I haven’t seen gas that cheap since the Carter administration

Our local supermarket chain, Price Chopper, has been running a promotion this summer in combination with Sunoco.  The more you spend, the greater the discount will be on your next gas fill up.

This is how it works: For every $50 you spend, you earn 10¢ off per gallon of gas on the next fill up.  The nice thing is that they track all that you are spending.  If you spend $75.00, you get a 10¢ discount on the first $50.00 that you spent, plus you have $25.00 towards the next discount level.  When you get the fill up, the discount maxes out at 20 gallons, so you can’t take your fleet of Brunomobiles and fill them up in one shot.  But it can add up.  If you are paying by credit card, you just have to swipe your AdvantEdge card before you start pumping gas.  If you pay by cash, you just let them swipe the card at the time of payment.

I had been racking up the discount points this summer without paying too much attention to it.  A couple of weeks ago, I stopped into Price Chopper and bought some ice for a party. My current discount was printed on the receipt and it was $2.20 per gallon.  Some of the discount was due to expire at the end of the month, so it was time to cash in.  The discounts expire two months after they are earned, so it was use it or lose it.

The Stewart’s near my house sells Sunoco gas and the receipt here shows how much I paid to fill up my tank.  I paid 59.9¢ a gallon.  I paid a little bit over $8 to fill up a car.  That was just stunning.  That price takes us back to the year 1977.  On a side note: if you factor in the inflation rate, that price in 1977 is not that far off from what we are paying today.

Now I’m back to 0 on the discount, but since we usually buy all of our groceries at Price Chopper, it shouldn’t take too long to get that discount back up.  I don’t know how long they will be running this promotion, but it’s a pretty good one.