Saving on gas by buying groceries?
One of our local grocery stores has started a new affiliate program with Sunoco. For every $10 you spend on groceries, you get $.01 per gallon off on your next gas purchase. In addition, they have specials every week that generate larger savings. For example, a gallon of milk saves you $.15 per gallon of gas this week. There is a cap of 20 gallons of gas per transaction, and if you buy less gas, the money does not roll over.
If you already shop at this store, it’s obvious that this is a great deal — you get something for doing what you are already doing. But if you don’t shop there, should you? As always, it depends on the circumstances.
I live in a town that has four main grocery stores, although I am sure there are others as well. We don’t typically shop at the grocery store that has this promotion, so when the program started, we discussed whether to switch. Because my wife and I are both quantitatively inclined, we tend to remember how much things cost at our “regular” grocery store, so we decided to go to the new one and compare.
Of the four chains in our area, this one is probably the second cheapest, but we shop at the one that is the cheapest, so switching would cost us money. But would we make more on the gas savings than we spent on groceries?
After a couple week test, I think we can safely answer yes, but with some additional commentary. We have changed from shopping at one store, to shopping at two. Simply put, $.01 per gallon for every $10 spent is not enough to cover the higher costs at the new store. So, we go to the new store and get the “specials” that get us extra points, and things that are cheaper here than at our regular store, and then buy everything else at our old store. This takes a little bit more effort, but it seems to be saving us quite a bit on gas. Last week my wife put 19 gallons in the car for $1.97!
One other thing we discovered is that the new store has a pharmacy and prescription purchases qualify for the program. We checked around, and for my wife’s prescription, everyone charges the same amount, so buying it at the new store saves us $.11 per gallon on gas, while not costing any more.
The last thing we discovered is how difficult it is to wait until your tank is almost empty to fill up. Since the discount is good on up to 20 gallons, and any unused amount does not roll over, you are wasting money if you fill up before you are almost empty (neither of our cars holds more than 20 gallons). But it is hard to drive around with a quarter of a tank and not get nervous about it, so that takes some getting used to.
This program has dramatically decreased our gas budget, from $250 per month last winter to $50-$75 per month now. Some of that is due to gas prices, but some is due to this program as well. I think this post should give you some ideas of how to analytically think about a program like this to see if it’s worth it.
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[...] few weeks ago I mentioned a local grocery store that lets you save money on your gas budget by buying your groceries [...]