If you’ve made it a goal to budget your money this year, you may not know where to start. According to US Household reports, the average American spends a little under $2,000 on gas per year, which leaves a lot of room for savings. Most people think cutting down on gas, means riding their bike to work or using public transportation. The thought of riding your bike and showing up to work sweaty or having to wake up an hour early to catch the right bus or train completely scares people away from even trying to cut down on their gas expenditure. If that sounds like you, here are some gas spending tips that will keep you in your car and off your bike, bus or train.
The easiest and most feasible way to decrease gas spending, is to use a mobile app like GasBuddy. This app let you evaluate gas prices in your area, so that you can go to the gas station that will give you the best bang for your buck. Another thing to keep in mind is that gas stations near off ramps, and inner city areas tend to charge more for gas, so do your best to avoid those places. A good way to keep your options open for where to buy gas is to fill up before your tank reaches empty. If you fill up when you still have gas to drive around you can pick which gas station you want to fill up at, whereas if you decide to get gas as soon as your car hits empty, your only option will be to fill up at the closest gas station to you.
Most of the time, a great way to cut down on gas spending, is to carpool with a co-worker or family member. The problem with this is that it is 2021 and we are still living in the wake of COVID-19. This puts carpooling out of the picture for many. Instead of carpooling, try talking with other people in your family, or people you know, and have them run an errand for you if it’s inline with their normal driving route from work to home or school to home. You can implement this personally by making a list of all the places you need to go, and then hitting them up when you pass them on your normal route, so you can prevent taking multiple trips.
Another way to immediately put a dent in your gas spending is to earn a little extra money. Doesn’t that mean getting an extra job? Not entirely because, there is an iPhone and Android app called PICKL, that lets you make extra cash by doing something as simple as taking pictures. The app PICKL pays shoppers $5 to take pictures of products at a store they are shopping at. It only takes about 5 minutes to take pictures of the requested product and get paid $5. The ease of the app helps even the busiest of people do side work to catch up on expenses.
See any shelf, in any store, as soon as possible. We put the power of the crowd to work for you.