The LifeStyler – Fuel Price Cheat guide

Bowen has been driving the Lexus tank recently and we have heard the occasional complaint about the price of petrol. Let’s face it, it’s not getting any cheaper!

If you live in a capital city you will have noticed the price of fuel going up and down on a cycle. The easy hack is then to try to buy at the low point. The cycle currently is running at around 3 weeks, it used to be 2 weeks but I guess they worked out that some people could last that long between fills.

So, cheat number 1 is to download the 7Eleven fuel app and by preloading some cash you can lock in a fuel price and set number of litres for up to 7 days. Therefore, you can top your tank up 1 week after the prices have gone up.  At a $0.30 price difference on a 50 litre fill that’s a $15 saving. Importantly, you have no obligation to purchase and if you got the timing wrong and the prices go down, you don’t have to use the locked-in price.

Cheat number 2 has a double benefit, with savings on fuel and groceries.  This hack involves buying Woolworths gift cards. If you are a member of some of the road clubs or an AGL customer you can buy the gift cards at 5% off. Don’t panic, you can also join Cash Rewards to get the 5% off but you get cashbacks rather than a discount up front.  FYI there are lots of other great discounts on Cash Rewards so you should definitely check that out.

OK, so now you have your Woolies gift card that you have bought for 5% discount.  You can use that card at Woolworths, Big W, Dan Murphy, BWS and most importantly Woolworths Petrol.  Your $200 grocery shop is now saving you $10. So, the hack is now quite simple. Fill up at Woolworths petrol and use your 4 cents off. At the same time spend $5 in store saving a further 4 cents and pay with your gift card.  Therefore, if fuel costs $1.30 you save 8 cents to take you to $1.22 then 5% off that so you pay $1.16 per litre which is a 14 cent saving or for 60 litres a $8.40 saving.

Even if you already buy at the bottom of the cycle, the combined saving of these two hacks is around $23 every 3 weeks or about $400 a year.

By my reasoning that’s about 8 cases of beer.  Cheers