For members of this bank gas starts at 89 cents a gallon

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WHAT A FABULOUS IDEA!!

 

May 27, 2006, 10:19PM

For members of this bank, gas starts at 89 cents a gallon

Company lets customers pre-buy their fuel in bulk

 

By P.J. HUFFSTUTTER

Los Angeles Times

 

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ST. CLOUD, MINN. - This Memorial Day weekend, while some motorists are

curtailing vacations because of high gas prices, Christine Blount is gleefully

mapping out all the places she'll go in her 1989 Bronco II.

 

The grocery store. Friends' homes for coffee. Maybe Minneapolis, nearly 70

miles, to see a movie or shop — despite the fact that her vehicle gets 12 miles

to the gallon.

 

 

Because Blount is paying only 89 cents a gallon for gas. She is one of 9,600

members of First Fuel Banks, a family-run business here where customers have

been pre-buying gasoline in bulk on the commodities market for more than two

decades.

 

 

Billed as the only company of its kind in the U.S., members use a debit card

to pump gas at First Fuel's six filling stations in the St. Cloud area and

nearby in Monticello, Minn.

 

 

Nearly 300 of its customers pay less than $1 a gallon. Several thousand who

bought into the system in the past few years are paying less than $2.

 

 

" All my friends thought I was crazy when I spent $500 on fuel back in 1999, "

said Blount, a retired computer-store owner. " Now they're calling me all the

time, asking how they can get in on it. "

 

 

She calls this her " insane cheap " gas, and taps into the reserve only when she

has to take a particularly long trip. Otherwise, she uses a secondary account

she's established that has hundreds of additional gallons, reserved at less than

$2 a gallon.

 

 

" Whenever I have a couple hundred bucks free, I just add more gas to the

account, " Blount said.

 

 

Customers pay $1 to join First Fuel and can lock in a price for future

purchases.

Ever since last summer's hurricanes, business has been booming at First Fuel

Banks.

 

 

" I had one woman come in here right after Hurricane Katrina with a $10,000

check, and insist that she had to buy gas, " said Sara Blaszak, a customer

service worker. " I kept asking her, 'Are you sure? It's $3.27 a gallon. It's

going to drop some.' But she wouldn't budge. We're expecting the same thing to

happen this summer, when the hurricanes hit again. "

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3910285.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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