Everyone loves buying cheap fuel. Saving even a cent or 2 per litre is one of Australia’s favourite pastimes. Some people might even spend more money driving around looking for cheap fuel, than the savings would actually make them.
Using technology, this becomes easier. There are 2 ways to save money on fuel, and you can combine them for even more savings:
– Using discount apps and vouchers to lower the price of the fuel you buy.
– Finding the cheapest fuel where you live and drive.
A large amount of service stations in Australia are controlled by the supermarkets Coles and Woolworths. They introduced some years ago fuel discount vouchers and it was an immediate success. If you go buy your groceries with them and spend currently a minimum of $30, they will give you 4c off your fuel at their service stations (sometimes this might be higher)
1. Woolworths
Do your shopping at Woolies and you can get a discount off your fuel at Caltex and Woolworths Caltex. These will soon start to be renamed Ampol service stations, but it’s just a name change, the discount will still apply. You can get the discount on your docket, or use your Woolies Everyday Rewards card and the discounts will be saved to the card.
2. Coles
Do your shopping at Coles and you can get a discount off your fuel at Shell. You can get the discount on your docket, or use your Coles FlyBuys card and the discounts will be saved to the card.
7-Eleven bought out Mobil service stations a number of years ago and started expanding. 7-Eleven don’t have a supermarket behind them, so they have chosen a different route, and it’s the one I currently use most of the time. They use an app on your phone and it does a check of all the 7-Elevens in the area and allows you to lock in the lowest price out of all of them. Lock the cheapest price in (valid for the next 7 days), scan the app when you go to pay for your fuel and instant savings. The app will even tell you how much you saved. Where I live, I find that buying my fuel at the 7-Eleven this way is normally at least 1 or 2 cents cheaper than the Woolies or Coles discount fuel.
Download the My 7-Eleven app for your Apple or Android phone.
There are many apps out there for Australian service stations that keep a track of fuel prices, so you can find the cheapest fuel near you or where you drive. These are free to use (though some might have advertising on the screen).
Some apps are crowdsourced, ie, members of the public update the app with fuel prices that they know of. These are good, but are not real time, so when you get to the servo with cheap fuel, the price might have already changed. Other apps rely on databases of official service station prices. NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have the best options, as their governments maintain mandatory fuel price databases. If the service stations change their prices on their pumps, they must update the database, so it’s very accurate. NSW has an official government app which is good, other states let other apps use their data. If you want to read more about it, check out Choice Magazines fuel app reviews.
Here’s a few to check out:
1. NSW Fuel Check. The official government app. It’s great, but only for NSW
2. Petrol Spy.
3. Fuel Map Australia (Android) or Fuel Map Australia (Apple)
