It’s been a real slow day in blogger land today, very few of the blogs I read have been updated today. Everyone must be getting an early start on the holiday weekend. I, on the other hand, have nothing planned really and am stuck at work until around five. I’m sort of glad that I’m not traveling though with gas prices the way they are. I filled up the Jetta after work yesterday and it almost cost me $40! If I would have waited until today it definitely would have cost me over $40. The price jumped from $3.05 after work to $3.19 on my way into work. I never really paid attention to prices that much before, but that has changed.

I’ve been looking at all of those new websites out there designed to save you money at the pump. The first was GasBuddy.com which will redirect you to another site with information specific to your area, for me it’s MissouriGasPrices.com. I’ve already registered and have started entering prices for stations on my route to work and also starting using their fuel logbook, which is used to track your fill-ups.

The next site I visited was GasPriceWatch.com. I attempted to register to be a “spotter” but haven’t got the confirmation email yet. Although this site doesn’t seem to be very user friendly, there is tons of data. With a little work this could easily be the best site out there for this use. The ‘My Route’ section would be reason enough, but of course it is not yet functional.

The last site I found was mywikimap.com, which is targeted at more than just gas prices, although this is their focus right now. It’s a combination of google maps and user submissions for gas prices. It is easy to see where the cheapest gas would be on your route home, now they just need to get more data on there. For me all the reports were in Overland Park and were days old.

I’m not sure if any of these sites will really ever catch on, but with the way prices are rising right now, I wouldn’t be surprised.