ATLANTA -- Channel 2 is continuing to find ways to save you money and if the price of gasoline has you worried, you may wonder whether driving around to find the cheapest gas is really worth it. Consumer Advisor Clark Howard crunched the numbers to figure out when it’s a good deal and when it might actually cost you money to go out of your way.

PDF: Clark Howard's Gas Savings Spreadsheet

MORE INFO: Gas Calculation Cheat Sheet

You don’t have to be a penny pincher to notice the price of gas these days. But would you drive out of your way for cheaper gas? Kim Dore said, ‘No thanks.’

“But I only live right here so I’m either driving by here, which I have found is one of the cheaper places around, or if I go up to Windward for something, I’ll go to Costco,” said Dore.

But others said it might be worth it to them. How far would they drive to save on gas?

“I don’t know, maybe a couple miles or a couple blocks. It all depends on how much gas I’m going to get so if I’m getting a lot of gas I’ll go a little further,” said driver Barry Allen.

“Probably less than 10 miles I would think to save on a full tank,” said driver Jamie Bendall.

How do you figure out whether driving out of your way for cheaper gas is worth it?

Here’s how lots of people would figure it out: The number of gallons you need, how far you’d have to drive, and what kind of mileage you get.

Let’s say you have a car that takes 15 gallons of gas and gets 25 miles per gallon. And let’s also say that you drove to a RaceTrac gas station 5 miles away. Filling up the tank would save you $2.25. Subtract the cost of gas to get there, which is 74 cents. That would make your net savings $1.51.

But wait, Clark isn’t done. Not only did it take gas to get to the cheaper station, but Triple A says you have to take other things into consideration such as car maintenance, insurance, depreciation, financing and taxes. If you add it up, the cost of owning and operating a car is now 54 cents a mile. So driving 5 miles away will save you $2.25 in gas but will cost you $2.70 to get there. That means you’ve lost 45 cents trying to save money.

Another example, the Costco on the day Clark checked was 17 cents a gallon cheaper than a nearby BP. The savings on a whole tank of gas was $2.55 but driving the eight miles it took to get there would cost you $4.32 for a net loss of $1.77.

“Okay, I know I bummed you out by telling you not to drive across town to save a few pennies per gallon. But I do have a plan,” said Clark. “Here’s what I do – when my gas gauge goes to half, from that point forward as I’m driving around, when I find gas that’s a deal, I go ahead and fill it up right then and there. Now that’s really the only smart idea I have other than driving something that doesn’t drink gas. Buy a gas sipper.”