How are you affected by the $2.50+ gas prices?

[electron_blue]

I'm curious - have you sold a car? Quit a job that required lots of commuting? Moved to a different town? Cancelled summer trips? Or worse - gone w/o groceries just to pay the heating bill?

How much a year extra would you estimate you're spending on everything related to fuel costs due to gas being ~$1/gallon higher now than a few years ago?

My observation is that people complain about it, and say they will quit this and that, but in reality, few people have actually made changes so far. Which is why I think "they" keep raising the price.

[OKDem08]

1. we were discussing a 'road trip' kinda vacation this summer

but if the price goes to $3.00/gal., it's not going to happen.

[OhioChick]

19. Same here..........

Looks like that mini-vacation is a dream this year. Gas went up again here today.......$2.79.

[MadMaddie]

2. I am starting a new job and the commute is pretty long..

I am going to sell my gas guzzling 91 Infiniti Q45....I am going to get a more gas efficient car and start using the bus more often...

Groceries are definitely more expensive...went to Target the other day to buy lotion...holy crap the cheapest bottle was $5.00 bucks...

[Deja Q]

3. The media says it's not affecting Americans' travel...

But with the number of lost jobs, surely demand for gas/oil has dropped too.

[newscott]

4. It helped wipe out my meager savings last year.

I picked the wrong year to get into car payments again.

New car last April, $100.00/month car payment. Insurance goes up because of newer car. Oil/gas/gasoline go through the roof. The town real estate taxes go through the roof. The town starts to charge a trash fee for the first time.

You get the idea. All at once this stuff almost wiped me out. There will be no vacations this year as there were none last year. Money's still tight this year, but we have paid back my in-laws the money they loaned us to fill the oil tank last December.

[Gman]

5. I drive from 500 - 700 miles a week

throughout South Texas. It ain't cheap when my costs have gone up 40% since February.

[kestrel91316]

6. I got the shock of my life last weekend. I bought (without bothering

to look at the posted price) a green bell pepper (not a particularly large one, either) at Ralph's (big grocery here) and almost fell over when the clerk rang up the price. $1.49 for a single bell pepper. I said wait, that's NOT RIGHT. She said yep, they're $1.49 each. That's probably close to $4 a lb for GREEN BELL PEPPERS!!!!!!!!! WTF??????

Thanks for messing up the WORLD, Bush.

[valerief]

20. I hope it was, at least, organic. n/t

[kestrel91316]

24. Nope.

[valerief]

25. Total ripoff. n/t

[kestrel91316]

26. You got that right. But I needed it for the cottage fries for me and DBF.

[nonconformist]

7. I've only been driving when necessary

I've also been planning my trips out better to increase efficiency. It's very possible that I will have to cancel my annual trip home to Michigan this summer.

My husband is currently laid off, but he normally has a 45 minute commute 5-6 days a week. When he is working, with both vehicles we spend probably close to $60 a week on gas. And it adds up really fast.

[Lib Grrrrl]

8. It Has Affected Me

in that I no longer go to church every week - I'm a Unitarian, and the closest church to me is 30 miles away, one way.
It has also affected me in that I am not willing to commute as far for a job, unless the pay makes it worthwhile. this has resulted in there being very little job opportunity for me, as I live in a very rural area.

Jobs do not seem to want to pay enough to make the travel worthwhile.

so I have gone back to school to learn Medical Transcription, with the hope of landing a job that I can do from home, with no commuting, whatsoever.

[Kutjara]

9. Pretty happy

I've just returned to the US after a number of years working in the UK. Gas there is about $8 per gallon. So, I hope you forgive me for being fairly happy about the current cost of gas here.

I shall now don my flame-retardant suit.

[electron_blue]

11. no flames here

I think it will take something like $8/gallon gas before most Americans make significant changes.

[InkAddict]

28. It wasn't the price of gas that forced the significant changes

It was two years of household unemployment. The gas prices now only add to the torment of living 75 minutes apart. The kids gave the IT breadwinner a room. Now, my SIL (who happens go be Latino) is out of work--but that's another story with some interesting twists! and the other kid wasn't making enough funds to pay her expenses (that continue to creep up,up,up)while going to OSU, so she's been forced to drop out and jobhunt too! However, it is lucky(?)that this lonely half can walk to the job where hours have been cut and the contribution to health care is now beyond my means.and open enrollment on spouses isn't until January, 2007. Will we all live that long if * drops one on Iran???? It sure doesn't appear that we'll be able to live together any time soon! With the good weather on its way, my doggie will get some nice long walks and I guess I'll be doing a lot of considering the lillies as I pull the itty bitty weeds out of the north 24 inches outside the apartment for recreation.

[cdsilv]

12. I'm in sales..and my employer pays for all my gas...

...however, I get to drive around 1000-3000 miles a month on business (yes, they also give me a car allowance....not enough).

The driving is primarily in NWFL and all over AL, with occasional trips to Atlanta, etc...

You would not believe the companies (some quite large) squirreled away in little towns in AL and NWFL.

So, aside from having to wait for reimbursements for gasoline expenditures, rising prices haven't affected me much - but I keep cringing, wondering when they'll start doing 'mileage' reimbursements instead (at which point I will seriously consider switching to a motorcycle...)

[movonne]

17. But doesn't the u.k. have a good transportation system?

[Kutjara]

23. It used to...

...but not anymore.

17 years of underfunding by the (you guessed it) Conservative goverment under Thatcher et. al. brought the rail network and London Underground to the brink of collapse. The centerist government of Tony Blair has only made the problem worse. Safety has been badly compromised (as evidenced by several high profile train crashes in recent years) and the formerly nationalised railway system has been broken up into numerous private companies (who are basically running the system for cash until it breakes irreparably).

Focus on short term profitability has also meant that many branch lines have been shut down, adding to pressure on the road network. Finally, the unreliability of train service has caused cargo carriers to move almost entirely to truck-based transport.

As a result, the UK has the highest traffic density per mile of road of an country in the world. Average daytime road speed in London is 4mph. Even with an $8 per day congestion charge for driving into Central London, many people still have to drive if they want any chance of getting to work. Of course, there are buses, but they are limited in what they can achieve due to the enormous traffic congestion.

So people in the UK drive a lot. Not as much as we do in the US, but enough that an $8 gas price makes fuel costs a large proportion of personal income. When it costs nearly $100 to fill a 12 gallon tank, you feel it.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. Bus fare went up 20 cents

and the prices at the grocery store are going up.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Planning errands more carefully to avoid excess driving,

Generally avoiding driving, except when really necessary. Would love to see the oil companies choke on their product, but that won't happen with the mindset in place today. Too many well-off folks don't care a bit about the higher costs.

[Dukkha]

14. 2.50? I wish!

$2.85 here as of today.

it will affect me by doing something very drastic to a few big oil execs :mad:

[SmokingJacket]

15. No, you're right.

Seems to me that "they" are trying to find the sweet spot -- the highest amount we'll pay without actually starting to use less.

It's called the free market.

[eggplant]

16. Ah, the joys of telecommuting.

I've been lucky to be able to avoid the commute for close to a decade now. But it's less like working from home, and more like having your family live at your office.

[waiting for hope]

18. I'm not affected yet...

but it's coming...I know my Day Care will raise their rates (they have after school care with their own little buses) and I know the rest will follow with food prices and the like....We are taking our first vacation in fours years (Easter family reunion in New Orleans....it's a must go) and we are flying - can't imagine 1500 miles in a van with two kids. I know this will be our last vacation in a while for the very reason of gas prices. We have had friends cancel trips to see us because of it...FUCK this administration - they need to live with the little people for a year just to see the havoc they have wrought.:mad:

[Lorax]

21. In little ways

We just bought a diesel car, DH intends to eventually run biodiesel in it. For my part, I'm trying to plan my errands better. No more running from store to store to save a few cents here & there at the grocery store. Luckily, I just started working from home, so that's less gas use right there. And as soon as the weather gets a bit nicer, I plan on getting my out-of-shape self on my bicycle for short local errands.

[valerief]

22. Taking longer to pay down the credit cards. n/t

[lectrobyte]

27. I always try to buy the most economical car I can, so it's not

really affected me all that. I also try to drive less, so I put 10K to 12K mi./yr on my car, compared to the average which is around 15K/yr. It's somewhat easier to budget if you figure out how much per year you are using.

So if I'm buying 300 gallons of gas a year, from $600 to $900 it's an extra $300/yr, or $25/mo. more when it went from $2 to $3 per gallon... I can fit that into the budget, since I don't really have much of a choice not to, at least without moving and that would be really expensive.

Let's see, my neighbor with the Denali, getting 14 mpg, driving 14,000 mi./yr. His yearly gas bill is $2000, jumping to $3000. That seems like a deal breaker to me, but then again, they spend more on insurance, tires, etc. too.

Driving on vacation? A 1000 mile round trip is still only 33 gallons at 30 MPG, the cost of gas is probably not that big a factor for a lot of people, say, compared to hotel costs, ratworld tickets etc.

[Generic Other]

29. Effect on home heatng oil $700 to fill the tank

Quite a shock to the system (mine).

[misternormal]

30. They will charge for gas, or any product...

... what the market will bear... Prices have gone down on some of the things that people could do without, but the fact that with people living in suburbia, and driving (Not car-pooling) to work everyday, buying new cars, that in the long run use more gas... The logic of course, as faulty as it is, if you use less gas, you can drive places you used to walk to... :shrug:

The price of gas will continue to rise because it has become a commodity more precious in the word market than gold... And... as much as we hate to admit it, the majority of americans are slaves to their cars, therefore slaves to the oil companies.

I think that all V-8 engines, and I love the sound of a hot 350... But I digress...

I think all V-8 engines should be banned unless proof can be given that a particular driver needs one... No engines bigger than a V-6. If that rules out all of the big SUVs... oops sorry... the economy and lessening the need for fossil fuels overshadows someone's need for an SUV.

[bdot]

31. I love it. I hope the gas prices sky rocket.

[LizW]

32. Staying home more

Eliminating driving that isn't absolutely necessary. Saving up my errands to do all at once and trying to plan my route to drive the least miles.

It cost over $45 to fill my mini van today.