Which day of the week is the cheapest to put gas in your car?
With gas prices surly to continue their upward trend now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it’d be good to know when to fill up for less. Here’s when?
Gas prices shift from day to day depending on the available supply relative to real or expected demand or consumption, even when the price of crude oil is stable. However, if there is a disruption, such as the fear of sanctions being imposed on Russian oil after it invaded Ukraine, gasoline prices can change rapidly.
This is bad news for consumers who have watched the upward march of gasoline prices since the end of the pandemic. That’s been the result of fuel supplies worldwide being tight as production is brought back online but not fast enough to meet surging demand. That trend is expected to continue for the near future but if you shop smartly, you can still save at the pump by filling up on the right day.
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Best day of the week to put gas in your car
Prices still haven’t hit their highest average price which was $4.11 for regular in the summer of 2008 according to AAA. Still drivers are forking out almost 50 percent more at the pump than they were last year. And Americans in more states, not just California, Hawaii and Oregon, could soon be seeing prices cross the $4 a gallon mark soon.
If you fill up your car strategically you could save yourself a pretty penny, between $50 and $100 per year according to GasBuddy estimates. But you’ll need to fill up on the right day, and have a bit of luck. Analyzing data from its app, which tracks gasoline prices at over 150,000 gas stations in North American, GasBuddy found that over the course of 2021, Monday was the best day to fill up. Drivers saving the most by filling up on the first day of the business week has been the case since 2017.
Surprisingly though, in 2021 Friday was also one of the best days to fill up. This was a change from previous studies of data collected from the app which found Friday to be the most expensive days. They attribute the shift to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic and people working from home.
If you need to top up your tank to hold you over until you can save more, its recommended to do so on Tuesday or Sunday, which is slightly more expensive than Monday but cheaper than Friday.
When should I hold off putting gas in my car?
The 2021 study found that you do not want to fill up nor top off your tank on Wednesday or Thursday, which was the most expensive day in 2021. Where once the weekend was the worst time to fill up, prices in the middle of the week now surpass even those on Saturday.
However, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy says, “The golden rule is to always, always shop around before filling up.”