PFT #83 - Personal Finance Tip of the Week: Gas Gouging

In times when inflation is rising, we experience higher prices for our goods and services as well as shortages.

For example, In the grocery store, we’ve experienced products in limited supply from toilet paper to baby formula. When a desired product is available, it is emptied as soon as it was stocked.

When it comes to gasoline, supply chain disruption was experienced in 1973 and 1979.
This also occurs during natural disaster situations where shortages shoot up prices and then we hear about gauging.

To make things clear, gauging does occur; however, there is a large misinformation notion that gas stations drive up their prices because they have us over a barrel.

For the most part this is not true as our research on average tells us that most retailers make 15 cents per gallon after the consumer pumps it.

To make things worse, most people pay via a credit card which has a merchant fee around 2.5%. Hence, when the price per gas is at just $4, the retailer pays 10 cents and in our example would profit just five.

This is why we see a cash price listed on the signs that are lower than the credit price. Hence, if you have cash, this is another way to keep a few bucks in your pocket especially during long stretches.

The bottom line is this is another way to save a few more dollars, yet the hidden point in this finance tip is when we understand how things work, we can accept things that we don’t like.

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