As most of you know, I do a lot of my grocery shopping at Albertson's. When combining the sales and coupons, I save a ton of money and rarely shop at Wal-mart any longer. (As you can guess, this does not disappoint me!) When Albertson's implemented their fuel incentive program, it sounded interesting but to be honest, I really didn't pay much attention because even though I do almost all my shopping at Albertson's, I don't spend all that much money and the gas rewards program earns you gas credits for every $50 you spend...or so I thought.

Well, when my friend Elisa told me she got $.75 off a gallon when she purchased fuel at Albertson's, I got really excited. Turns out, Albertson's rewards fuel credits based on your purchase before coupons. I earn $.05 off each gallon of fuel for every qualifying $50 purchase, even when I spend a lot less. For example, on one of my Albertson's receipts I bought a total of $55.40 worth of groceries. Therefore, I earned my $.05 credit. However, my total out of pocket amount was only $3.24! Now that is something to pay attention to!

If you don't use your $.05 off each gallon right away it is okay because they accumulate each time you shop. So, when my fuel gauge hit E, I drove down to Albertson's and got $.65 off each gallon of gas I purchased. I bought a little over 15 gallons of fuel for a whopping $16.50!

One thing to note, when you decide to use your fuel rewards, you can use the discount on up to 20 gallons of fuel. However, after you've chosen to use your fuel rewards your balance is reset to zero even if you don't buy all 20 gallons. So, if you only purchase one gallon of fuel using your rewards, your balance goes back to zero even though you could have purchased an additional 19 gallons at the discounted rate. My advice, wait until your gas tank is nearing empty before stopping for fuel to get the most for your money.

Also, your fuel rewards are stored on your preferred card. So, be sure to use your preferred card each time you shop and when you go to purchase your cheap gas!