Perth's cheapest petrol

First post of the year, and again it’s us trying to save you money! We’ve done pizza, we’ve done supermarkets ; now it’s time for the black, fuNnY-smelling liquid we all love to hate – petrol.

I consider myself a young man, but I am old enough to remember petrol prices below 70c/L. The lowest price at the time of writing in Perth was $1.35. This is a figure that understandably makes people think very carefully about where to make their petrol purchases.

Of course, the various supermarkets have their 4c-discount deals, blah blah, which is all fine and good, but it means you have to buy their groceries first, and even if you pay attention to our supermarket discount info, the cheapest place to shop won’t necessarily translate to the cheapest petrol, even with the 4c off.

TV and print news usually list the cheapest petrol prices, but not everyone can get that info easily. Fortunately, the State Government’s Consumer Protection team run the FuelWatch site, which lists the prices of all the petrol stations in Perth.

You can search by price, by area, or by petrol type. I find the most useful page is the metro-area unleaded price list. We can only link to today’s prices, but if you change the ‘Search by:’ dropdown menu from ‘Today’ to ‘Tomorrow’, you can plan your route to work or uni to take advantage of the least expensive (more accurate than ‘cheapest’) petrol. Or, if you need some black gold today, just go out and grab it (although we caution you to wait until midweek, which tends to be cheaper).

You can also register to have FuelWatch send you emails as frequently as you choose letting you know tomorrow’s cheapest petrol, and even limit the info to the petrol stations in your area. It also warns you of price hikes the day before they happen.

Of course, at LovingPerth we recommend that instead of driving, you use public transport (see our SmartRider info) or, better yet, hop on your bike! If you just can’t help it or you love being stuck on the freeway for hours, however, FuelWatch is for you.

Pizza Crimes

I know it’s trendier now to eat gluten-free muffins and calorie-free cola and chocolate-free chocolate, but some nights you just want a quick, cheap meal, but you can’t be bothered cooking, and the answer staring you right in the face is pizza. A large pizza is easily enough for two people, and if you pick it up, take it home and throw it in the oven for another ten minutes, it doesn’t look or feel quite as bad as when you opened the box.

Everyone’s mailbox is stuffed with offers from the big pizza chains for cheap deliveries, but the cheapest way to get a fat pizza is to print out a coupon that lets you eat for $6.95 pick up – that’s about $3.50 a person if you split it. Nice (although until early this year it was $5.95).

Once you’ve registered on the Pizza Hut website, you can just select the coupons menu, plug in your postcode, and a voucher should pop up giving you unlimited $6.95 pizzas.

Domino’s has $6.95 pizzas for uni guild members, but otherwise the best they can do is a pizza and coke for $9.95. We say go PH, but it depends on which store is within easy access. The fact of the matter is, if you pay full price in the future, you are committing a pizza crime.

Shop cheap every week

If you’re like us at LovingPerth, you hang out for the day when the supermarket nearest to you has its 99c tuna special, and when it does, you buy up like it’s going out of fashion.

Well, batten down the hatches. Instead of relying on junk mail to let you know about specials each week, check out the websites of the various supermarket chains. Once you locate your local store, bookmark it and check every week to see where to shop for cheap!

Just plug in your postcode (or the postcode where you want to shop) here and press Search. The catalogue is displayed as a pdf so you need to have installed Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it.

As for Woolies, they have the same catalogue for the whole of WA. You’ll need Adobe Flash Player, if you don’t already have it.

Coles only display their Fresh Friday specials online. These are cheap meats and vegies that are on special Fri-Sun every week.

Please let us know if you have any other shopping tips, as a comment below or on the forum.

Gelare - Half Price Waffles

Everyone has their favourites. It can be tough to beat the old classics – vanilla, choc chip, strawberry, banana. Maybe you’re a mint kid? Do you go nuts for nuts? Whatever your preference, the fact is that we all love icecream. What we don’t love is the cost. Heck, even the good ol’ Bucket is moving out of range of silver coins!

And wouldn’t you like a waffle too? With whipped cream and syrup? You know you would. And, if you don’t already know, the place to get it is Gelare, and the time is Tuesday every week, when dine-in waffles are half price all day long, for everyone. That means a small waffle (with syrup and cream) is just $2, and a large just $3!

But how about the icecream? Throw on a scoop for $2.50 extra, or $4.70 for two. That means that treats like the little sucker below (large waffle and one scoop) will set you back just $5.50 – perfect to eat alone or, even better, with someone special!

Gelare has 17 stores all over Perth. Cash in and “your taste buds will love you”, as they say – and your wallet will too!

This is not a paid advertisement – we’re just trying to let you know all the discounts and specials that Perth has to offer so you can enjoy our city as cheaply as possible!