Lower Gas Prices

Disclaimer: I actually dreamt this blog entry. The concept and the act of writing it. It was weird. Gas is coming back down! Neat. The cheapest gas I ever find is at Safeway. I paid $2.81 last week and it’s $2.60 this week. Wow, that’s such a remarkable difference. So? We look at gas prices move up and down and we feel like we’re beating “the man” if we go find the cheapest gas station n the metro area. But think about it. For simplicity sake, 20 cents saved on a 10-gallon tank means I paid two dollars less to fill up my car. Hooray! Wait, two bucks? And this is an extreme example; I doubt you’ll find better savings more than occasionally. So why do we still comparison-shop for gas? Spending the time and energy driving to the cheaper station now seems irrational. Economically speaking, if my time is worth $15/hour and I spend more than an extra three minutes going to a cheaper station I just cost myself more than I saved. Hmm, thank goodness Safeway is just across the street…