Save $10.00 on Shell or BP $50.00 Gas Cards at Publix® Stores

If you live down South near a Publix® store and want to save on gas, this one is a sweet deal. They have a coupon you can print on-line and take into the store to get $10.00 off a $50.00 gas card valid at Shell or BP stations.

That's an immediate 20% off on gas -- who couldn't use that?

The offer is valid through July 14th or 15th depending upon the selected store.

Publix® stores are located throughout Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee. You can look for locations at this store locator.

To get your coupon, click this link.

Live/Work in New Jersey and Starting to Car Pool? Get $100 Free Gas Card from the State of New Jersey!

With the price of gas climbing, we're all looking at ways to drive more efficiently, and for some people that means considering car pooling. If you happen to live in New Jersey, the State offers an incentive to help you get started: a $100 gas card per new carpool.

Here are some details:
- New Jersey residents or people working in NJ are eligible
- One $100 gas card per new carpool (not per person)
- Carpoolers who live in NJ but work in another state can participate
- To qualify for the card, must carpool at least 24 days in a 2-month period
- Carpools must submit a carpool log within 120 days of registration
- Transportation Management Association will track and verify carpools

To get the full details and to sign up if you're eligible and starting a new carpool, click this link.

Hopefully more states will have programs like this.

Have Your Gas Card? It Won't Make Gas Cheap, But at Least It'll Be Cheaper!

Well, we've all been watching the price of gas climb precipitously and we keep being told to brace for more. We can each have our own little strategies to try and minimize their impact, including bunching errands into single trips, not idling the car when we stop into the local shop for just a few minutes, stepping off the gas pedal nearing the crest of a hill so we can coast a bit on the downhill side...

One other step you can take is using a gasoline credit card. I wrote about this before, but in a conversation I had today I realized many people still don't realize the potential savings.

There are two kinds of card that give back on gas purchases -- first is the gasoline credit card, which is issued by that company and gives rebates for purchases at their stations. Those can be very handy if you have particular stations near your home/business where you would frequently stop for a fill-up. The other kind of card is a standard credit card with a rewards program that offers some larger savings for gas purchases.

I have two gasoline branded credit cards, Hess and Sunoco, which give percentage rebates when I purchase my gas at their stations. I have a bunch of Sunoco and Hess stations where I travel, so those two cards are usually all I need. And the savings aren't bad. The Hess card which gives me back 5% on all gas purchases at Hess stations (they even had an introductory period of a few months when the rebate was 10%). The 5% was nice enough a couple of years back when gas was around $2.00 a barrel and I was saving 10¢ a gallon -- at today's prices around $4.00 a gallon, I get back 20¢. Now that's not enough to make gas a bargain, but saving about $2.50 every fill-up takes at least a slight edge off.

The Sunoco card gives back 4%, which is also a pretty nice rebate back when I buy gas there(their intro offer was a $20 rebate).

The way these work is a rebate credited onto your credit card statement, which then gets applied against the following month's balance. So if you keep buying gas there, the rebates from prior purchase get applied against the new purchases you make.

My reason for Sunoco and Hess is that the stations are convenient at my location. Other companies also have similar branded cards, each with their own percentages and offers. To get the best savings would probably depend on the stations most convenient near you. After all, an extra percent savings wouldn't be worth it if you had to drive an extra 20 miles to get to a different company's pumps... you'd spend more in gas than the savings would be worth.

The number of cards you apply for is also a matter of personal preference, as far as how many different cards you want to carry while you drive. And it's important to pay off the balances of these cards every month so you don't pay any interest charges that would offset the savings. But certainly having a card that gets you back 4% or 5% of your gas purchases make it worth considering as an option.

Another way of saving which doesn't limit you to a particular brand of gas is a general credit card which offers a heightened rewards level for gasoline purchases. A general card with rewards gives you added flexibility of choice of gas station. The providers of these kinds of cards can vary, and their rewards programs would have different features. Usually the rewards are annual rather than rebates applied against the next month's bill as is done with the branded gasoline card.

Some providers offer special high rewards for gas/supermarket purchases for a short while but then scale them back to 1% later. But there are cards offered by both Discover and American Express Business which give you rewards of 5% of your gasoline purchases. To read more, check out this link at credit card forum.

So if you get one of these cards to use at gas stations and pay your bill in full every month (to avoid finance charges), you can get an effective 4%-5% reduction in how much gasoline hits your budget. And that's not an amount to sneeze at.

Starting June 7th: Buy $100 of Dockers at Sears, Get Back a $75 Gas Card and a $10 Sears Gift Card

For those of you who might want to stock up on some Dockers (or maybe pick some up for Dad), there's an upcoming promotion that's been announced that makes a nice deal. Starting June 7th and going until June 15th, if you purchase $100 worth of Dockers (except shoes), you can register to get back a gas card worth $75.00. And if you send in your Sears receipt as well, you get a $10 Sears gift card too.

So that makes $85 value back on your $100 purchase -- not too shabby.

Even better for someone lucky is that the $75 gas card requests are also entries into a giveaway of a 2008 Toyota Prius hybrid!

But even if you're not the lucky winner of that, getting $85 value back on a $100 purchase sounds like a bit of good fortune.

Here's a link to the press release (which also contains a link to the entry form, although that site isn't active till after the program starts).

High Gas Prices -- Trying to Get at least a Little Break...

High gas prices are tough. There's no way around them but I take at least a little bit of the edge off with their branded credit cards. I have a couple of them, one with Hess and one with Sunoco. They each offer rebates back on purchases at their company gas stations -- my Sunoco card has a 4% rebate, and the Hess card is 5% back. With gas currently at about $3.00/gallon, that would save 12 cents a gallon at Sunoco or 15 cents at Hess. So the prices are still high but at least there's a bit of a break. And while I'm filling up, psychologically I can focus a bit on some savings.

They also offered special introductory deals when I applied, with Sunoco offering a $20 rebate credit, and Hess offering to double the rebate to 10% for the first 90 days (so while I'm at Hess right now, I can look at the 30 cents a gallon I save -- a fill-up of $40.00 doesn't feel quite as bad if I know it will be a net of $36.00).

Other companies also offer the cards but I don't get them all because I wouldn't just want to stuff my wallet with too many different ones. I use these two because they are the stations closest to the areas I frequently pass by in my regular driving. You may want to check with your own most-frequented gas stations and see which offer the best deals.

Every little bit helps.