dealing with rising diesel cost

SkwerI

Treehouser
Joined
Sep 6, 2006
Messages
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Location
central Florida
First, I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a political discussion of oil markets. Just keeping it on a personal, local level on how I'm dealing with fuel costs. Today I bought a $35 Sam's Club membership for the sole purpose of being able to save 6-10 cents per gallon on diesel. There's a Sam's Club less than a mile from me and they recently put in fuel pumps. They are 6 cents cheaper than my usual place, which is one of the cheapest in town and they are 10 cents cheaper than the Mobil a block down the street.

Now I average about 50 gallons of diesel per week (or at least I did in my old truck) and I fill up my pickup about 2x-3x per month. My savings of .06 on diesel works out to $144 per year. My savings on gas is about $36. So my fuel savings will more than pay for the card, not counting the ability to shop at the store for other stuff. At first I dismissed the idea of paying for a membership in order to 'save money' on stuff. I've been burned on these type of programs before so I generally tend to avoid them. But I ran the numbers and the savings is substantial enough to justify the expense.

I've also been told that I can fill up with no preset limit on the pump (usually $75 at most places). I'll find out if that is true next week when I fuel up the big truck. With 100 gallon capacity, it's a PITA only getting 18-20 gallons at a time when you pay at the pump and I'm not keen on walking inside (twice) and leaving my credit card with the zit faced kid behind the register at the 7-11. If you try to use your card twice at the pump to get more than $75, it tells you to 'see the clerk inside'.

If diesel stays at or above $4 per gallon, I may implement a fuel surcharge. Or else just raise my rates by $5 per hour. Fuel is my single biggest monthly expense except for my truck payment.
 
I use a Chase CC that gives 3% back....and my Discover card offers 5% off, limit is $120 a year in rebates, I think.

A Citicard used to give 5% back with a high cutoff, now that card is down to 2%.

Every little bit helps.
 
I dont have a sams here but the walmart is 1/4 mile from where i park. I have a walmart discover that saves me 3 cents and if I use it at a sams (i do have a sams card), I can get 6. I noticed the other day theyre preset limit increased. it was 100, I got 110 and it never shut itself off due to $.

The other convienence stores most times will turn on the pump for me. 1)im in there all the time, 2) my name is on the side of my truck...you really think im gonna drive off? I asked once if they would up the limit and they told me it was up to the card company. okay, whatever. i know better.

Here, the diesel is 3.68. Im considering a fuel charge too. Im also really watching how much time the chipper is spend in high throttle.
 
My Sams Club doesn't sell diesel. :-( But I do buy gas there most times.

I'm considering the fuel surcharge also. Maybe $1.00 per mile? With Mapquest, it's easy enough to calculate the distance from the shop to the job. I'm also considering a separate line item on the estimate for dump fees. In the past, it's always just been part of the hourly rate, but with rising dump fees...?
 
The Costco here is brutal. No diesel that I know of, but everybody acts like it's the last day on earth to get fuel, & they're a**holes about it. Not worth it to me for the $.08 savings.
Maybe look into off-road fuel tax rebates & try to see some savings there ?
Diesel was supposed to be cheaper, but I don't witness that in Michigan.
Pimped again.
 
Maybe look into off-road fuel tax rebates & try to see some savings there ?

Not if you are using on-road equipment.


Diesel is $4.08 here. My neighbor is thinking about brewing bio-diesel. I told him I'd go in on it with him. We'll se what happens.
 
I'm wondering at what point a gas 366 chip truck is going to be cheaper than my 7.3 diesel, guess I gotta go do math - less maintenance factors in a bit too. Anybody good with spreadsheets - would be neat to make one with mileage vs. cost of gas and diesel.
 
i get 3 cent discount at safeway all the time and every time my total in the grocery comes to 250 bucks i get a 10 cent discount. pumps shut off at 75 bucks though:( or id fill all my trucks on 1 pump :)
 
my truck ( gas sucking pickup with dual 70 liter tanks) gets crappy mileage, I have an Esso (aka Exxon) fleet card that saves me 2.9 cents on the liter, our fuel is about 1.21 a liter currently. My pumps cut out at $100, I am too lazy and too grumpy to go inside and ask the clerk to let me pretty please have another chance to spend even more money at their establishment.
 
I like the idea of a fuel charge and have been thinking about it. I don't think we could get away with 1$ a mile down here, just because of the logistics of the county we serve. I guess our pumps don't shut off, I see 200$ gas tickets just about every day from one crew or another. :whine:
 
I'm concidering a surcharge when regular gas goes above $3.70. I'm thinking charging a flat fee per invoice, not by the mile.
 
I am too lazy and too grumpy to go inside and ask the clerk to let me pretty please have another chance to spend even more money at their establishment.

im with you paul, i figure if their pump shuts off at 75 bucks, someoneelse will get the rest of that purchase next time. idiots
 
I don't have a Sam's Club anywhere close, and the Safeway is about 10 miles away. Wal-Mart is putting in a superstore about a mile away from me. Will they have fuel at one of those? I just figure a little extra in each bid and I do hourly work so very seldom. For most jobs that I do fuel is a actually one of my smaller expenses. The other day I did a 1K job and had $200 for labor and probably $40 in fuel, plus about $10 in fuel to bid the job. If I have a job out of the area then I would probably put an extra hundred or two on the bid for fuel. My local fuel place shuts the pump off at $50. Talk about ridiculous. There is an AM-PM close to me and they have great gas prices but they don't have diesel. So to answer Skwerl's question I'm not doing anything other than upping the bid a few dollars when I'm bidding.
 
I average 1300 miles a week. Fuel is now hitting over 4.00, you bet your ass I'm charging for the cost of fuel and the travel time.
 
My neighbor the fuel guy was telling me about hauling some fuel to the service station in Yosemite Park. He has 4 big rigs hauling fuel but didn't have time to make a delivelry to the service station in Yosemite Park so he hired a competitor to deliver it for him. The competitor charged him by the mile and then tacked on a 15% fuel surcharge.
 
Maybe look into off-road fuel tax rebates & try to see some savings there ?

We claim the off-road fuel tax for all our diesel as it's for tractors only. EASY to do.....just keep the receipts and total the # of gallons you've used that year. It's a one page form that even I could understand.

We claim 50% on the truck gas as they're driven off road most the time also.
 
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$200 is 50 gallons. Most big diesel trucks have dual 50 gallon tanks and the Bandit 250xp has a 40 gallon tank. If the chipper is low and you put 30 gallons in it, and throw another 20 gallons in the chip truck you're at $200.
 
The thing that gets me is it was a 3 cent a gallon discount 10 years ago when gas was 1.00-1.30. Now its still 3 cents and we are past 3.00. It isn't even 1%. My wife uses coupons at the grocery store and she can get .25 off a dollar item many times.
 
My AMEX business credit card gives me 5% cash rebate on single fuel purchases up to 75 gals. 3% on dining out and 1% on everything else. Rebate check is sent out every February. This year I got back $873. They also show you the break down on how the rebate was computed. Diesel here just went up to $4.01/gal yesterday. It was $3.89 the day before that.
 
I dont envy you guys right now!! It's going to come down where you will either have to start charging to do bids, or try and line up bids in the same area/time to be able to afford it!!!!
I would run offroad in EVERYTHING I could!!! Chipper, skidsteer whatever you can think of!!
Bio-deiesel is a neat option. But not without its faults! It is VERY costly to get into, $2k-5k is pretty easy to drop. The fod service has caught on to it around here and are now charging people for used cooking oil! Then you have to buy the other needed chemicals, and have a place large enough to set up the tanks and store fuel.
I think the last time my buddy looked at it, it was around .65 a gallon to make it. Thats just materials, no time in finding the oil, or time spent mixing it.
If you can get you're ducks lined out, it can be a viable way, just a lot of little details to work out!
 
Diesel here on Friday when I filled was 1.279/litre and propane that I run my pick-up on is .789/litre. Propane rules!

My bucket and chipper can easily take $200 worth of diesel without being that low at all. I deal with a cardlock so no pumps kicking out before I'm done filling.
 
I dont envy you guys right now!! It's going to come down where you will either have to start charging to do bids, or try and line up bids in the same area/time to be able to afford it!!!!
I would run offroad in EVERYTHING I could!!! Chipper, skidsteer whatever you can think of!!
Bio-deiesel is a neat option. But not without its faults! It is VERY costly to get into, $2k-5k is pretty easy to drop. The fod service has caught on to it around here and are now charging people for used cooking oil! Then you have to buy the other needed chemicals, and have a place large enough to set up the tanks and store fuel.
I think the last time my buddy looked at it, it was around .65 a gallon to make it. Thats just materials, no time in finding the oil, or time spent mixing it.
If you can get you're ducks lined out, it can be a viable way, just a lot of little details to work out!

14 exclamation points! A new total! :roll:
 
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