Fuel perk … “circle of dilemma”

• Glory Days

  

  I have a Shell Mastercard and a Marathon Mastercard where i get like 3% back from using them at Shell and Marathon.
• UA5straightin2008

  

  HitsRus wrote: Fact....I've saved over $1400 in fuel purchases in the last 12 months. I haven't spent money for gas in 6 months. I shop at Giant Eagle but mainly the savings came from buying gift cards...something that GE encourages you to do. Both Mrs Hits and I have small cars so when we go and get our fuel perks, we take our 5 gallon cans with us to make sure we get our 30 gallons. I buy gift cards for most of my purchases. I bought almost all of my Xmas gifts on gift cards. I bought over a thousand dollars in Disney gift cards for our vacation ( I should have gotten more) and got fuel perks for all of them. If we go out to eat, we stop at Giant eagle and get a gift card. School shopping for daughter Hits?,,,,gift card for Kohl's. Need athletic equipment or shoes? ...gift card from Dick's. Printer Ink or office eqipm,ent?....gift cards from Staples or Office Max.
  
  I buy everything on gifts cards.

  thats the way to go!! my mom thinks my dad is crazy for doing this lol
• gut

  Those fuel discounts have to be a real boon for those grocery stores.
  
  Believe me, unless you are a very frugal shopper to avoid the overpriced goods where they are making up what they give you in gas, then you are not getting anything "free" or "discounted". Although I suppose they may take losing a penny or two per gallon as a sort of advertising expense to get people in the door.
  
  The gift cards are interesting. Since gift cards are often not fully redeemed (some not at all!), the store could maybe tolerate giving you a few bucks there because it's offset by less than full redemption.
• dwccrew

  

  gut wrote: Those fuel discounts have to be a real boon for those grocery stores.
  
  Believe me, unless you are a very frugal shopper to avoid the overpriced goods where they are making up what they give you in gas, then you are not getting anything "free" or "discounted". Although I suppose they may take losing a penny or two per gallon as a sort of advertising expense to get people in the door.
  
  The gift cards are interesting. Since gift cards are often not fully redeemed (some not at all!), the store could maybe tolerate giving you a few bucks there because it's offset by less than full redemption.

  
  This. While some people feel they are saving a bunch of money, in reality you are just making up for it in what you purchase in the store, unless you are very frugal, as gut stated. The avg. shopper is not saving much, if anything, at all.
• HitsRus

  

  Compared to what? Wal mart? GE's prices are comparable to grocery chains...you are going to shop somewhere. Nothing is for free...but you can avoid overpaying by being smart.
• vikingfan74

  
  
  "Oh, it's a profit deal! Takes the pressure off!"
• jmog

  JTizzle wrote:
  
  Gas prices had a huge part to play with the economy hurting along with the mortgage debacle. People that don't see this obviously made enough money that the high prices didn't affect them!

  Ah, someone else who doesn't understand that for decades gas prices were "too low" by inflation standards (aka everything else went up, gas did not) and then finally the market snaps back to where it should be in gasoline and its somehow "big oil's" fault.
  
  Learn economics 101, its called inflation, prices always go up, but from the late 70s to late 90s gasoline did not, so the market corrected itself and it snapped into place in just a couple months time.