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

On this page:

• The Bottom Line
• Description of the test scenario
• Highlights of the test
• Table showing day-to-day events

The Bottom Line of the Test

Our subscriber paid $$1,124.95 for gas since 11/7/2008*. Our control driver paid $$1,130.53. Our subscriber is ending the test with 12 gallons of gas in his tank, and the control driver's tank contains 10. The extra 2 gallons in the subscriber's tank is worth $5.14. Subtracting that from the amount he spent for gas means that he spent $10.72 less than the control driver did.

Following our recommendations would save you $10.72 per year, or $6.13 (**) more than the cost of a one-year subscription to the Gas Predictor Newsletter.

* Our original test, published on the occasion of our 100th prediction, included data from the time we were publishing our forecasts on the Web only, before we began publishing the Gas Predictor newsletter. In order to keep the first parts of the test identical to the results we previously published, this 1-year test begins before the first publication date of the Gas Predictor newsletter.

** Savings based on the annual subscription price for any local edition of the Gas Predictor Newsletter. The National Edition is free

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 November 6, 2008.

As mentioned in the note above, the test scenario begins on November 7, 2008, because that is when our first iteration of this test began. We published those first results on the occasion of our 100th prediction on April 3, 2009, even though we had not yet been publishing those predictions in the form of an e-mail newsletter for 100 business days. We could simply have reset the test to begin on November 18, 1008, when we published our first e-mail version of our preditions, but that would have caused a discrepancy between what we're reporting now and what we had reported in April. Rather than be accused of cheating, we simply ran this national test for the full period, even though it is actually more than a year.

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 Predictor.

On November 7, our "subscriber" begins receiving his National 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 Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) 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 National Gas Predictor Newsletter, the price of gas used is the average of the prices we use in formulating our nationwide gas price prediction. These are the second-lowest prices for unleaded regular gasoline in each of the twelve cities we monitor. No city actually had these prices for gas, this is just an average among the twelve cities.

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Highlights of the Test

Note: Highlights occurring before April 3, 2009 are listed in our 100th issue summary.

• April 17 - July 1: During a long period of increasing prices, our subscriber buys two gallons of gas each business day. While both the subscriber and the control driver begin this period with 10 gallons in their tanks and end with 14 gallons (after their end-of-day fill-up), our subscriber has spent $251.33 on gas while the control driver spent $254.27.
• July 14: During a long period of declining prices, our subscriber is forced to buy 4 gallons of gas against our recommendation. However, by sticking with us as much as possible, he is able to fill up again near the bottom of this dip in prices.
• August 14: This is the day our national forecast was incorrect. On our recommendation, our subscriber topped off with two gallons of gas, paying 1.4 cents per gallon more than he would have paid if we had correctly recommended to hold off and buy gas the next day.
• September 8: Our subscriber fills up with 12 gallons just before a 2.2 cent rise in average gas prices. The next day, the control driver also buys 12 gallons, paying 26 cents more than the subscriber paid.
• September 15: Our subscriber fills up with 10 gallons just before a 1.7 cent rise in average gas prices. This saves him about 17 cents on this partial fill-up.
• September 30: Our subscriber fills up with 12 gallons just before a 1.6 cent rise in average gas prices. This saves him about 22 cents on this fill-up.
• October 5: By coincidence, the control driver buys 12 gallons of gas near the bottom of a multi-day dip in prices. He pays 50 cents less than he paid the last time he filled up. Nevertheless, three days later, our subscriber fills up at the exact bottom of this price dip, saving an additional 14 cents.

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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 average of all second-lowest gas prices in all twelve cities that go into our national forecast? 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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