We Did A PreBuy Again This Year

[Henry]

Last year we did a pre-buy from S. B. Collins and ended up on the short end of the stick.  We bought 1,000 gallons at $4.59 a gallon.  Later in the year we were pleasantly surprised to get a note from S. B. Collins telling us that they were extending our purchase of the 1,000 gallons by lowering the price we had agreed to to $3.99 a gallon.  We had never dealt with S. B. Collins before, but were quite impressed that an oil company would do that.

We received an offer this year to pre-buy for $2.29 a gallon, however, did not have to purchase 1,000 gallons this year due to the extra we received last year when S. B. Collins lowered the price.  We decided to go ahead and do the pre-buy.  Good or bad, at least for us retirees, we know what our fuel is going to cost us this winter.  One has to plan a bit differently when you are on a retirement income.

[mary]

Glad to hear S.B. Collins treated you well. Things worked out for us as well last year by signing up for a plan we'd never tried before at Clarence Brown's. Brown's offers a pre-buy and that's what we usually do, but last year we tried the "budget plan" because prices were so high at the time of the pre-buy. Basically, under the budget plan, the capped price is slightly higher than the pre-buy price (about $0.20 more I think - last year's capped price was $4.789 & the pre-buy price as about the same as Collins'), but under the budget plan you only are charged the market price (minus a slight discount over cash/call sales) if the price at the time of delivery is less than the capped price. Not quite sure how it works & am sure the women at the office can do a better job than I explaining the details, but it ended up working out quite well for us last year as prices dropped. Not sure yet what will do this year as it looks like prices are on the rise, but guess we'll need to make up our minds soon.

Mary