I usually take public transit to work, and I drive my beat up old Camry maybe four or five hundred miles a month, mostly to get groceries, do laundry and the like. I haven’t been feeling the current jump in prices very much, but then I have a very frugal lifestyle to begin with.
But I’m wondering how many Dopers are feeling the pinch.
Have you had to cut back drastically on your driving? Have you had to give up anything really important to you to appease the gods of petroleum? What changes have you had to make in your way of life, or have you made any accommodations to rising fuel costs at all?
Have you barely even noticed, or do you feel like the Apocalypse is upon us?
The thing that’s going to be hardest on me is my summer traveling. I generally go to at least three or four festivals around the country and camp for anywhere from a weekend to two weeks. Because of the price of gas, I’m going to have to cut my travels down some. I really hate the thought of telling people I love that I can’t visit this year because of gas prices.
But as far as everyday stuff goes, I generally walk to the grocery store, and I don’t work right now. Hubby takes the train to work, and we’re in an apartment where we don’t pay for heat, so we’re not really affected that badly.
I hardly ever use my car for things I don’t need it for. There’s little I can cut back on, but fortuantely my commute is not severe. Nonetheless, my next car will be more fuel efficient than my current one.
The major impact, which also happened the last time prices cleared 3$/gal here in SoCal, is that the nubmer of SUVs impeding my progress to and from work each day is blissfully reduced to a fraction of its former self.
It’s not hitting me too hard. I work about eight blocks from my house, so I don’t burn much gas during the week. I go to a neighboring town 25 miles away to shop maybe once or twice a month, but do my grocery shopping in town. I put $25 worth of gas in my car two weeks ago and I’m still on a quarter of a tank. I do more driving in the summer for work, but get paid mileage to do so.
It’s a bit worse for my husband, who drives about 20 miles one way to work. It’s better than it used to be though, because his employer bought him a work vehicle to use and he gets to drive it home some days.
Not really. I have a 10 minute drive to work, and I usually stop for groceries or errands on the way home. The spur-of-the-moment escape to Vegas may make us pause, and we’ve already started to take in more Single-A games than driving into LA to catch the Dodgers. (Not to mention that the tickets are only $11, we can sit right behind home plate, and the stands have waitress service!) Luckily my pickup gets great milage.
It is hitting me hard. I drive about 120 - 150 miles a day. My truck gets 14 at best miles a gallon, but my father has been borrowing my truck the past few weeks to move his house. So now I am rolling in his PT Cruiser that gets a less dismal 25mpg. It sucks hard core, but I keep telling myself if gas prices stay high, maybe on day they will come up with a better way for hydrogen cars to be feisable…
I commute about 90 miles round trip to work each day, which is slightly more than a tank a week. (I get about 380-420 miles to my 11 gallon tank on the highway) just for my job.
On top of that, I’m a self-employed musician, and when I’m working I may have similar round trip travels to get to rehearsals/gigs. Last week, for example, I drove an additional 90 miles a day for a gig. Adding personal travel, and I’m definitely noticing a significant increase in the amount of money I’m spending on gas.
I don’t really see how an extra $1 a gallon could hit anyone that hard, except someone who is literally living paycheck to paycheck.
I say this as someone who commutes 150 miles a day in a Kia Rio. When you take into account maintenance and wear+tear*, gas is still a minor component of transportation costs. Say my Rio gets 100,000 miles before it quits and it cost $10,000, that’s 10 cents per mile for just the car: at $3.00 a gallon and 40 MPG gas is still only 7.5 cents a mile and we haven’t even taken into account maintenance costs.
If I had a more expensive car the “car” portion would be even worse. Only in the instance of someone who drives a really cheap car that gets really bad mileage can I see an increase of $1 (or even $2) a gallon really cutting into the total transportation costs in the long run.
*and insurance but that’s more of a fixed-cost item rather than per-mile.
No real change here. I live about 15 miles from the closest town, and about 25 miles from work. Never really made too many unnecessary trips anyway.
Public transportation is not an option. And I sure don’t plan on moving. Where I live is one of the most important parts of my life. Besides, moving closer to town would be prohibitively expensive, the cost of gas is nothing compared to what it would cost me to live in town.
Just ordered a new mid-size SUV. I guess if a car was an option for me I might have re-considered. Not sure at what point an additional economy car will save money, but it’s quite a ways off
My wife and I have a combined round-trip commute of 190 miles a day. I drive an SUV too.
I haven’t noticed it much to tell you the truth except the numbers appear higher if I ever glance at my gas receipt. I don’t have to take toll roads to work anymore and that more than makes up for any extra gas expense.
I always get a kick out of people they interview on the news that say they are going to change their summer plans because of it. They have been doing the same thing since gas topped a dollar a gallon.
People claim that they can’t afford that 1000 mile round-trip fun filled week at Disneyland staying at the best hotels and going to park after park. If you do the math, the higher gas prices only add about $50 to the cost of that trip. Spread over a family of 4, that isn’t what I think of as a wallet-crusher.
I drive 32 miles to and from work every day, round trip, which means I burn about a gallon a day to get to work and back. My full time job is the least of the issues there, since that’s only about five gallons a week, or roughly fifteen bucks.
It’s the consulting that kills. Clients are scattered out everywhere and of course everybody wants on-site, so that means I’m driving there and back with potential extra trips to pick up parts at stores that might be up to 40 miles from where the job is.
I’ve slightly increased prices to cover the fuel costs, especially since the fuel costs continue to escalate.
Weekend trips and such are still doable, but they require a little bit more budgeting than they used to. Nothing too major, just means planning on Monday to take off on Friday rather than deciding Friday morning.
The only thing that really chaps my ass is the shortages of 87 octane that seem to crop up around here every time gas prices go above $3 a gallon. Suddenly all the people who couldn’t be arsed to use anything but premium are all about the low-octane and they suck the pumps dry. Sometimes means having to go to the second or third gas station to find the ‘regular’ gas.
The gas prices in my town are the highest in the state. Luckily, I live in a very small town- with my five-minute commute and bike riding, I only have to fill up once every three or four weeks.
It’s one of the things keeping me in this town- I can’t imagine living in a big city again.
Well, I’m not exactly paycheck to paycheck, but am close to it. It’s not like I’m making major sacrifices, but it’s enough that I have to be much more intentional and restrained about ‘frivolous’ purchases. Where before I might have had $20 dollars a week for play money, now I’ve got $15 or so (depending on what we’re using as a baseline). And, if I fill up the car an extra time during the week, then that money’s completely gone.
Again, not the end of the world, but it’s made me much more aware of how 20 or 30 cents a gallon affects my bottom line.
catsix, regarding consulting, do you charge per hour? Could you include travel time in your billing? For music stuff, that’s what I do; all time is billed equally, including my travel time.
It’s affecting me very little. My RT commute is about 20 miles, which means I’m using about a gallon a day, and I only have to fill up slightly more often than every two weeks. It’s just a minor aggravation.
Work aside, I live in a very walkable urban neighborhood, so I can avoid driving to some extent. I really don’t like driving much anyway, and have preferred walking and buses as a way of getting around my neighborhood ever since I moved here 16 years ago.
I just filled up this morning at $2.98/gal premium. Total tank full: $56 and change. I have an SUV, and get about 20 mpg in mixed city/hwy driving, 50 miles a day round trip to work.
It’s not really eating me up. The extra 50 cents or so a gallon isn’t going to break me. But I will be a tad hapier when the weather warms up sufficiently to drive the 30 mpg convertible to work every day.
