With crude oil advancing to menacing levels, a penny saved is a penny earned. This article will cover different ways to get up-to-date information on the latest and cheapest gas prices and the stations/pumps where they are available based on your current physical location (GPS or Zipcode)

+ Mobio: Mobio provides a widget called Cheap Gas. After installing Mobio, you need to manually set locations (containing zipcode) that you frequently visit. After that, you can launch the Cheap Gas widget from the Mobio mobile application. Based on your current location, you will immediately get a list of gas stations near you with the ones offering cheapest prices listed at the top. It also shows the time in hours when the prices were updated. Upon clicking the station of your choice, you are presented with the following details: map to the station, prices and time when it was updated and the street address of the station.

+ GasBuddy: GasBuddy has one of the most comprehensive network of information and provides two options to get gas prices on your mobile phone- mobile web and SMS. To search for cheapest gas stations from any mobile browser, visit GasBuddyToGo.com from you device browser. To search the same information using text messaging or email, send an SMS or EMail with the City/State or Zip/Postal Code to gas@gasbuddy.com or diesel@gasbuddy.com. A text message / email will be sent back to you shortly with the 5 lowest gas or diesel prices from the area that you requested.

+ MobGas: This is another application that gets the latest gas prices in your area on your cellphone. It also provides SMS alerts when lower prices are available. Other features include maps to locate local gas stations and a quick access list that contains your top five frequently visited stations for best prices. You can also send an SMS to gas@gasbuddy.com to get results by text message.

+ GasPriceWatch.com - This is a Google Maps mashup that displays gas stations for a given area, color codes the prices by age, and even lets you set up your personalized page with your favorite stations. Other PC browser based services include MapQuest Gas Prices or MSN Autos Gas Prices.

+ Other paid services that utilize Bluetooth GPS receivers to search cheapest gas prices and stations include Garmin Nuvi, TomTom PLUS with Gas Prices and Dash Express Connected GPS.