A couple of ideas to save on gas money;

1) You can save on gas money by using a Hess gas card, 10% for the first 3 months and 5% there after. The link is:
http://creditcard.chase.com/cgi-bin/webcgi/webserve.cgi?partner_dir_name=hess_ch01&page=cont&mkid=6GBJ&msc=Z0004439

2) I got this in an E-mail from an acquaintance

Reduce the price of gas.
Don't buy Mobil or Exxon to bring down gas prices of all oil companies.
See below.

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work
PLEASE READ TO END

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came
From one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a
gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?
We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth
offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day"
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies
just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt"
ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably
thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It
is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon ofgas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up
more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How?
Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we
CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two
biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not
selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon
and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out
at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to
reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at
Least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each,then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE
HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If
you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to
do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't
a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to
ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people
could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you,
please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from
EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Sorry to burst the bubble here... BUT the above "plan" is something that has been circulating on the internet for about 20 years now. If you research it you'll see some exactly the same posts dating back to 1987... It doesn't work...
The reason it doesn't work is that the big companies you're hoping to put out of business or cause to lower their prices own or have their fingers in a majority of the gas markets. If we don't buy from them, we buy more from the little companies. The little companies don't have the supply to fill all our tanks, therefore they in turn buy from the big guys to fill their reserves... Not only do the big companies now profit just as much, but the little guy jacks up his prices to cover the extra costs he incurred by buying from the big dogs.
Its a no win situation. The only way for us to fight it is to buy vehicles with better gas mileage and/or push for electric vehicles... But a lot of us, myself included, need the big trucks for our businesses.
I'm not just stating my opinion here... I recently read in a money report about this "gas plan" and that's where I saw the proof of it being around so long and why it doesn't work.
Sorry guys...

I don't mean to rain on someone's parade here and I'm no economist but...by not buying your gas from Mobile/Exxon, more demand is placed on the remaining distributors. Higher demand equates to higher price, and if the remaining distributors are unable to fill this shift in demand, they most likely will have to purchase additional supplies from Exxon/Mobile, passing that expense on to us as consumers. I believe the key here is to reduce overal demand and allowing us to get @ the oil we have in our own country. It's not going to be easy or convenient. Global demand (China's bourgeoning economy for example) is only going to grow creating more strain on foriegn supply chains. Your plan to get 3+ million to change their behavior is a noble one and would be wonderfull if it works (I'll forward the message to people I know) but I think efforts towards reducing the tax per gallon, reliance on foriegn supply, and alternative energy would have a more lasting impact. Just my $.02..........now let's get fishing!!!!!!!!!

Too late...

It will take years for this to ever evolved into something effective. Think about it, there are so many gas guzzling suvs, trucks, and cars out there right now. The demand from the boating and rv community is kind of small in perspective but does force all of us to buy tow vehcles to pull them plus the gas they burn on their own. So in short, those vehcles whether we own them or we sell them off are still going to demand fuel from them until they end up in a bone yard.

Who is to blame? Everyone! The car companies for producing these vehicles, us for wanting them and creating the demand, gas companies for.. well, screwing us, and the goverment for not having enough foresight and responsiblity to pass laws to both auto makers and gas companies to prevent the crisis that we are near. As for alternative fuels that oil companies burned us there as they kept gas cheaper over the years which has allowed a market to grow in demand instead of become more managable.

My question is what affect do you think this will have in regard to boating? Especially now that they are mixing junk (ethanol) into our fuels which is bad for our boat motors that are not ready for them.

What would be nice is for auto makers to create an electric tow vehicle. Something that still has an 8 cyl. gas engine but only runs all cyl. when towing. I think GM were working on this but have not heard about it for a while.

As for those looking to save money using gas cards, there is a rewards plus card from Chase that is pretty good and gives you 5% cash back for fuel, pharmacy purchases, and supermarkets.

OK, I will step down from the soap box now. :)

Brian

when is someone going to come up with one of those converters to let a BOAT run on corn or vegetable oil??