Gas Is $4.37 a Gallon, About $600 More a Year Than Last Fall. Here’s How to Rebalance Your Budget

You’ve probably noticed it at the pump. Gas is expensive again, and not in the “grumble and move on” way. AAA’s national average for regular was $4.41 on October 1 and $4.37 on October 9, against about $3.11 a year earlier. AAA says September averaged $4.33, which is 50 cents above the previous September record set in 2023.

So what do you do about it? Mostly, you stop treating gas as a rounding error in your budget.

NerdWallet’s reporting ties the spike to the conflict with Iran that began February 28. Crude was trading around $102 a barrel in early October, and Iran is blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Crude is typically more than half the cost of a gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration. The G7 announced a release of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel over four months to ease prices, and NerdWallet notes that a return to pre-war levels, just under $3, could be as far as a year away.

A year. Plan accordingly. Don’t budget as if relief arrives next month.

Let’s say you drive 12,000 miles a year in a car that gets 25 miles per gallon. That’s 480 gallons.

If two people in your house commute, double it. That’s around $1,210 a year, which is a real chunk of a vacation or most of a month’s rent in some cities.

And where you live matters a lot. AAA lists California at $6.33 and Georgia, the cheapest state right now, at $3.83. Same 480 gallons costs about $3,040 in California and $1,840 in Georgia. That’s a $1,200 difference for the same driving, which is a good reminder that national averages hide a lot.

Look at your last three months of spending and find your actual fuel number. Most people guess low. Then update the budget line to match today’s price, not the price you remember.

Now you need to find that extra $50 to $100 a month somewhere. Here’s where I’d look, in order:

Don’t pull the money from your emergency fund contribution or your retirement match. Those are the last things to touch, not the first.

Price-shopping helps, but the cheapest lever is burning less fuel. A few things that are easy and free:

Combine errands into one trip. Cold-start short trips are the least efficient way to drive. Keep your tires properly inflated, since the correct pressure is printed inside your driver’s door jamb. Take the junk out of the trunk. If your job allows even one remote day a week, that’s one fewer commute’s worth of fuel.

If you drive an EV, AAA says the national average for public EV charging is 42 cents per kilowatt-hour. At roughly 3.5 miles per kWh (a common figure for many EVs, though yours will vary), that’s about 12 cents a mile. A 25-mpg gas car at $4.37 runs about 17.5 cents a mile. So even at public chargers, electric still wins, and charging at home usually costs less than that.

Don’t put gas on a credit card you can’t pay off. If you carry a balance at 24% APR, you’re paying interest on every fill-up, and a $200 monthly fuel habit can turn into $2,400 of new debt in a year. If you’re already doing it, that’s a sign the budget needs fixing, not more borrowing.

Also skip the “trade in my truck for something efficient” impulse unless the math works. Taking on a $600 a month car payment to save $60 a month on fuel is a bad trade. Always.

Not sure where your money’s actually going? The SuperMoney app can connect your accounts and show your spending by category, so you can see your real fuel number next to everything else. It also helps you set a goal for the extra savings you find, so the money doesn’t just vanish into the next thing.