What's The Least You Can Recall Ever Paying For Gasoline?

[ThomWV]

What is the least you ever paid for gasoline in the continental US?

Seventeen cents!

For me it was $0.17 per gallon at a station in Bethesda, MD back in 1965. Even back them gas still cost between $0.25 and $0.32 a gallon but there was a small gas-war going on between a couple of stations when I bought my least expensive gas.

[slackmaster]

1. I remember "gas wars" in the mid-1960s

The lowest price I can recall seeing was 22.9 cents per gallon.

[msedano]

2. regular or ethyl?

it's been too darn long to remember. a dollar's worth went a long way. do you know the chuck berry song lyric, "check the oil, check the tires, wash the windows, dollar gas!" (too much monkey business).

[tularetom]

3. 18 cents

in San Antonio 1961 or 62.

[lostnotforgotten]

4. 11 Cents - Houston Texas - Early 60s!

eom

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Mom paid 12 cents a gallon ca 1960

I remember it being between 30-35 cents a gallon when I bought my first car in 1972.

[Aviation Pro]

6. 86 cents a gallon in 1998.

Under the Clinton administration. Thank you very much Motherfucker George Bush and Shitstain Shoots-Guy-In-Face for propping up the terrorist state of Saudi Arabia.

[Dhalgren]

7. 24 cents a gal. in north Alabama in 1969. Cigarettes were 36 cents a pack...

[Lasher]

8. You guys are old!

I remember making a special trip to the Amoco station to buy white (unleaded) gas in 1963, because we needed it to burn in our Coleman lantern and stove when we went camping. All the other stations sold only leaded gas.

I don't know what we paid for it.

[Breeze54]

9. I remember going to get a gal. for Dad's lawnmower for .34 Cents!?

1964 Economy / Prices

http://www.1960sflashback.com/1964/Economy.asp

President: Lyndon B. Johnson
Vice President: none

Population: 191,888,791
Life expectancy: 70.2 years

Dow-Jones
High: 891
Low: 776

Federal spending: $118.53 billion
Federal debt: $316.1 billion
Inflation: 1.2%
Consumer Price Index: 31
Unemployment: 5.7%

Cost of a new home: $20,500.00
Cost of a new car: $
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.05
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.30
Cost of a dozen eggs: $0.54
Cost of a gallon of Milk: $0.95

[Arkansas Granny]

26. In 1964 Volkswagen advertised a new car for less than $2,000.00.

[Oilwellian]

35. You posted a pic of my very first car

1964 Beetle. So many good memories. Had to get my friends in high school to give me a push start...run...pop the clutch...putt putt putt. LOLOL. I skipped school one day with a girl friend and we were just driving around, listening to my cool 8 track under the driver's seat, and later had to return to school to pick up my younger brother. Of course we were trying to be very incognito and when kids started piling out of the school, we hoped to get him in the car as quickly as possible so we could drive away, sight unseen. But noooo, that particular day, my brother decided to bring his tuba home to practice. We thought it was so funny seeing this kid walking out of the school with a tuba...all we saw was the tuba and little legs, not realizing it was him until he was right there at the car. Needless to say, trying to fit a tuba into that little car was NOT what we had in mind.

And in 1972, I was paying .32 cents for a gallon of gas.

[DemoTex]

54. I had a '66 VW Beetle (I bought it in '69 while in flight school).

I remember paying low-20s at the PX gas station in 1969-70. I remember filling up my parents' big Chevey wagon in 1964 for about $3.

[Nay]

69. In 1970 or 71, I longingly looked at the new Jeeps. Priced way out

of line with a college student's budget at $2999.

[PatSeg]

71. I remember that

New VW's were about $1600.00 My first car was a used bug, only a year old and my payments were $56.00 a month.

[BrotherBuzz]

58. I made that walk down the gas station for 29.9 a gallon gas

but I always bought exactly a quarters worth so I wouldn't spill any when I poured it into the mower.

[PCIntern]

10. 28.9 in PA in mid 60's n/t

[unhappycamper]

11. We usta have gas wars when I was growing up in the midwest.

The lowest I can recall is 16.9. That was in the 62~63 timeframe.

[whistle]

12. In December of 1971 in Florida I recall filling up for $19.9 per gallon

...although I remember that a gas price war was raging at that time and it was no too long after that Richard Nixon installed wage and price controls and then took the U.S. dollar off of the gold standard. Like all republican policies it was a miserable failure and caused all kinds of economic and social dislocations for the lower 85% of American income earners as inflation reached 13% by the time Nixon resigned.

<snip>
President Nixon Imposes Wage and Price Controls

August 15, 1971. In a move widely applauded by the public and a fair number of (but by no means all) economists, President Nixon imposed wage and price controls. The 90 day freeze was unprecedented in peacetime, but such drastic measures were thought necessary. Inflation had been raging, exceeding 6% briefly in 1970 and persisting above 4% in 1971. By the prevailing historical standards, such inflation rates were thought to be completely intolerable.

The 90 day freeze turned into nearly 1,000 days of measures known as Phases One, Two, Three, and Four. The initial attempt to dampen inflation by calming inflationary expectations was a monumental failure.



In 1971, the U.S. was also in the process of leaving the gold standard, which was intended to allow the value of the U.S. dollar to fall. Compounding the situation were such events as Fed Chairman Arthur Burns and the Committee on Interest and Dividends (part of the controls apparatus) strenuously opposing banks attempting to raise the U.S. prime rate from 6% to 6.25% in February 1973. Inflation rates were below 4% at the start of 1973, but reached 9% by the start of 1974, which would have made the real prime rate a negative 3%. At the same time, interest rates were going up in foreign countries, putting enormous pressure on the dollar.

The wage and price controls were mostly dismantled by April, 1974. By that time, the U.S. inflation rate had reached double digits.

While there were skeptics in August, 1971, there were a great many who thought "temporary" wage and price controls could cure inflation. By 1974, this notion was thoroughly discredited, and attention gradually turned toward a monetary approach to inflation. In a complete reversal, the policy to curb inflation in now thought to be an increase in interest rates rather than an attempt to hold them down.
<more in the form of a graph>

http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm

[rug]

13. I remember a gallon of gas, a quart of milk and a pack of cigarettes all cost about the same. $0.28

[Rosemary2205]

14. 12 cents - and dad made 2.24 an hour.

Gas was, what, about 5% of his hourly income?

In today's market he'd be making about $12 a hour on that type of job with even less in bennies than he had then. With gas at about $3 it would be 25% of his hourly income.

IMHO the price of everything isn't a problem as much as the fact incomes are not keeping up.

[madokie]

21. your dad was doing pretty good to be making that amount back then

in '70 when I returned from the navy my first job paid a whole whopping 1.35 bucks an hour best I can remember. My unemployment from the navy then was 21 bucks a week, again best I can remember.

[Rosemary2205]

43. He dug graves at the cemetary, cut the grass and did general maintanance.

He managed to buy a small house, a decent used car and raise a family without learning how to read. My mother tended house and garden, took in laundry from some rich people who lived in town. Dad made money on the side in any variety of things he could think up depending on what opportunity presented itself. It was a very different time then. A man would be hard pressed to do that now - not the least of which because the IRS didn't throw a poor person in jail then for taking in laundry and not paying Uncle Sam his fair share.

[VP505]

15. I remember

gas as low as 9¢, it was great, deposit on a soda bottle was a 5¢, if you could find a couple of coke bottles alongside the road you had gas money.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. $.25 a gallon

And cigarettes were a quarter a pack too. For a dollar, I was set for an evening of fun! LOL

[madokie]

17. personally I paid 19 cents a gallon but seen it at 17 cents

this was way back in my cushman days

[maveric]

18. .37 cents. 1972.

Just got my license and drove my parent's 1966 Bel-Air wagon to my uncle's Shell Station in Salem NH.

[librechik]

19. my first job was working at a Skelly station--16.9 regular when I pumped it

who remembers Skelly? That was 1966.

[sarcasmo]

20. I started driving in 84, I think 85 cents might have been the cheapest.

[donsu]

22. whatever it was around 1950 and before - .25?

nt

[1620rock]

25. I remember my dad telling me in the 50's....

Work hard in school. Study, learn, get that college degree. And someday by the time you retire you may be making as much as $10,000 a year!

[TZ]

23. It wasn't that long ago I believe..

Back in the early 90's under Clinton I remember gas being about 95-99 cents per gallon......

[Arkansas Granny]

24. Back in the early 60's during gas wars I have paid as little as

$0.139 per gallon. That was when you could borrow the folks car, drive up and down the "strip" half the night with friends and after you stopped for a hamburger and a coke (bought with the $1.00 in your pocket) you could pool your change and fill the tank before going home.

[warren pease]

27. ~ 20 cents/gallon for regular ...

This would be around 1970 in and around Palo Alto, Calif. I remember I couldn't quite get a full $2.00 into my 1957 VW bug's 10-gallon tank.


wp

[Divernan]

28. 1958-cruise up & down Main Street all Saturday night, and out onto

the 2 lane country road to the "Easeway Bumps", where you could get your car briefly airborne if you went fast enough. A car load of teenagers each chipping in a dime - $.50 for two gallons - and the guy at the filling station cleaned your windshield and checked your oil for you. Those were the hot summer nights - straight out of Grease & American Graffiti!

[kestrel91316]

29. When I was in college in the 70s it jumped up to 50 cents and we thought

it was the end of the world.

Of course, I was only earning about $2 an hour at the time.

[End Of The Road]

30. 25 cents AND you got glassware & cereal bowls

Early 70s in SW Ohio. I used those cereal bowls for years, too...

[HuskiesHowls]

31. I was working in a gas station in the early 70's

and a kid pulls up to the pumps in a VW, wanted 5 bucks worth of gas. I laughed in his face. Gas then was about 35¢ a gallon, so there was NO way he could get that much gas.

Now, 5 bucks worth of gas hardly mows the lawn!!!

[supernova]

32. 40 cents is what I remember

I'm trying to remember if it broke $1.00/gal during the Oil embargo.

[AZ Criminal JD]

33. 3 cents a gallon, 2003-2004 Baghdad, Iraq

I remember Iraqis complaining about the cost of gas at that price believe it or not.

[Rosemary2205]

44. DAMN - nt

[Skidmore]

34. Around $.30, and my rent was something like $75/mo for a

two bedroom apartment and bread was still around $.25 a loaf. A lb. of hamburger was less than a dollar too. Yep, globalization has made things cheaper alright.

[Warren Stupidity]

52. Ain't that the truth.

Getting by was easy. The termites have gnawed away at our living standard for 30 years. While the rich have never been richer, us peasants have gotten the long steady shaft. But the miracle is that they convince us it is all for our own good every freaking election cycle.

[troubleinwinter]

36. Free glassware, smiles, washed the windows, smiled, checked the radiator water,

checked tire air, pumped the gas for you ("Fill 'er up, please"), AND had a mechanic on site who knew you & your car.

Stan Anderson's Shell station in Berkely. The days when gas stations were run and tended by grownups, rather than morose, minimum wage teens who don't know how to figure change unless the computerized register tells them the answer.

Like shoe stores, where a grownup would measure your foot and be sure the shoes fit properly, and different stores had different shoes. Now we have PayLess Shoe Source, with ill-fitting, poor quality plastic shoes so that everyone everywhere has the same shitty shoes.

[ThomWV]

38. Yep, if you were in a hurry you had to ask them NOT to check the oil.

[hootinholler]

37. A Quarter

I later pumped full service at $.39

-Hoot

[Libby2]

39. Hmm, IIRC about 12 cents.

[CK_John]

40. Back when i was in the service(57-60) I had a 46 Merc that I could fill for $2. n/t

[alfredo]

41. ,19 cents in Shively Ky 1964.

[NV Whino]

42. 28 cents a gallon

Early 60s.

[Uben]

45. Zero cents!

We got drip gas from the oilfields here!

[Joe Fields]

63. Hey, I used to get drip gas from the oilfields, too.

[WillyT]

46. About $0.35 A Gallon

:shrug:

[recoveringrepublican]

47. $0.95 in 1994 or 95.

I had just got my first car. Too tired and too pregnant to remember what year. I do remember 3 years ago when I was bitching about it being $1.50!! That $1.50 didn't seem to last too long either. Just 3 freaking years ago in Florida.

[DearAbby]

48. Vacationing, going across Kansas in 1965

There was a gas war going on all across the state, since these small towns were less than ten miles apart in most cases. Gas was going for .11 cents a gallon.

And they gave S&H stamps and glasses with each fill-up. No such thing as self serve.

[KillCapitalism]

49. I'm not that old.

The lowest price I can remember paying is 89 cents a gallon sometime in the 1990's here in Missouri.

[Hoof Hearted]

50. I remember my dad going apoplectic when gas hit 77c a gallon

When I started driving gas was around 65 to 75 cents.

[Blue_In_AK]

51. $.19 a gallon in Houston

mid-60s.

[blues90]

53. 25 cents per gallon

and it was shell and you got plastic coins with a fill up and a board when full of coins you won a prize and they used to give out glasses and plates other times if you filled the tank which was about $2.50 in my VW gia .

[Doctor Cynic]

55. I remember $1.27 per gallon

in July 2001. We were on a trip to Seattle and we were going back to Vancouver. On the last exit before the border we went to a duty free station and got $1.27, which was still a fair bit cheaper than anything in Canada. But that was my dad who was driving, so I didn't pay for it.

[HamstersFromHell]

56. In Nashville in 1972...

Working at the Tenneco station and we werte in a gas war with the station one block down...

Was 22.9, but dipped as low as 18.9 on occasion.

The real outrage was my mom having fits when Krystal burgers jumped from 5 to 6 cents each back in 1965 or so.

[L. Coyote]

57. $0.17 per gallon, less tha 5% of the most, in college during a price war.

And a hamburger was more.

[CRF450]

59. $1.98 per gallon

I think it was like almost a year ago or something like that when I still had my v6 Camaro. I had the Trans Am too (still own it) but it takes premium.

[WA98296]

60. deleted

[Buzz Clik]

61. When my brother started driving, he could put 20 gallons in for $5

When I was very small, I remember some gas stations dueling it out and pushed prices down to 2.5 cents per gallon.

[Thothmes]

62. 19.9 at a local Mobil station in 1964

[HeeBGBz]

64. About .$17 or $.18 long ago gas wars

The gas station on the corner left their pumps on at night. I remember my dad getting some gas and leaving a handful of change on top of the pumps for the guy when he opened in the morning.

[mithnanthy]

65. I remember paying...

19 cents a gal. in the 1960's

[mockmonkey]

66. I remember gas being $.32

and then my Dad driving all over to find a station that was selling it for $.31. You never hear anyone mention filling the tank up with Ethyl anymore. I don't even know why they said that, was it a higher octane or something?

[Nay]

67. When I was 16 and driving, I remember gas wars in FL and gas

prices of .17 cents per gallon. Many times I paid .19 to .23 cents per gallon.
This was around 1966-67.

[graywarrior]

68. .29 cent a gallon in Mass. in the 60's

[dysfunctional press]

70. Nothing.

during the embargo during the 70's, most cars didn't have locks on the gas-tank...and i had this 6 ft. hunk of rubber tubing...and well, you know...:shrug: teens will be teens- especially teens who can't afford the gas.

but to answer the question- 29 cents/gallon seems to be the least that i can recall actually paying.

[nonconformist]

72. Probably 85 cents or so when I started driving in the late 80's

What's really fucked up is that gas hovered at around a dollar from then until really just a few years ago.

[treestar]

73. .29 cents per gallon

We helped Mom look for the cheapest place for it, and the others were .30 or .31.

[RushIsRot]

74. 14 cents during a gas war in north Texas in the 60s.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

75. I can recall my mother pulling into a gas station and asking the

attendant for a dollar's worth of gas. This would be in the 1960s.

[krispos42]

76. 99¢ a gallon, probably about 1997. Western Pennsylvania.

I had gotten my driver's license in 1994, and I started driving to Illinois once a summer to visit my dad's family. It was like $1.19 in CT.

When I went on my honeymoon to California, we rented a car. This was in 2000. The gas prices outside of LAX were like $1.78, which I thought was a total rip-off.

The, driving up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco we had to fill up at a very isolated gas station for $2.73 a gallon. I was so unbelieving of this I took a picture of the pump!

Now I pay that if I'm lucky. :-(

[tyedyeto]

77. Ahhhhh.... high school days 19 cents a gallon

Gas wars and all. Not too much later it was rationing and you could only purchase gas on odd or even days depending on your license plate.

Back then, all my friends had VWs and we drove for days on $1.00.

[SoCalDem]

78. 19.9.. and it came with free air in the tires, windshield washed, & oil checked

ans the guy delivered a 25cent pack of Marlboros to the car :)

[laylah]

79. 23 cents

near Alton, IL in 1967.

[radfringe]

80. .23 cents when I was kid

by the time I started driving it was 50-cents

[PA Democrat]

81. I used to fill my 1969 Volkswagen Beetle's tank for under $6.00.

Back in 1975, gas was a little around 55 cents a gallon, and I made $2.65 an hour (PA state minimum wage) at my part-time after school job.

Today, my son is making $7.15 an hour (PA's minimum wage) at his after school job, and gas is $3.09 a gallon.

So relative to the minimum wage, gas is more than twice as expensive.

[ileus]

82. .76 Summer of '88 in NC

[gollygee]

83. Around 75 cents

as I recall. I remember my parents paying around a quarter.