Oil-buying groups save big bucks on heating oil

As homeowners worry over the cost of rising energy bills, several dozen families in Weston, Mass. will save hundreds of dollars on heating oil this winter.

Spearheaded by Weston resident Jan Fine, WBZ reports that he helped families come together to organize a buying group to secure a bulk discount.

The families buy such a large quantity of oil that companies bid on their contract. The wholesale nature of their purchase allows them to save hundreds off of the total price that individual households would pay.

"Last year we averaged about 50 cents per gallon savings over retail cost," Fine tells WBZ's Joe Shortsleeve. "So if you use a thousand gallons that saves you 500 bucks. Two thousand gallons -it saves you a thousand bucks. It's quite a bit of money."

Fine stresses that these groups are fairly easy to organize. To get started, he encouraged people to commit to their interest in the effort by entering their information in an online database, then he got in touch with oil companies.

“We are not an organization. We are simply a group of people who got together on the same database,” he says.

If you’re inspired by Fine’s grassroots effort to negotiate a better deal on heating oil, you can tap into the power of Consumer United's group discount here.

Big Chill Expected With Home Heating Oil

Sure, it's July but experts in Boston are already predicting that home heating oil could cost as much as $4.50 per gallon, possibly leading to deaths of the elderly and people on fixed incomes in the upcoming winter months.

The Senate's Post Audit and Oversight Committee released a report on July 1 warning that the spike in home heating oil prices could have a profound impact on low-income New Englanders. “People could literally freeze to death,” says Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), chairman of the Senate committee. “It's a looming crisis.”

Energy experts have been stunned by the rise of heating oil prices this spring, when the cost of the fuel usually drops due to lower seasonal demand. The problem: crude oil prices have continued to set record after record on the wholesale world markets.

“I’ve never seen in 30 years anything like this,”remarks Joe Kennedy, president of Citizens Energy, a fuel-assistance nonprofit program in reports.

Consumer United's solution? We've partnered with Mass Energy where our members can save $150-$300 per year.

Last heating season, Mass Energy members saved an average of 24 cents per gallon compared to the state average--with the biggest per gallon savings occurring in the coldest months when most of the oil was consumed. This amounted to about $175 in savings per household.

Click here to learn more about Consumer United's heating oil solution.