petrolprices.com

If you have a car, how often do you fill up with fuel, and when you have done so, drive on for a few more miles, and find out that the next petrol station is selling fuel cheaper? It could be selling fuel by 2 or 3 pence cheaper a litre. At first it doesn't sound a lot, but if you fill up with say 50 litres, it could mean that you have spent an extra £1 or £1.50 which you did not have to. Taking it a step further, assuming you do this at least once a week, then this could cost you an extra £50 to £75 per year. I don't know about you, but I could use that money in other ways, rather than lining somebody pockets with my hard earnt money. When you have filled up at an expensive petrol station and then find just round the corner a cheaper one, you can just imagine the expensive station owner smirking away.

Petrolprices.com is an excellent web site, which is easy to follow and completely free. I first became aware of it in a motoring magazine (AutoExpress I believe) about a year ago, and when my car needs filling, I simply log onto the site and see what petrol stations on my daily commute are offering the cheapest fuel on that particular day and fill up there. No longer do I feel as if the more expensive petrol stations are laughing at me. I've even saved the site on my computer desktop for easy access.

If you don't register your details on the site, it still has lots of useful information which can save you money and will make you think. If you don't register, you simply put in your post code, and it will search it's database and tell you the highest price for unleaded, diesel, LRP, Super, LPG within a 10 mile area, as well as the average price in the area and the lowest price in the area. When I did a search on my postcode, there was a price variance of 7 pence per litre, and assuming that I fill up my car with 50 litres, that would be a price difference of £3.50 just for one tank of fuel.

If you decide to register your details, membership is free and as far as I am aware it covers all or most of all UK petrol stations, with over 8000 daily updates, enables you to view the petrol stations plotted on an easy map, gives you the option of having regular price updates sent to you by email and all this for no charges or fees. When you locate your garages, it also gives you a map of where to find the stations and how far they are away from your postcode that you have put into the system.

You can even win a free tank of fuel if you apply for the websites sticker and display it on your car.

The website is easy to understand and navigate, and comes with quite a few extra features and information, which may make you save even more money.

Under it's Motoring Information section, further information can be found on car insurance, breakdown, car warranties, car parking, personalised plates and getting more miles to the gallon out of your vehicle.

Under the car insurance section they compare quotes from popular car insurance companies, and they do a similar exercise under the breakdown section.

They also have a fuel info section which is further broken down into fuel companies (which gives you more information about the fuel giants e.g. Esso, Shell, B.P), Fuel Tax (which gives you information about how much tax you pay), Fuel types (where they explain the difference between unleaded and super unleaded and what an octane rating means), and finally a section giving a simple breakdown of who gets the money you pay for a litre of fuel.

Did you know for example, if a litre of fuel is 95.1p, you pay 63.7 to the taxman. Or, as an example, if a litre of petrol costs 90p, it would be split as follows: - Fuel cost itself 23.2p, duty 47.1p, VAT 13.4P, Retailer/Delivery 6.3p. So the big money is going to the government, with only a small margin actually going to the petrol station.

It also has an environmentally friendly section, which can help you become greener and talks about cycling to work schemes and how you can save money and get tax-free benefits, also talks about lift share schemes to save money, cut pollution, and cut congestion, and has a handy guide for green car buyers.