing online tools of this nature can help save drivers a considerable amount of money, by enabling thrifty consumers to buy where fuel prices are the lowest.
Branded-Fuel Gas Credit Card Rewards
When people think about credit cards, they don’t think of them as a means of saving money. But, with a little knowledge, the average consumer can use gas credit cards to get a little bit more mileage from their budget – pun intended.
Many gas cards are specific to a particular gas station or brand, such as: Mobile, Shell, Texaco, Conoco-Philips, etc. While these gas cards are designed for fuel purchases, they can also be used on any in-store purchases. The branded gas card is most helpful to those consumers who do not travel often.
As you may be aware, many credit cards offer rewards programs. The reward programs on gas credit cards are based either on "cash-back" at the pump or a "points" program. With some branded gas cards, you can save as much as three cents per gallon at the pump. On a typical gas credit card points program, the gas card will offer 5-6 points on a gas purchase and perhaps even 1-2 points on in-store purchases.
The branded gas card merchants hope that consumers will use their cards frequently, so they tend to offer some nice deals to consumers to encourage that behavior.
Bank-Offered Gas Credit Card Rewards
There are also gas credit cards offered by the major banking institutions. A few of the companies who offer gas credit cards are: Discover, CitiBank, Chase, etc.
These bank-offered gas credit cards are ideal for the consumer who travels frequently. When a driver is on the road, and a new town every forty miles or so, the consumer cannot always afford to spend their time driving around looking for a Mobile station. They need to get their fuel quickly and move on to their destination. This is why bank-offered gas credit cards are so attractive to many consumers – they can use them at any gas station.
When a driver finds him or herself in rural America, he or she often finds that the local towns they are passing through only have one, maybe two gas stations where they can shop. If their gas tank is on empty, they cannot afford to drive until they can find a Mobile gas station. They need gas now, and the bank-offered gas card will give them that option.
The bank-offered gas credit cards tend to offer some nice rewards programs as well.
In Conclusion
Many people have difficulties choosing between the two different types of gas cards, because they both offer great rebate benefits. Many consumers choose to carry one branded-fuel card and one bank-offered gas card, so they can select the best deal at whatever pump they use to fill up the tank.
There are many ways to save money on gas. Whether you choose to use all or many of the gas saving tips made available in this article, or if you chose to receive a cash-back discount from a gas credit card, there are many ways to beat the high prices at the pump.
For many consumers, a credit card that offers money back is the easiest way to save money at the gas pump. When easy-to-use, all-electric cars finally hit the road at a price that the average person can afford, this may change, but until that day comes, we must work within the options that are truly available to us today.
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