Just how far would you drive to find gasoline that was 8 cents cheaper per gallon? Eleven gallons of gasoline minus eight cents per gallon would save almost a dollar.
Or would it???
11 gallons would save approximately 88 cents at the gas station above. But when one factors in that the gas station was 1.5 miles out of the way, plus 1.5 miles for the return trip equals 3 extra miles traveled, or 1/8 of a gallon if your car gets 24 miles per gallon.
An 1/8 of a gallon costs approximately 60 cents nowadays.
So from the 88 cents in fuel savings we must now subtract the 60 cents in extra gasoline consumption, making for a grand total in savings of 28 cents!
The lesson is, if you buy gas from a gas station that is exactly enroute to where you are going anyways, you can offset slightly higher costs per gallon, versus going out of your way to find a slightly lower cost gasoline station.
Just what is the least amount of money you would be willing to save per tankful when the extra mileage to get the cheaper gas is taken into account? For my purposes, any savings less than 50 cents per tankful is probably not worth it. So I guess it was my bad when I went for the lower price but higher distance, as my net savings was approximately 28 cents.
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