BillShrink helps you find cheap gas on your way to work
BillShrink is a web service that helps you find ways to save money in various areas of your life. And the company keeps adding new features. At launch, BillShrink allowed you to find the best cellphone plan for your needs. Then came credit cards. Now you can use BillShrink to find cheap gas from stations near your daily commute.
When you click the Gas Prices button BillShrink will ask you to enter your home and work addresses and the make and model of your vehicle. Armed with information about your commute and your car's gas mileage, the service will search for the prices of gas at area gas stations and determine whether it's worth driving out of your way to fill up your tank.
You can also filter results by gas station brand, or amenities like ATMs, 24 hour gas stations, or stations that accept credit cards.
[via TechCrunch]
When you click the Gas Prices button BillShrink will ask you to enter your home and work addresses and the make and model of your vehicle. Armed with information about your commute and your car's gas mileage, the service will search for the prices of gas at area gas stations and determine whether it's worth driving out of your way to fill up your tank.
You can also filter results by gas station brand, or amenities like ATMs, 24 hour gas stations, or stations that accept credit cards.
[via TechCrunch]













Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsTaylor. Yes, Taylor.Mar 24th 2009 6:28PM
I've always wanted google maps to be able to find things along a route! Sometimes I'm on a road trip and i just need to find a store at some point before i get to my destination, but i can only search near me, not near my entire route, so i get search results that would take me far off my path, when it may be that in 20 miles, there is a store right next to my route. It would be a REALLY nice feature that i've been wanting for years! Google do it!
-Taylor
Martin-TMar 24th 2009 11:12PM
The gas is cheaper on the other side of the bridge. Go Mets!
radman1331Mar 25th 2009 8:13AM
It doesn't work.
For a 1.53 mile detour, they say the extra cost would be 1 cent per gallon.
if my car gets 21 mpg, then the cost of a gallon of gas would be less then 21 cents.
radman1331Mar 25th 2009 8:13AM
Fuzzy math. It works. I drive lets say 1 mile off. when I fill up the tank, that's when i apply the cost. not per mile. So it ends up costing me like 21 cents per tank.
It's still 1/21 * $2
donkey shotMar 25th 2009 12:03PM
It sorta doesn't really work. It told me that there was a gas station a 1/3 mile past my destination with gas at $2.47/gal. I have 2 problems with this: One, it ignores the fact that I might need gas on the way to work, and two, it ignored the station (Citgo) less than one block from my departure point, that sells the same grade at $2.34. Paying an extra $1.70 for a fill-up is not exactly a savings. It depends, I think, too heavily on end-user reports, and that means a lot of smaller, rural stations are overlooked.
DylanMar 31st 2009 6:39PM
Brad, credit goes where credit is due: it is unarguably a good idea to try and help people save on gas expenses. The primary problem is not with Billshrink's latest application (although there are other online tools that accomplish roughly the same thing with less hassle). No, the issue is with Billshrink itself. BillShrink makes its money from commissions earned and paid out by cell phone companies for having switched consumers onto other wireless plans. How are we supposed to trust a company that works for the cell providers rather than for the customer? Additionally, BillShrink requires the login and password information for the customer's online wireless account which is a flagrant violation of many of the cell providers' terms of use, particularly Verizon.
In contrast, the online cell bill reduction company that I work for, Validas, offers a far more comprehensive and effective way to save through our website at http://www.fixmycellbill.com. Our modifications to your plan are uniquely structured around your individual usage patterns; Validas works for you rather than the cell companies. Additionally, Validas tells you exactly how much money our changes to your plan would save you before you are committed to paying a cent. Compare your projected savings to the cost of the Validas service, and then only pay if Validas can save you more than our fees cost. Our cell bill audits start at five bucks, and the average consumer saves $450 annually with our bill modifications. Check out Validas on Good Morning America at http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6887412&page=1.
Dylan