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…
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Wow, it’s gone down much lower here. It’s like $2.11 down the street.
You do make a good point. If the cost to get the savings exceeds the savings, then you are clearly a making a bad choice.
However …
What is it worth per year if you save $0.05 per gallon and get 15 mpg and drive 10,000 miles per year and don’t have to go out of your way to do it?
What’s that worth to you if you only make $30,000/year gross income and net about $25,000 a year? And what faction of your net income goes to gas (15 mpg and 10,000 miles per year, base price $3.00/gal).
What is that worth in 30 years if the savings was invested at 8% return?
Hah yes, more good points. See, this post started out as an ‘aside’ yet it’s already this long. I did actually think about the time-value of money… I figured a) don’t argue with yourself on your own blog and b) stop typing.