Life hack: Fuel discounts

Fuel discounts are great but have you ever taken advantage of one, filled up to the amount you wanted, only for the service station attendant to take off the discount, leaving you with an annoying uneven amount?

This might get a bit complicated to explain, but stay with us.

If you want an exact dollar amount of fuel at the discounted price, there’s a simple calculation you can do when you arrive at the bowser.

Example

You want $40 of fuel and the normal price is 133.9 cents per litre, and the 4c off discounted price is 129.9 cents per litre.

Follow these steps to get an exact amount of fuel every time:

1. Get out your phone and go to the calculator app (if you don’t have a smart phone, you can carry a calculator) and enter how much money you want to spend divided by the discounted price in dollars i.e. ’40 ÷ 1.299′
2. The number you end up with is how many litres of fuel you need to put in. In this example, it’s 30.79.
3. So instead of looking at the dollar amount when you’re filling up, look at the litres and fill to that amount.
4. When you go to pay, present your discount card or coupon and the attendant will discount it down to exactly the amount you wanted, i.e. $40.

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