How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

Don't confuse Cosco with Costco, they are entirely different. Though Cosco isn't anywhere close to where you live either.

COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Company) was a state-owned shipping and logistics services supplier. It has since merged with China Shipping Company, another Chinese state-owned multinational transportation company, to form COSCO Shipping. Though those of us living near major ports still regularly see the COSCO name bare, especially on shipping containers.

 

There is at least two other such national chains. Walmart owns one. They can have member only gas stations. They are priced at least $0.20 less a gallon than neighboring stations here.

Costco pays and treats their employees well compared to most other retail jobs. Think they have a lower CEO pay gap too.

Cosco is also a brand that may be of no relation. Stools and small step ladders are what I see regularly.

 

Sam's Club! There's one that's only a 250-mile round trip from here.

As far as gasoline prices go here, most of the time all the gas stations have the exact same price. I can get a discount with my Sinclair app at Sinclair. City Market (Kroger) has a 10 cent discount for every $100 you spend, but I don't get fuel there anymore because there have been a few times that all the cars that fueled up there wouldn't start or even ended up with engine damage. Kroger paid for the damages, but I'm not risking it. The local Safeway has the same discount but there are no Safeway gas stations nearby. But those 3 and 10 cent discounts don't seem to help as much with gasoline being nearly $5 a gallon as it did back when it was less than half that.

 

Costco has 4% rewards for using the Costco linked credit card from Citi, so my price yesterday was $5.08. A whopping amount of about $7 saved over the $6 stations. Means nothing really for the amount I buy. Need to have the higher membership which I have. This costs $120/year compared to the standard membership of $60.

 

Surprised it isn't even cheaper. A gallon of gas in California has around 90 cents of state and federal taxes plus assorted fees. And Mexico pumps a lot of oil. Maybe the gas prices are high in that corner of Mexico because it is the farthest away from the wells and refineries, which are around the gulf?

 

Sam's Club gasoline isn't top tier gas. Or at least it wasn't a couple of years ago. Costco sells top tier.

 

Mmm, I get 5% with the Citi card on Costco gas and am at the basic member level; 4% at non-Costco stations. The higher membership only changes the in store reward.

Part of California's prices is in the formulation set by CARB that differ from what the rest of the country uses.

 

That and the oil companies frequently take refineries off line "for unscheduled repairs" (several of them, at the same time), which artificially restricts supply and drives the price up.

 

Shutting 2 refineries down in California (pull out due to high fines & not meeting onerous regulations thereon) certainly didn't help their Supply /demand issues. Calif has the highest % of renewable diesel too, & thus the highest in the nation prices on that.