When is The Best Day to Buy Gas?

When should you fill up your gas tank? There's a day for that.

Tuesday.

Sometimes Wednesday.

And if someone told you how to get a tank or two of free gasoline every year, you'd listen, right?

Well, here's the "trick," based on hard data.

Federal researchers have found gas prices follow a cyclical pattern in the Midwest, and you're most likely to get hit with more expensive gas on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. (Haven't we always known the oil companies jack up prices ahead of holidays and weekends when more people hit the road, though?)

The average gas price almost always jumps in the second half of the week and then continues to decrease until the next surge. The shading in the figure represents Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and highlights this pattern.

Recent research by YiLi Chien and Paul Morris of the Federal Reserve Bank, in a report called When Should You Buy Gas?, analyzed gas prices from October 2015 to March 2016 using Gas Buddy data. Their review concluded that if you fill your gas tank once a week, on average, you could save $60 a year by gassing up on Tuesday or Wednesday vs. later in the week.

They say gas prices follow a "cyclical saw-tooth pattern," and knowing this pattern could save you enough money to pay for one or two tanks of gas every year.

Local Gas Prices

HOW TO SEARCH FOR LOWEST LOCAL GAS PRICES: Click the magnifying glass icon at the top right corner of the graphic, type in your ZIP code or town and state, then hit return.