$2.11 and 9/10 cents per Gallon?
Although I have thought about the absurdity of this before, today I thought about it again when I was filling up at my local gas station. Much to your surprise, I'm not talking about the outrageous price of $2.11 per gallon of gasoline (although that price may be a steal compared to where you live). My line of inquiry today revolves around the deceptive 9/10 of a cent per gallon "extra" that we pay at the pump. What again is the purpose of this? Does it really make a difference? It does seem to trick a lot of people into thinking, for example, that they are indeed paying $2.11 per gallon instead of rounding up to $2.12. You may not think this matters much, but here I will do some mathematical wizadry to show you that it does matter.
We will use my local gas station prices for this example, and also assume that this price remains static. I have a 2003 Dodge Neon with a 47 liter gas tank (47 liters = 12.4 gallons). Let's be conservative and assume I fill my tank to 12 gallons, once per week (I live very close to my place of employment). At $2.11 per gallon, every week I would pay $25.32 in gas. However, at $2.11 and 9/10 of a cent per gallon, I would pay $25.43 per week in gas. Thus I pay 11 cents more than I thought I would every single time I fill my gas tank, if I ignore the extra 9/10 of a cent like most people do. That's an extra $5.72 per year. Sure, that does not seem that much at first, however after 50 years of driving, that adds up to $286.00, just from that freaking extra 9/10 of a cent! You can tack on more to that sum total if you fill up more than just 12 gallons per week (which most of you probably do).
We will use my local gas station prices for this example, and also assume that this price remains static. I have a 2003 Dodge Neon with a 47 liter gas tank (47 liters = 12.4 gallons). Let's be conservative and assume I fill my tank to 12 gallons, once per week (I live very close to my place of employment). At $2.11 per gallon, every week I would pay $25.32 in gas. However, at $2.11 and 9/10 of a cent per gallon, I would pay $25.43 per week in gas. Thus I pay 11 cents more than I thought I would every single time I fill my gas tank, if I ignore the extra 9/10 of a cent like most people do. That's an extra $5.72 per year. Sure, that does not seem that much at first, however after 50 years of driving, that adds up to $286.00, just from that freaking extra 9/10 of a cent! You can tack on more to that sum total if you fill up more than just 12 gallons per week (which most of you probably do).
Maybe you're not impressed with this at all. But think about how the extra 9/10 of a cent per gallon affects the entire population of vehicles in the United States alone (an estimated 203 million). If all of these cars are operational, yet conservative as me (thus only being filled with 12 gallons of gasoline per week), then the total of all of these vehicles would pay an "extra" $1.16 billion per year if, for example, they are paying $2.11 and 9/10 of a cent per gallon as opposed to simply paying $2.11 per gallon (of course the actual price of the gas makes no difference in this calculation).
This proves a simple point that for a commodity such as gas, which we continue to consume daily for most of our lives, the extra 9/10 of a cent per gallon which nobody pays attention to adds up to quite a deal of money in the long run!
This proves a simple point that for a commodity such as gas, which we continue to consume daily for most of our lives, the extra 9/10 of a cent per gallon which nobody pays attention to adds up to quite a deal of money in the long run!
posted by J-Mart @ 5:38 PM
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