Buying Cheap Petrol

Petrolprices.com checks the price of petrol in 10,000 garages daily. All you do is type in your postcode and it will give you a summary of the cheapest stations to get fuel within 10 miles.

Using a cash-back or fuel credit card would be another way to save money, and you can set up a direct debit to pay off the bill in full each month. There are some credit cards which will give you a discount on the cost of fuel.

• An ASDA credit card will earn you points if you buy your fuel in their petrol stations, earning you a 2p discount per litre.
• A Morrison’s Miles card entitles card holders to 15 points per litre of fuel; once you have earned 5,000 points you will be presented with a £5 voucher to spend in-store.
• A Shell Citibank card offers 3% cash-back on all Shell purchases including petrol, and 1% on purchases made elsewhere. The cash-back can only be reclaimed within Shell but it is a competitive offer for those who are heavy drivers.

Supermarkets often have the lowest prices on fuel and combing this with a loyalty card can help you reduce the cost. For example supermarkets often have promotions such as “spend £50, get 5p off/litre” – use these schemes to your advantage. Supermarkets are  oligopolistic so if one was to lower the price of petrol dramatically the other companies would follow suit.

Have a look at saveyourcash.co.uk/fuel/  for more information from consumers on what fuel they believe to be best suited to their car. It may not be scientific research but can provide a clever and interesting insight into your buying patterns.

Driving More Efficiently

By adapting your driving habits you can use your car more efficiently, ensuring that your petrol consumption is more effective and lasts longer. Experts estimate that you can cut your fuel use by up to 40% depending on how you drive. Ecodrive.org has more information on the following basic tips:

1. Don’t use super fuel unless you have been specifically told to – they make hardly any difference to the majority of cars
2. Make sure your tyres are properly inflated
3. Use the highest gear possible when driving and remember that the most efficient speed to drive at is 55 miles per hour for motorway driving according to treehugger.com
4. Make sure your car is empty of unnecessary junk
5. Drive at a ‘smooth’ speed rather than constantly change speeds
6. Use your air conditioning sparingly – it drastically increases your fuel usage
7. Make sure your headlights are not on unnecessarily
8. The harder you press the pedal the more you will have to fill up

Other Ways to Save on Fuel

Car Clubs

The cars are usually left in a central location and can be collected by using a special access card number. It is an environmentally friendly alternative to having a car especially useful if you use public transport during the working week and only require a car - for the weekends. As well as being more environmentally friendly, carclubs are becoming much more popular in light of the credit crunch and the cost of rising fuel. A quarter of a million people now belong to a car club, and the clubs claim people are joining four times faster than they were at the beginning of the year.

See carclubs.org.uk for more information.

Carpooling

Sharing a car journey with others to reduce the cost and effect on the environment, is another means of reducing the amount of petrol you use. A number of British websites aim to bring together drivers for carpooling:

• car-pool.co.uk
• liftshare.org
• zipcar.com
• citycarclub.co.uk
• carshare.com
• streetcar.co.uk
• whizzgo.co.uk

Alternative means of finding a carpool partner is to place an advert in a shop window or on a website such as facebook which has listings of users who are willing to partake in car-sharing. If you are a football fan then make use of wewillfollow.co.uk, a resource site for football fans who want to carpool and lift share.

Tips to ensure it all runs smoothly

1. Determine the route and schedule in advance. Where are the pickup and night-time meeting points? Nobody wants to be standing around waiting for one member of the carpool.
2. Draw up a timetable so that everyone knows what days they are driving and how the system rotates
3. Figure out how you are going to pay for petrol – rotation or dividing up the cost
4. Be punctual
5. Have some car rules – not everyone likes to talk in the morning, so make sure you know what is and isn’t acceptable
6. Talk to each other about all the little details – turn to drive, meeting point and payment etc. It’ll make the whole process much more enjoyable – have a look at commuterpage.com for more tips and information.