Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

If you haven’t found Gas Buddy yet, stop and do it now their site is http://www.gasbuddy.com/ Gas Buddy is effective because motorists just like you and me take the time to report the price of gas in their travels. Gas Buddy has a site you can personalize to you r local area and find out what the different gas stations are charging. Then you go to the one that has the best price in your neighborhood. Keep in mind if you have to drive more that a few miles out of you way, it won’t be cost productive unless you are getting a whopping better price. How effective is this? There are two Lukoil stations about 1.5 miles apart near me. They normally are between $0.10 and $0.20 different in price. Hey if you can save $3.00 per fill up by an extra 1.5 miles, you’d be nuts not to do it. There are two stations on an intersection about 6 miles from me that are normally $0.20 to $0.30 more per gallon that the stations a couple of miles away from them. How do they get away with that? Apparently the f...

I talked to my home heating oil company this week. I am on the 9 month budget plan and my budget will increase $160.00 per month over last year. Yeah, that is $160.00 more per month, outrageous. My cap on the budget plan is $4.99 per gallon for heating oil. That is what m y budget is based on. If home heating oil goes higher than that I am capped at the $4.99. Assuming I use no more oil than I did last year I know exactly what I will pay. If oil goes down in price, I will pay the lower price but I won’t benefit until the end of the budget and then I will get a refund. The oil company gets my money and any interest they can generate if the price goes down. I get the safety of a cap if the crazy market gets crazier and I don’t get penalized if the price goes down. The other alternative that some of my friends are doing is the prepayment option. The lowest I have heard is $4.59 per gallon prepaid based on last years use. Based on my usage that would be about $3000.00 prepaid to lock that ...