Over the years I have received many helpful tips from others on how to purchase fuel the “Fuel Smart” way. From tips on buying where the fuel tax is most beneficial when it comes time to file IFTA, to tips on apps to find the cheapest fuel, each and every tip has led me to saving a lot of money at the pump. In an effort to share in some of this fuel buying knowledge, I would like to offer three tips that I have learned on my own and then offer up in the comments section of this article a chance for you to share your own money-saving tips for ponying-up at the pump!
Tip 1 – Cash Price, not Credit!
Perhaps one of the easiest ways to get ripped off on fuel is to pay the credit price, as opposed to the cash price. Although the convenience of swiping a credit card at the pump is nice, you can typically expect to pay anywhere from $0.05 - $.010 more per gallon to do so! This doesn’t mean you have to walk around with a wad of cash rolled up in your pocket just to pay for fuel, as there are other ways to get the cash price (see Tip 2). I do point out in “Tip 3” how to make using a credit card work to your advantage however, should you need to use this method as your fuel purchasing option.
Tip 2 – Never Pay Full Price!
One way to reduce the impact of fuel purchases on your bottom line is to use a discount fuel card. I was able to negotiate a pricing discount on the CNG fuel my truck is fueled with by contacting the administrative offices of the largest natural gas fueling company in my area. Now I get to use their fueling card and am billed monthly at a substantial discount off of the pump price. You do not have to be a large fleet with hundreds of trucks to take advantage of groups out there that have come together to leverage their “strength in numbers” to give single-truck O/O’s and small fleet owners huge fuel discounts. One of the best fuel discount programs out there for O/O’s is through NASTC and provides significant savings over the traditional cash price at the pump. There are also many other options out there, but I have heard this one takes the cake! There are even some brokers out there that have leveraged the number of carriers they do business with to be able to sign you up as a “carrier partner” and offer some sort of discount on fueling, tires, and other things.
Tip 3 – Making Credit Pay You Back!
I understand that a lot of start-up truckers out there get themselves going at first using credit cards. Often times it is hard, with all of the other expenses in trucking, to have the cash flow to constantly be shelling out at the pump. The fact that a lot of customers take from 30-45 days to pay their invoices also adds to the cash flow problem with fueling. Should you have to use credit cards, make sure to use the one with the lowest interest rate available. One thing I did when I first ventured on my own authority and didn’t have “settlement-deducted fuel” anymore, was to use a rewards card that offered bonus points for fueling. I figured if I was going to have to pay credit price and be hit with interest to boot, I might as well be earning something in the process. That is why the FlexPerks logo on this card is so significant. It offered me the ability to make the best of my situation and earn a healthy amount of bonus miles to help even out the higher price of fuel and interest. Although credit should be a last resort for fuel, this last tip worked out to be the silver lining to my credit cloud! Just be sure to pay the statement balance before interest accrues and you can have a vacation flight paid for in no time!
The practice of discipline is very important when fueling your trucks! Without this critical cost of doing business, the freight would not get moved. While many of you may have already been using some or all of these tips, I hope they can be of use to some out there that have not yet considered them to be of high importance. If you have any tips of your own for minimizing the price at the pump, feel free to share them in the comments section below this article and earn some “Team Run Smart Miles” toward some swag for doing so!