DollarDays

Monday, April 4, 2011

Living Cheap with High Gas Prices

Gas prices have spiked again and the experts say that this is not the end of it. They say that we will see even greater gas prices as wars wage on Middle East and as long as we see the price of crude oil increase in the markets. They say that we all should brace ourselves as the prices continue to rise. Well people like you and I are not only bracing ourselves but we are looking for ways to save and live cheap. Right? Right. Here’s little tip that I’ve know about for a while now and if you shop at Kroger, you’ve known about it also but recently Jenny of SouthernSavers.com mentioned a little tip that we all can benefit from. When you shop at Kroger using your Kroger Plus card you are earning points toward Kroger fuel centers and participating Shell stations. You can literally save .10 per gallon per fill-up. I suspect that these days Kroger is selling more gas than they have in the last few years. The only catch, if you can call it catch is that the points accrue on a monthly basis and do not carry over from month to month. As you can see there, Kroger’s trying to corner the market on your monthly grocery trips but hey it’s worth .10 a gallon and in some vehicles like SUVs or trucks, that’s no small thing. In my car, an 11 gallon tank my family would save 1.10 on a fill-up, I’d go for that but the Kroger gas station is about 20 miles from my house. Since we get about 23 miles per gallon, we’d loose almost a gallon of gas in travel which means we’d loose over 3.00 trying to save 1.10. So, that’s not a great way for me to save, but if you have a Kroger gas station in your area, you may want to try it out to spike up your cheap living plan. Remember though if there is not a Kroger fueling center in your area, look for a Shell station, ask if they participate in the Kroger Fuel Points. Now Jenny from SouthernSavers.com recently said that more than one car can fill up at one tank just by not hanging up the pump when you’re done then rolling your mom or brother or whoever right behind you to fill up their tank. She suggested this as a viable way to help each other out from month to month. To me that seems a bit much and I’d feel a little weird doing it, but if it benefits you and doesn’t break the law, I say, why not.