You may have noticed that gas prices have been going up the past few weeks. The best way to prevent the rise in gas prices from impacting your budget is to drive less. If that is not an option for you then perhaps one or all of my ways to get quadruple savings on gas can help you reduce your gas expense.
The first way I save on gas is by buying a discounted gas card. Ebay recently had $100 BP gas cards on sale for $90 which was a great deal. You rarely see a 10% discount on gas cards. There was a purchase limit of three cards. I would have liked to have bought three, but I could only afford one since my cash flow is rather tight right now. Gas gift cards have been on sale for a discount several times in the past few months on eBay. If you don’t want to wait for the cards to be offered at a discount on eBay again you can go to GiftCardGranny.com and find the best current discount on gas cards. Gas cards are usually only offered at about a 2% discount so if you find a better deal you will want to take advantage of it.
The second way I save on gas is by using a rewards credit card to buy the discounted gas card. For the eBay purchase I used my Capital One Venture card which offers 2% cash back. Next month I will be able to get a better deal. My Discover card will be offering 5% cash back on home improvement stores. By buying BP gas cards at my local Lowe’s I’ll earn 5% cash back. Plus, I’ll earn an additional 5% cash back since I’m enrolled in Discover’s double cash back promotion. This will mean giving up the opportunity to save by buying a discounted gas card online but using the credit card in store will be a better deal unless there is a great 10% discount offered again.
The third way I save on gas is by going through an online portal to buy my discounted gas cards. Top Cashback and Mr. Rebates usually offer an additional 1% cash back on eBay purchases. They also offer cash back at Raise and some other online gift card sellers. If you are not yet a member of Top Cashback or Mr. Rebates please consider signing up through my referral links. Mr. Rebates will give you a $5 bonus for signing up.
The fourth way I save money on gas is by being a member of the BP Driver Rewards program. Other gas station chains offer similar programs. I use the BP Rewards program because it is the best deal in my area and the BP stations have competitive gas prices. Currently, the program offers 25 cents off per gallon when you spend $100 on fuel. The rewards are valid for up to 20 gallons of fuel which isn’t a problem for me since my tank doesn’t hold 20 gallons.
All of the savings add up to a nice discount. For my last gas card purchase I paid $90 for a $100 card. I earned 2% cash back on the $90 for another $1.80 in savings. I earned 1.1% cash back by going through the TopCashback portal for another 99 cents in savings. The result is that I ending up spending a net total of $87.21 for a $100 gift card. Since I bought a $100 gift card the percentage off math is pretty simple. 100 – 87.21 results in a 12.79% discount. On my last fill-up I received 7 cents off a gallon which was a 1.9% discount based on the gas price at that time. Adding the discounts together I received 14.69% off my gas. It isn’t always possible to receive that much of a discount. For the next few months I will be saving in excess of 10% on gas though and it should always be possible to save at least 5%. Over the course of a year these savings can add up to a fairly significant amount.
Great idea. I use .10 gas coupons at a Holiday gas station. They accept competitor coupons. The max i have seen of their own is .07. Then, on Tuesday, it’s double coupon day.
Charge it with my 5% back at gas stations card, and I get .35 off on $3 per gallon gas.
Kroger has a great rewards for purchasing groceries that can be applied to gas price,lowering them substantially. I’ve saved around $30.00 a time or two.
The grocery store rewards can be pretty good. We don’t have any Kroger stores in our area. Our local grocery stores do have gas rewards, but I don’t think they are as generous as Kroger. I sometimes get a 30 cent a gallon discount by spending $50 at Kmart which I can use with my discounted BP gas card.