Gas prices make it cool to be a numbers geek

Gas prices make it cool to be a numbers geek

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 06.12.2007
By spending 42 cents Monday morning, I could’ve saved you $1.08 on your next 12-gallon tank of gas.
That’s because I found gas at $2.889 yesterday morning, nearly nine cents lower than the average in our area. That makes that extra 4.4 miles and 14 minutes on my way to work worthwhile. It would be especially comforting if all 84,500 readers got a better price on gas, since they’d save a combined $94,500.
It’s all in a day’s work for the http://www.limaohio.com/gasprices team and math geeks like me.
Like everyone else with a car, I found myself paying a lot more attention to gas prices these days. It was hard not to, especially when prices crept near $3.50 for several days.
I quickly added gas-price tracker for our Web site onto my list of things to do each day, and it gave my inner dork room to run.
Using the fastest, most direct route to work, I only pass four gas stations on my 23-mile trek from Ottawa to Lima each day. With a little bit of research, I added those 4.4 miles, those 14 minutes and another 12 gas stations to my list. And it’s truly a list, printed out each week with neat little boxes for those 16 gas stations I pass each day.
It’s really my dream job. Deep down inside, I’m a numbers geek. While most of my journalism brethren disdain math, I enjoy it. I open up Microsoft Excel on my computer before loading Word on most workdays.
I’m half convinced I spent the first eight years of my journalism career in sports simply because I enjoyed adding up rushing yards in my head during football games.
I even spent a few minutes trying to work up a formula for happiness in our family’s home. I tried to think of an inverse proportion of hours worked to number of compliments given to my wife, multiplied by the number of times our daughter shot root beer out her nose because she laughed so hard.
I couldn’t find one that worked until I found this mathematical truth: My wife’s happiness equals everybody’s happiness.
I think there’s a certain degree of math geek in most of us. As soon as we learn what greater than and less than mean, finding a bargain consumes us. Most of us will drive the extra half mile to get gas from a cheaper gas station.
That’s why so many people wonder aloud if it’s worth their while to drive to Beaverdam to save 10 cents per gallon of gas.
The answer, at current gas prices, is maybe. At the roughly 30 miles to the gallon the ol’ Sebring gets, it’s worthwhile for nine cents or more. If you have a gas-guzzler, such as my wife’s Jeep and its 20 miles to the gallon, it’d have to be 13 cents cheaper per gallon.
I warned you I was a math geek deep down inside.
It all makes me wonder why we fixate on gas prices so much. Consider my other preferred fuel, Dr Pepper.
After a little number crunching, I realized I spent $8 per gallon for Dr Pepper at the office. It was the same whether I bought 12-ounce cans or 20-ounce bottles. If I buy it in 2-liter bottles, the price drops to $4.73 per gallon. Or I can get it for a mere $4.26 per gallon by buying it in six-packs of 24-ounce bottles.
It appears milk might be the most efficient way for me to get around. I can get that for $2.59 per gallon. Something tells me most people don’t comparison shop on milk, though. When I called Wal-Mart, the woman laughed at the bizarre question before answering it.
It all offers perspective. With nearly any product, people will pay what it’s worth to them. Whether it’s $2.889 a gallon for gas, $2.59 a gallon for milk or $4.26 a gallon for Dr Pepper, you’ll buy it if you think you need it.
Occasionally you’ll reduce your consumption, but that’s the exception to the rule. You’ll pay whatever they ask for it. You can count on that.
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