My family was in Wisconsin this past weekend, and gas prices there were about $3.99 a gallon, so of course, we made sure to fill our car's tank up before we crossed the state line.

Shocked by Gas Prices
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I am foolishly not a person that pays much attention to gas prices, I just get it when I need it, but when prices get as high as they currently are it tends to turn your eye.

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Any time you drive by a gas station at Walmart, Costco, Woodman's, etc, you see LONG lines of people waiting to fill up their tanks, and I've always wondered how these stores are able to offer lower gas prices when there are so many mandates on fuel prices. Then I saw this article from WISN Channel 12 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin about how a Woodman's store in Waukesha is being sued by two neighboring gas stations over their low gas prices. WISN's article says;

The companies operating the Shell station on Main Street and the BP on Lincoln Avenue are suing Woodman's for damages of $80,000 each, based on the number of days they said Woodman's illegally outpriced them.

 

the companies are suing under the state's Unfair Sales Act, which prohibits selling goods below cost.

I get why these two gas stations in Waukesha are upset, but it still doesn't answer the question of how Woodman's is able to offer lower fuel prices.

According to WISN's article, Woodman's has responded to the lawsuit by saying; "Woodman's is in full compliance with its Waukesha store gas pricing and believes this lawsuit is without merit." Apparently, Woodman's must have some agreement that allows them to offer lower fuel prices to stay competitive with the Costco store that is located about 6 miles away in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

Will more lawsuits against Woodman's. Costco, Walmart, etc. be coming in the weeks ahead? Only time will tell.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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