Linas M blog

Usually I hear things from people that buying fuel in cheaper fuel stations is much better, because you save a lot of money. Few times I have made some calculations and now I would like to present them to everybody. Please correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m just guessing, but… it is interesting…

So we take a car which is using 10 liters of fuel for 100 kilometers.
We take two fuel stations (the one with high prices, and one with low)
Let’s call it: EXPENSIVE-OIL and CHEAP-OIL.

Prices:
EXPENSIVE-OIL: 3,90
CHEAP-OIL: 3,75

Let’s think that you are driving a lot and that’s why you try to save money on fuel. So we take 1000 kilometers per month. That is 12000 per year. If our car is using 10 liters per 100kilimiter, then we will use 1200 liters of fuel a year.

Expences:
EXPENSIVE-OIL: 3,90 x1200 = 4680
CHEAP-OIL: 3,75 x1200 = 4500

You save: 4680 – 450 = 180 a year.

But now let’s count on. The CHEAP-OIL has only a few fuel stations in the city, each time you need to get fuel you drive at least 2 kilometers from your main road. Also because you are trying to save money this means that you usually buy fuel for 50 (personal experience). This means that every year you will have to visit fuel station 85 times (1200 / (50/3,75) ). This means that you will loose 85 x 2 = 170 kilometers a year just by looking for you cheaper fuel station.
170 kilometers = 17 liters of fuel this is almost 74.

So total expenses:
EXPENSIVE-OIL: 3,90 x1200 = 4680
CHEAP-OIL: 3,75 x1200 + 74 = 4574

You save: 106 a year (but loose 14 hours)

Remember that 85 times you will have to go two kilometers the wrong way to find you cheaper station. One time to go to your station could take you up to 10 minutes. Lets multiply it by 85 and we get 850 minutes – 14 hours of driving each year!

You will save 106, but drive extra 14 hours a year. So do you still think that buying fuel from the cheaper dealers is better if the fuel station is just 2 kilometers away?

Conclusion:
Use bicycles instead and save the world from global warming. It is healthy and environment friendly way to save money!