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Originally Posted by spindles
Also, watch petrol prices in your local area - our local petrol station is cheapest on Tuesday and Wednesday, and is most expensive on the weekend (about AUD 10c a litre different from cheapest day to most expensive).
edit = on my 40 litre tank, this saves me about 4 dollars a week - you will have to figure out the price per gallon USD  |
For those of us in the US, there is a great little site that you might not have heard of called
Gas Buddy where people can submit local gas prices. It is updated fairly regularly, so if you are due for a fill-up, check the site, and find the cheapest price that is located somewhere on your trip home. Easy!
Now that Valentine's Day is over, I'll add a tip that is useful following holiday times of the year.
Do all of your shopping for decorations and holiday themed merchandise AFTER the holiday for the next year. Obviously the value of this tip varies with whether you are the kind of person who does a lot of holiday decorating or celebrating. But if you are like most American families, you put out decorations for Halloween, hang the lights for Christmas, put candy and plastic eggs in baskets at Easter, etc. If you wait until the day or the week after any given holiday, you can find some great clearance bargains out there.
For Valentine's Day (an artificial holiday I refuse to celebrate), there are tons of heart shaped cookie and cake pans, candies, sweets, and cards that didn't get goobled up at your local drug store, department store, or grocery. Head down there or give a call and ask them what their clearance price is on the holiday merchandise. 50-75% off is pretty common, but I have even seen some drug stores selling their merchandise and candy at 90% off. Be sure to check with the department stores too, they can have some of the higher end decorations and kitchen items on massive discount. It is a great feeling to be able to lay out your holiday treats on the table for guests with trays that look like they cost $100s when you only paid $10.
Valentine's Day and Halloween are great times to get discounts on candy and sweets. Now what are you going to do with all of that candy! Some of it is themed to the holiday that it came from, others are more commonly packaged. You can save some of it for the next holiday in rotation. Some candy freezes very well, others are prone to freezer burn. Try a couple pieces to find out which work the best for you. If you can successfully freeze away a few bags of candy, you are better off than buying them at the last minute at full retail prices. Non-chocolate candies can have a shelf life of years depending on packaging. You can also use the candies right away in baked goods. Chopped up chocolate bunnies or ghosts substitute equally well for chocolate chips. Or melt down candies for use in recipes that call for milk or dark chocolate.