Some thoughts about Gas Crisis.....what will you do?

[titoresque]

My partner and I cannot afford to live in the area where our kids go to school. We have driven them a half hour each way to a neighboring city with the best school distict in the state for 9 years.
If gas goes up to $5 per gallon, we're looking at $200 a week.....for one vehicle. We have an 03 Ford Taurus stationwagon.

We started talking about the possibility of homeschooling for a few weeks? How long are we looking at $5 per gallon?

Also........Public Transportation. Georgia has suspended school to conserve. City Transit buses........what's going to happen?
I know a lot of people will want to rely on City Transit but they're likely to conserve as well.

It's not plausible for everyone to get to work or wherever on a bike. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

[rwenos]

1. Riots in the Streets of DC Come to Mind

When will our government DO SOMETHING?!

[titoresque]

2. well on a Federal level...HA!

let's not hold our breath. As for a state level, and public transportation. I know for a fact that plans are being made...atleast here in my state. It's not going to make people happy though.

[SheilaT]

3. What kind of mileage does your

car get? Consider trading it in for something more economical.

My husband has just traded his 2000 Nissan Xterra for a 2002 Honda Accord -- and by just I mean on Tuesday -- and is already very happy with the exchange. I'm giving serious thought to trading my 2001 Subaru Outback for a 2002 or 2003 Honda Civic.

At $200 per week in gas, that's $800 per month. Would that much more money enable you to live in the school district your kids attend?

[titoresque]

9. Well actually

no, the district my kids go to school in is a place where people camp out on the sidewalks just to get a raffle ticket to buy a house starting at 300,000.00 so it's just not an option for us. As for the vehicle....we havent had it long. I drive my two kids and 4 neices and nephews to the same school. 6 kids all together which is why we opted for the stationwagon. An SUV would have been way worse, but we really do need a car with plenty of seats.

I was mainly not asking for help with my personal problem but wanted to post this to get people to think....if they havent already about their own situation. I live in Az. and so far, tonight, the gas price hasnt gone up yet. But I have info that I know in a few day's will be alarming to a lot of people if Rita takes down the refineries. I can't say more than that. It's just....think about public transportation, and how they will be affected too.

[friesianrider]

21. Well considering oil prices tanked today...

And Rita has downgraded considerably, I don't personally see gas prices going up THAT much overnight or in the next day or two.

On a side note, I would just like to say that as someone who went to a magnet public school district - NO school is worth going broke for (such as in the district you were talking about). One would do better to send their child to a study abroad or an excellent college than a "good" school district. Elementary, middle, and high schools really won't matter much in the grand scheme of things IMHO. I went to a crappier SD early on and went to a stellar magnet SD in middle and high school and the difference wasn't measurable in any way except that my parents paid an arm and a leg for a house in the desirable SD (and we had shittier guidance counselors at the magnet school - go figure).

Anyway :P Let's hope that gas stays where it is for awhile, otherwise this country will grind to a halt if people cannot afford to get themselves to work.

[titoresque]

23. Soooo true!

Thanks! When we first put our daughter in Kindergarten gas prices werent a thought. And now that she's been with the same friends from K-8th it's mainly just something we do year after year because it's a great school and because we dont want to take our kids away from their friends. Our son is in the 4th grade. Anyhow, you're right though and going broke is something we really have to consider now.

[eleny]

4. Is carpooling the kids a possibility?

Maybe other kids in your area go to the same school. Perhaps the school could help get families together to share driving or at least share the cost of gas.

[titoresque]

14. not sure we live in another city

but thats a good idea! I will talk with the school on Monday.
:)

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Thoughts? If bush(puke) really cared about Americans, he would

step up and demand that the oil companies use some of their obscene profits to offset the energy crisis brought on by two hurricanes in the Gulf states. In a real world, that would happen, but we are being ruled by an oil cartel. His answer to our dilemma is not to buy gas if we don't need it. The "Let them eat cake" (p)Resident could NOT care less about your need to give your kids the best education possible and what it takes to do that. My husband works 8 miles round trip from his job, however, it mostly freeway travel, and therefore he can't ride a bike to work and public transportation is a joke here.

[friesianrider]

6. I personally do not think it will be $5 anytime soon.

However, now is the time to start thinking about perhaps trading in your vehicle for a smaller one, or a small hybrid. Go check on kelleybluebook.com and see what you can get for your car and look into possibly trading it in.

Another poster suggested that at $200 a week that is $800 a month in gas - would that permit you to live in the school district?

[titoresque]

13. see post #9

:hi:

[Journeyman]

7. Just keep reminding everyone you talk with . . .

George W. Bush had the opportunity to address this problem in the wake of the WTC/Pentagon attacks. Like very few presidents in our history (Washington and Lincoln, FDR, Wilson to an extent), Bush had the opportunity to call the nation to be something better than it is, but he chose to spend his opportunity in cheap theatrics and near-impotent rage. Now we will all pay the price for his incompetence, and the price we'll pay will be catastrophic.

I wish I had suggestions and answers for you. But I live in Los Angeles, the city built on the automobile (we destroyed a wonderful train system to create our freeway madness), and I'm not certain what we are going to do.

But remind everyone, everyday, of George W. Bush's perfidy and incompetence.

[YapiYapo]

28. American way of life is not negotiable

Remember that sentence from cheney on the kyoto project ?

In clear this mean , the american people will keep using 30% of the world resource (for 5% of the world population).

Almost everywhere in the world, people have been conserve for the last 30 years.Look at europe or Japan gas price.
This mean as the energy crisis will increase more and more people will get pissed at american.(and it won't be at the government this time)
Those people know the US is a big Fat SUV nation that doesn't care at all about the rest of the world.

It's time (if not too late) the CITIZENS of america wake up and request something is done about this.

[Auntie Bush]

8. Didn't bush imply/say during the election that because of his close

friendship with his hand holding/kissing Prince...that he could pull some strings to keep oil prices down? Well now's the time to start pulling!

[eleny]

10. Yes!

He said he would tell them to "open the spigots". Pah!

[jobycom]

12. His exact words, as best as I recall were

"I'll jawbone with OPEC and get them to open the spigots."

Demonstrating, of course, that he didn't even understand the industry he supposedly ran businesses in for twenty years.

[Art_from_Ark]

33. Well, he's been "jawboning" with at least one OPEC member--

Venezuela. And thanks to his "jawboning", Venezuela has said it might turn OFF its spigots if push came to shove.

[serryjw]

16. Correct me if I'm wrong but

the problem is not the oil but when Rita hits it will knock out most of the refineries.

[Dover]

20. Correct. OPEC has opened the spigots all the way.

And besides any damage done by the storms, there have been no new refineries built in recent years to my knowledge. I can't recall the reasons for that.

I know that the oil companies own many of the patents and upstart companies to alternative energies, but don't know if they intend to use them or just sit on them. I guess it depends on whether they have figured out how to make customers pay for the sun....

[serryjw]

26. 30 years

quote.......
Rep. Pitts' bill calls on the Bush administration to identify three U.S. military bases slated for closure where oil refineries could be located. The plan, said Pitts, would eliminate one of the hurdles companies face - finding land -- before building a new refinery.

"Our ability to refine oil and supply gas to consumers has not kept pace with demand for gasoline," Pitts said in a press release.

"That's because we have not built a new refinery in more than thirty years
end quote.....

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200509%5CNAT20050923a.html

[Tace]

11. You Can Probably Count On About $3 In The Midterm

We may see $5 for a little while, but it'll probably ebb. However, longer term, I suggest you make plans to live with $5+.

I'm no expert.

[Blue-Jay]

15. I will travel back in history and warn people!

(too obscure?)

[titoresque]

17. lol!

:hi: Good one!

[jobycom]

18. Ask again tomorrow when we see how badly the refineries are damaged

Rita is hitting Beaumont and Lake Charles. There are a lot of refineries in that area. If they are seriously damaged, gas could get high for a long time. If they aren't, $5 a gallon probably won't happen, or won't last more than a couple of weeks.

Options are buying a smaller car or hybrid (50mpg reduces gas bills quickly), or buying a diesel and converting it to run on waste vegetable oil, or making your own biodiesel. Aside from that, creative carpooling.

[titoresque]

19. Yeah it looks like

creative carpooling, and a motorcycle for runs to the grocery etc.

[Auntie Bush]

25. How about buying a horse?

I wish we hadn't sold ours now.

[SheilaT]

22. What school district are you in?

I'm guessing it's Paradise Valley. If so, we have your former superintendent, Marjorie Kaplan, here in Kansas, and she's been wonderful for us.

[titoresque]

24. ....

Hey give her back! :hi:

[SheilaT]

31. Oh, no. You can't have her back.

She's been great.

Her school district in the best one -- in my admittedly biased opinion -- in the state. It's been experiencing declining enrollment for about ten years now, and so its budget has been absolutely devastated. We have a state legislature full of Republicans who don't really back public education, think it can be done on the cheap. They've cut and cut and cut, and are convinced the cuts don't hurt, that there's lots of fat in the budget, and so on.

I ran for the state legislature last year (and lost, alas) and among the pleasures of running was that Marjorie Kaplan gave me about 30 minutes of her time to talk about what she truly faces as the superintendent of her school district. She was awesome.

And we're keeping her, I hope. i think she may well be committed to staying her until she hits retirement age.

[tech3149]

27. Get involved in your local schools

The energy crisis is not a myth or a temporary inconvenience. The best way to get through the transition will be to live in a self sustaining community.

There's no reason your local schools can't supply first rate education other than lack of community support. Organize the parents of those in your situation to work with the school board and the community to make real changes in the local schools. If that doesn't work out, be prepared to supplement their education yourself.

I hate to sound all doom and gloom, but the more I read the worse the outlook for the future seems. Research Catherine Austin Fitts and Jane Jacobs for ideas on how to get the most out of life in the years to come.

[thinkingwoman]

29. We've homeschooled for 7 years. It should NOT be done

for a few weeks to beat high gas prices.

It is a serious commitment. Pulling kids out of their familiar learning environment for a few weeks/months and then returning them to that formal schooling environment when prices fall is a major disruption to their education and their social lives. I highly discourage such a move.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: getting around where you cannot bike--I completely relate. We just moved from a rural midwestern town where the cost of living was waaaaaaayyyyyyyy low into the city where my hubby works because the one hour commute each way was KILLING us with these gas prices. We closed on our home and moved in the week of Katrina when gas prices soared...just in time.

Good luck.

[HamdenRice]

30. You are really not going to like my answer ...

The big answer is not carpooling or conserving or public transportation. The real answer is something you perhaps should have done nine years ago. It would have involved not a private solution of getting in the car to drive to a rich neighborhood, but a public solution of getting together with your neighbors.

That is, the real answer is fighting for better schools in your own community, which means fighting to end the absurd, racist, classist system of funding of public education through local property taxes. This is the only industrial country that does this, which means high property values equals high funding for schools, which equals better paid and better quality teachers and equipment.

This means that the educational system simply ratifies the class system, generation after generation.

Unfortunately, the only people taking on the big issue of equal funding for schools statewide have been African American and Hispanic advocacy organizations.

Once people realize this is not a "minority problem" only, we might be able to address it.

But as long as most white people choose private solutions to public problems -- let's spend $200 a week on gas in our little bubble of a car to get our kids closer to rich people -- then there isn't going to be a real solution.

<edited for clarity>

[PowerToThePeople]

32. Get an EV and never use gas again.. n/t

[MazeRat7]

34. Honestly what would I do ?

I would be real concerned that a 60% increase in one single monthly expense (in this case gas) would have me pondering such questions. Sounds to me like you are living to close to the edge in other areas. Seriously, if your tipping point is gas prices, then I would look long and hard at the bulk of my monthly expenses and figure out a plan from there.

Just based on your OP you may need to consider a smaller mortgage payment closer to the kids school or sending the kids to school closer to home. Bottom line, be concerned that the price of gas alone has you asking these questions... rather than looking at the larger financial picture.


MZr7

[REP]

38. I Agree

Something's wrong with the budget if one item like this can send the whole thing sprawling.

In the meantime, it sounds as though your children are plenty old enough to what children have been doing for decades and take the bus (even city buses) to school. Door-to-door chauffering is nice, but unless they simply cannot be trusted not to ditch class, it may be time for them to take responsibility for getting their own butts to class.

[osaMABUSh]

35. 4 day work week - 4 day school week

There is a school district around here (Pittsburgh) that is thinking of going to a 4 day week to offset the cost of gas.

Personally, I always work from home one day a week. My company has AWA (alternative wok arrangement) policy that I will always take advantage of. Some weeks I work from home two days. Sure saves me time and money in gas and parking for my 50 mile rountrip.

[newspeak]

36. next car

will be a diesel. If things got really bad, I'd find a way for it to run on soybean, french fry oil or pig shite.

[NaturalHigh]

37. I measured my mpg on the last tank.

I managed to get over 37 mpg. Actually, it probably would have been closer to 40, but I stopped measuring when I filled up again. Rita was coming, and I filled up because gas was "only" $2.31 per gallon. They bumped the price up six cents right after I filled up.