Find Cheap(er) Gas With Your Phone
This is just a quick tip for those of you that are traveling by car this summer… If you want to shave a few bucks off the cost of your travels, consider using your smartphone to find the best gas prices.
By far the best service that I’ve found for this is GasBuddy.com, which has free iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps. And no, I don’t have any affiliation with them. I’m just a fan.
Here’s how it works: Simply download the app, fire it up, and hit the button to “Find Gas Near Me.”
You’ll be presented with a list of nearby gas stations along with their prices (assuming that any users have provided them — the data is all crowd-sourced). You can sort the list by price or distance, or you can view it on a map.
When used locally, the app can help you get a feel for overall pricing patterns in your area and help to identify gas stations with the most consistently low prices. While it’s not worth driving too far out of your way to save a few cents per gallon, you may be able to tailor your behavior to fill up the tank whenever you’re in the right neighborhood.
When used on the road, the potential savings are bigger, especially when you’re crossing state lines. Gas prices can differe widely along a stretch of highway, and even mores as you’re crossing into a state with significantly higher (or lower) gas taxes. So whenever you’re starting to think about stopping for gas, have your co-pilot fire up the app and look down the road for the best deal.
No, this won’t result in earth-shattering savings, but every little bit helps. And keep in mind… This system is only as good as the data that users put into it, so please consider submitting a price update when you’re standing at the pump.
Disclaimer: Discover is a paid advertiser of this site.
Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. See the Discover online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and rewards.
Modified on July 27th, 2012 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Automotive, Online, Travel
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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July 10th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
I’ve found FuelMyRoute.com to be much more useful in practice. You enter a start and end point, and it finds the cheapest gas along that route.
This information is displayed in Google Maps, and you can change your route and have it update with your changes. Further, you can tell it how far off your route you’re willing to go for cheaper gas.
The only downside is that there is no app – you must open it in a browser. This can be done through your phone, but it’s sometimes slightly more of a hassle than GasBuddy’s app. I’ve found it to be well worth it, however.
July 10th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Another benefit of gasbuddy – assuming you register your e-mail address with them… They are able to track prices nationally, and they’ll send a warning message a couple of days in advance when prices are about to jump 20-30 cents/gallon. They have always been right, and it sure feels like a deal when both cars are full in advance of the price jumps.
July 11th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Scott, How do you get the notification. I don’t see any setting of that kind?