I know that doesn’t exactly sound like a sane thing to do - lock in gas prices at over $4 a gallon. Like me, you are probably hoping there are going to go back soon. But with many financial analysts thinking that gas prices will soon hit at least $5 a gallon, if you could do this you would save some great money. But how would you even do that? 

Well there is a new online company called MyGallons.com that lets you do this very thing and claims to save you good money! So I thought I would check them out and offer my opinion on them…

So whats the scoop on this service that MyGallons offer? Well, basically you prepay online as much gas you want at today’s price by using their MyGallons gas card. Then when you go to any gas station, you use your gas card to pay for gas at the (hopefully cheaper) price you just locked in, no matter what the gas station charges, or how much gas prices have gone up. Therefore, the more gallons you buy at once, the more you save. Simple as that.

However, before you go jump all over this, there a few drawbacks. Firstly, there is a $29.95 per year membership fee. Which is fair enough I guess, as the company needs to make money from it somehow. But another kicker is that they charge you $1.95 each time you reload your card. So, unless you pay for hundreds of gallons of gas upfront, you probably won’t save too much. Even one of there examples is a little far fetched (see image to side) - if you were to pay for a full years gas in advance (15,000 miles worth), and your car does 20 miles per gallon, then you would save $530 for the year. But in this example, 15,000 gallons at $4 a gallon would cost you $3000. Who really has that kind of money lying around to spend on gas up front? There are way better ways to invest your money, like opening up a roth IRA.

Still, I guess if you have a gas guzzler SUV or truck, and drive a lot of miles a year, then MyGallons might be worthwhile. And its probably good for pessimists who think gas is going to up even more. And at least if gas prices go back down, you can get a refund on your gas purchase, and if you don’t save money on your gas fillups, then they will refund your membership fee too. Here is the full scoop on how this service works.

Overall rating from me: C+ Not as good as it sounds in theory, and it may catch people out with their fees, and relies on gas prices increasing further, but it offers great savings if you have a ford F-450 and do a lot of hauling!

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