Tips on Saving Money at the Gas Pump

With gas expected to reach $5 per gallon by summer, these tips that I received from a friend might come in handy.

TIPS ON PUMPING GAS
I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are paying up to $3.75 to $4.10 per gallon. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon:

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day its diesel, the next day its jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)...and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If It goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Why is Obama at Home Depot? To get cash for caulkers going.

Why is Obama at Home Depot? To get cash for caulkers going.

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Getting a Handle on Utility Cost

As I mentioned in my last post, utilities can really play havoc with a resorts budget. However, there are number of things management can do, to keep them under control.. Last time I mentioned electrical concerns. Well, water consumption is an other area that needs to be monitored. We all want our resorts to look like a paradise, with lots of foliage and blooming flowers. Well, this takes quite a bit of irrigation, to keep it looking lush.. However, these irrigation systems need to be monitored, so they don't waste one of our most precious resource, water. I reviewed our water bills a couple of months ago, and almost fell out of my desk chair. We had a single water meter that was directly connected to our irrigation system, that irrigated one half of our resort.. For a one month period, that one single meter, recorded a cost of over $4000.00 to irrigate only one half of our resort.. Come to find out, the timers were set to water for one hour, every day.. After speaking to a number of nursery personal, we found out, it was not necessary to water for an hour a day, it was only necessary to water for 10 to 15 minutes twice a week.. So, again, its just a matter of monitoring, and being familiar with the operation of various system, and their needs.

Save Money by Going Green

In the Timeshare industries, management is always looking for ways to save on operating cost. In doing so, it can help keep down maintenance fee's. As a member of a Board of Directors of a Timeshare in Miami Beach, Fl., there are a number of things we have done to reduce our utility bills. In the area of electric bills, we replaced every incandescent light bulb in the resort, with the new energy saving CFL florescent bulbs. We have also installed digital thermostats, that have a lock out feature, that keeps the maids from using the air conditioning to dry the floors, after they mop them, and then forget to go back and adjust the thermostat, back to the proper setting. I hope this will help keep down your overhead. Because with the constant increases in utilities, this is an area of the operation of our resorts, that is in our control. Then hopefully we are able to stabilize maintenance fees!!!