WACO, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Gas prices are rising across Texas and the country, prompting drivers to turn to apps, loyalty programs, and rewards to save money.<\/p>\n
AAA lists the national average for regular gas at $4.13 a gallon. This follows a sharp increase linked to the ongoing conflict with Iran in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
For many Central Texas drivers, filling up is now a budget decision. Recent Baylor University graduate Daniel Taylor said the price swings mean making adjustments to his daily routine.<\/p>\n
Watch Full Story Here:<\/p>\n
Texas drivers turn to gas apps and loyalty programs to save money as the national average tops $4 a gallon<\/p>\n
“At first when it just hit that sudden increase I was like, yeah this is kind of tough,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n
“But seeing that they’re kind of going down now it’s getting better, but there’s definitely been a budget kind of adjustment to help kind of,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n
Taylor told me he found one way to take some stress off of his commute.<\/p>\n
“I go to QT a lot because they have the 10% or 10 cents off per gallon and so that’s, I try and go there all the time and then if not just kind of just deal with it,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n
AARP reports more drivers are looking for creative ways to save through loyalty programs and gas apps. Walmart, Shell, Exxon Mobil, and 7-Eleven offer per-gallon discounts or points back. AARP also told me some grocery rewards and credit card points can help drivers chip away at costs.<\/p>\n
While the war in Iran is affecting gas and oil prices in Central Texas, experts told me Iran is not the main source of oil for the United States.<\/p>\n
“We’re an oil exporting country, so there’s never going to be an issue of shortage of oil to the United States,” Steve Cotton, who works in wealth management, said.<\/p>\n
“It’s really 80% of it goes to, you know, China, India, and Asia, and they have far more at stake in this than we do,” Cotton said.<\/p>\n
“It’s imperative to them to see the strait opened up and secured, but one of the things that’s complicating it is the Iranians are claiming the right to charge a toll or extract tribute just like the old Barbary pirates in the early 1800s,” Cotton said.<\/p>\n
“People need to be prepared for continued fluctuations in oil prices and unfortunately we’re going to see it at the pump and in our economy,” Cotton said.<\/p>\n
With gas prices still tied closely to global events, drivers should expect more ups and downs in the future.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WACO, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Gas prices are rising across Texas and the country, prompting drivers to turn to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2041,2042,819,2046,2047,2048,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-249246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-15-abc","9":"tag-25-news","10":"tag-in-your-neighborhood","11":"tag-krhd","12":"tag-kxxv","13":"tag-local-news-in-my-area","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-texas-headlines","16":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}