How GasPredictor.com's Chicago Gas Predictor Newsletter Saves You Money

On this page:

• The Bottom Line
• Description of the test scenario
• Highlights of the test
• Why can't we save money in Chicago?
• Table showing day-to-day events

The Bottom Line of the Test

Our subscriber paid $77.20 for gas since 3/9/2009. Our control driver paid $73.04. Our subscriber is ending the test with two more gallons of gas in his tank than the control driver has. The extra 2 gallons in the subscriber's tank is worth $4.28. Subtracting that from the amount he spent for gas means that he spent $0.12 less than the control driver did. Extrapolating this savings over a full year (252 business days) yields an annual savings of $1.59.

Following our recommendations would save you $1.59 per year, or $3.00 (*) less than the cost of a one-year subscription to the Gas Predictor Newsletter.

* Based on the current regular subscription price of $4.59. Save even more in April, at $3.99.

Although there is a net cost, this is a temporary fluke, which might well average out over the course of a whole year, as it did in the other cities for which we publish our predictions. In Chicago, it just happened that prices have been rising ever since we began forecasting, so there was no opportunity to save money, as described in more detail below. We're sure it will work its way out, and you'll be saving money in Chicago using our predictions, just like everywhere else.

And as a bonus, you get to smirk when you see the price go up and you knew it was going to go up. No extra charge.

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Description of the Test Scenario

This test compares two hypothetical drivers, the "subscriber" and the "control driver." Each has a car with a 14 gallon tank, each uses exactly two gallons of gasoline every business day, and each has just filled his tank the evening of March 8, 2009.

Our "control driver" does not subscribe to the Gas Predictor Newsletter. He simply leaves his gasoline budget to chance. He fills his tank whenever he gets home from work with only two gallons in the tank. Thus, he buys 12 gallons of gas every sixth business day, without regard to the cost. This represents the way most people buy gas, and shows how much a hypothetical driver would pay for gas without the benefit of our Gas Preditor.

On March 9, our "subscriber" begins receiving his Chicago Gas Predictor Newsletter by e-mail. Each night, he tries to follow our recommendations, even though he can not always do so. If we recommend buying gas that day, he fills his tank, even if he just filled it the night before. If we recommend holding off and buying gas the next day, he does not buy any gas unless his tank is absolutely empty. If his tank is empty, he buys four gallons of gas, to get him through the next couple of days, and yet leave enough room in his tank that he can take advantage of any buying opportunity that our newsletter recommends.

We recognize, of course, that this test is not quite realistic in several ways. For one thing, nobody uses exactly two gallons of gas every single day. And nobody drives their car only to work, not driving at all on non-business days. Nobody has off every day that the NYMEX commodity exchange is closed. Nobody buys gas by the gallon, instead rounding up to the next dollar or otherwise easy amount of money to enter in their checkbook (or to make change, if they're paying in cash). And even though our predictions are perfectly wonderful, we're sure none of our subscribers would bother to buy just two gallons of gas because we recommended it. (No, even we don't do that.) However, we had to come up with fixed, simple rules in order to make the test a fair comparison between using our predictions and not using them.

For this test of the Chicago Gas Predictor Newsletter, the price of gas used is the second-lowest price for unleaded regular gasoline in the Chicago area at about 4:00 PM Central.

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Highlights of the Test

• March 25: The largest single-day price increase we have ever recorded in any city for which we publish predictions. By coincidence, our control driver missed this, buying a full tank of gas the day before.

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Why Can't We Save Money in Chicago?

By unfortunate coincidence, every single day since we began publishing our Chicago Gas Predictor Newsletter, we have predicted rising prices in Chicago. Our hypothetical test driver, therefore, has bought two gallons of gas on each of the past 19 business days. He has had no opportunity to save money, because gas prices have never declined in Chicago in all that time, not one day. (Note that gas prices have not increased every single day, but they have either increased or remained the same. They never declined.)

Yet even with that, our hypothetical driver did manage to save a little bit of money. This is mostly because he ended the test with two more gallons of price-inflated gas in his tank than did the hypothetical control driver.

You might compare this situation to one in which you are relying on the weatherman to tell you when it's a good day to go to the beach. If the weatherman predicts rain every day, and it does indeed rain every day, the weatherman is not failing to tell you when it's a good day to go to the beach. It's just that there has not been a good day to go to the beach. As soon as you get a few sunny days, you'll appreciate the weatherman's good work, just as you will save money with our Gas Predictor as soon as we get a chance to tell you that prices are going to fall.

By coincidence, our hypothetical control driver had a nearly full tank on the day of the price "pop," when the retail price of gas in Chicago rose 13 cents in one day. If he had to buy a full tank on that day, our test driver would have saved even more. But, we didn't muck with the test scenario. We made up the rules before we knew what the result would be, and we can not, in good conscience, massage the scenario to improve our results. They are what they are.

We are supremely confident that as time goes by, there will be some fluctuations in retail prices in Chicago which will allow our hypothetical driver to save money, just as in the national average case and in the cases of the other four cities.

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Table of Day-to-Day Events in the Test

Key

• Date - The date we issued this prediction, pertaining to the next business day.
• Buy Today? - Did we recommend buying gas that day ("yes"), or waiting to buy gas the next day ("no")?
• Avg. Price - What was the second-lowest gas price in Chicago? This is the price on the date given, not the predicted price for the next day.
• Sub. Gas in Tank - How much gas did our subscriber have in his tank at the end of that day, when he received his Gas Predictor newsletter?
• Sub. Bought - How much gas did our subscriber buy that day, whether we recommended it or not?
• Sub. Paid - How much did our subscriber pay for the gas he bought that day?
• Ctl. Gas in Tank - How much gas did our control driver have in his tank at the end of that day?
• Ctl. Bought - How much gas did our control driver buy that day?
• Ctl. Paid - How much did our control driver pay for the gas he bought that day?

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