Find the cheapest fuel prices to you before you fill up

The cost of petrol is one of the biggest burdens for households especially when prices climb. So how do you find the cheapest petrol closest to you?

The cost of petrol is one of the biggest burdens for households, especially when prices climb.

And nothing infuriates drivers more than going to fill up and prices have suddenly soared.

I’ve taken particular notice of fuel prices in recent months, because it’s seems to be getting more expensive to fill up.

I realised I needed to cut my costs and make sure I wasn’t getting gouged at the bowser.

So I downloaded a free app on my phone, FuelMap, and I’ve got to say in the few months since I started using it I’ve saved myself a packet.

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Now this isn’t a plug for the app. It’s merely to help other like-minded people wanting to save at the bowser know how easy it is to do.

It’s difficult to be able to pinpoint petrol price cycles and know when is the best time to buy.

Cycles can sometimes run for weeks on end so I’ve given up on trying to work exactly when they start and finish.

There’s plenty of other fuel watch apps out there - include Petrol Spy and MotorMouth - so try a few of them and work out which one is best.

A young woman filling up her car with fuel after using a fuel watch app on her phone.

When I know I need to get a tank of fuel all I do is a quick scroll through in my local area to see which servo is offering the best deal.

The app is a crowdsourced database of petrol stations and fuel prices nationally, so it relies on its users to input petrol prices when they fill up if they have a few spare seconds.

This is the case everywhere except in WA where prices are automatically updated.

Recently petrol in some locations in and around Melbourne was on average about $1.66 a litre.

With a quick scroll online I figured out I could get fuel for $1.40 a litre on my journey to regional Victoria and save myself a small fortune.

For about 40 litres of fuel I saved myself $10.40.

It’s obviously not feasible to circle around suburbs and drive ridiculous distances just to save at the bowser. However, if you know you are filling up, using these apps allows you to quickly find out if you can do this at a cheaper price.

Sometimes it might even involve you going to a servo a few streets further than the closest one just so you can save on filling up.

As for the fuel dockets that get your 4c off, I used to use them religiously but hardly bother with them now. I’m finding fuel at service stations I never had previously visited far cheaper, even when I factored in the 4c off.

So if you haven’t done it already, download one of these free fuel apps onto your phone and use them, because I can almost guarantee you’ll end up saving yourself a small fortune.

@sophieelsworth