Brisbane bound

When we came to Brisbane in 2005, my OH is sure he read an article in either the Australian or Courier Mail about people that had bought petrol in advance. It said how people had saved a lot of money by doing so.
I see Caltex do a prepaid card but it looks like you still pay the advertised price whenever you fill up.
We are wondering if you can go in and for example buy $1000 of petrol in advance at the price it is now?
Has anyone heard of this?

ABCDiamond

I've never heard of that myself, and think it very unlikely.

Brisbane bound

Yes, it does sound highly unlikely. It's just my OH is convinced he read it but I have to agree with you.

mulben

Rural Co-Ops in NSW used to do this, BUT the minimum amount started at
10,000 litres. It was purchased ex Singapore through the independent fuel
resellers and delivered in batches of at least 2000 litres.
I have not heard of it being pre bought at the pump

jayr

You can PRE-PAY though (instead of PRE-PURCHASE).

If you buy a car with a novated lease, for example, you will typically package in your annual fuel costs, lets say $2000. Effectively you pay that monthly out of your salary.

You would normally get issued some sort of fuel card, mine is CALTEX. So when I buy fuel I just hand over the card. Any reoncilliation is typically done annually. If I use say $2500 I will get $500 deducted at year end.

While still paying fluctuating petrol prices, I do however get my fuel free of income tax and free of fringe benefits tax; effectively my fuel is from pre-tax income, saving 40% (or whatever your marginal income tax rate is)

ABCDiamond

With petrol at $1.08 today, anyone who had pre-purchased (if they could) 4 months ago at $1.58, would be kicking themselves

Those are actual prices paid by me:
17-Jul-08 1.579
17-Nov-08 1.079

The Bloke

Thought you had different style of pumps for a minute, so used to seeing it displayed like 107.9.

ABCDiamond

Good point, but it's just how I pull it out of excel

jayr

That's the problem with trying to second guess oil prices (or FX prices). People paid huge amounts of money are unable to make money off oil and FX movements. I'll take my chances on the floating rates instead.