Well, your commute increased by 1300%, and gas has increased about 25%. I don’t think it’s the cost of gas that has caused you the crunch.
I figure that a $1 increase in the price of gas costs my wife and me about $1000 per year.
That’s a pretty sizeable chunk out of some people’s yearly pay increases. It’s a quarter of what I’m allowed to contribute to my IRA. It’s a mortgage payment per year.
So, I don’t really FEEL it, as in going without food. But, I’m sufficiently attuned to and disciplined with my money that I’ll notice it at the end of the year.
I’m FAR from cheap, but my personal spending doesn’t have enough “noise” to drown out the effects either. By that I mean. . .I’m not a guy who buys a CD here, a book here, a few lattes here, a late fee, a lunch bill, etc…
Not too much. Both my cars get lousy mileage, well under <20mpg, but I work from home and my wife takes public transit. Commuting is maybe 50 miles a week, and we don’t drive too often or too far to go shopping. I have to say, though, that I’m thinking more about how much gas costs when planning longer trips. An hour of driving is over 10 bucks now, that adds up quick
It’s not affecting me at all. I don’t drive and I get free public transit through my job so a rate hike there won’t matter. I do find myself less inclined to accept nonessential trips from drivers, though, knowing how much it costs them, and knowing I’m supporting the industry.
Have any of you gasoholics considered converting your vehicles to biodiesel?
Not so much. The gas money isn’t that big of a hit on my CC bill, all in all. And I drive a Honda Civic hybrid, which gets ~42mpg on my daily commute (over 520, may the traffic gods have mercy). That’s pretty much all the driving I do – I don’t go on road trips much at all. But it’s still a turn to see $30 totals for filling 4/5 of my tank. :eek:
Biodiesel doesn’t require modification to the vehicle. But it isn’t much cheaper (or any cheaper) than regular diesel fuel.
Perhaps you’re thinking of modifications that allow diesel engines to run on untreated vegetable oil. But for the price of a greasel.com conversion kit, I can buy a year’s worth of diesel fuel. And that doesn’t even include the installation labor. And I’d have the headache of having to beg for used frying oil, or buying my own vegetable oil. And finding mechanics who would do any work on modified engines (it doesn’t matter that the engine itself isn’t modified; many mechanics refuse to even look at a modified car.) And of course, all this irrelevant for the vast majority of Americans because they own gasoline-powered cars, not diesel.
Anyway getting back to the OP, it hasn’t affected me much, but it does provide stronger incentive for me to bike to work more often.
Actually, I haven’t bought a tank in the last two months. My new job requires no commuting. But I still seek out the absolute lowest price in town to fill, just because that’s the only way to fight the windfall reapers.
I’m lucky-I have an 11 mile commute. I could take a bus, but I would stiil have to :
-drive 2.7. miles
-walk 3 blocks
-take a bus for 10 miles
-take a subway train (2 stops)
-walk 3 blocks
I figure it would take me over 2 hours day to save 15 miles-so not worth it yet.
Incidentally, I can see a big drop in crude oil prices soon…probably to about $55/barrel
I have a rate for on-site stuff (where I go to the customer) and I have a rate for stuff they bring to me. There’s not much of a difference, but enough for me to make it worth going on-site. I also give a discount to cash paying customers, because cash is more convenient for me than checks that have to be taken to the bank.
Charging for travel time would cost the customer a lot more than having a slightly higher rate for on-site support.
Well, it hasn’t really hit me that hard, no. For one thing, since I own my own business I basically write off my mileage on my quarterly taxes as I generally use my car to commute to my various clients. I haven’t even had to up my rates as yet, thats how little effect the gas prices have had. If it, say, doubles to ~$6 a gallon…well, then I may have to up my hourly rates a bit to compensate.
I can’t say its going to really effect my summer travel either to be honest. I plan to do several trips to Arizona and at least one trip to Mexico this year to visit family and friends…about what I do every year.
I live 100m from a bus stop. The bus takes me to the subway. I go two stops west, then I get on another bus that goes express to the office park where I work, and lets me off right across the street from my office. (Going home is even easier. I don’t have to cross the street. )
However… I have noticed that the prices of many things are creeping up. Bus passes. Snacks (a lot of things that cost a dollar in the vending machine last week now cost a dollar five). I expect more increases soon.
The buses are more crowded now, too.
OTOH, my friends, who last year moved to the country and are preparing to grow their own food, seal and insulate their house, build a windmill, make their own biodiesel, etc, are just now getting hammered by the cost of gas for commuting.
They have dramatically cut down on things like movies (have to drive to get there, and then the movies themselves are so expensive…).
They live about 4 km from a town, across level roads. I’m trying to convince them to get bicycles for good-weather use. I’ve already convinced them to get a Smart car (diesel-powered) when their SUV is paid off in October.
Going up to $2 a gallon a few years ago caused me to quit my recreational driving (out driving just to see where a road took me), but going from $2 to $3 hasn’t really affected me. I get a free bus pass from my job, so I ride the bus to and from work. I can do most of my errands on the bus-ride home. Most of my hobbies involve going someplace like a state park that doesn’t cost me anything once I get there, or volunteer work, so the only consideration is can I afford the $10-$20 it will cost me to drive there. I am more inclined to share a ride to a volunteer site than I was before. I fill up about once a month and get about 25mpg highway in my little SUV. The biggest cut I will probably make is going back home for a long weekend this summer, but nobody is getting married, so there isn’t much reason to go back. I kayak in the lake across the road more and lakes a half hour away less, I photograph things close to home more and away from home less, but I’m still doing all my hobbies and paying all the bills.
Another effect: my friends’ parents own an RV, and every fall they would drive it down to Florida from Southern Ontario. In the spring they would drive it back. This year, though, they left it in Florida, at a place that take cares of temporarily-unused RVs.
They said that the fuel for the one-way RV journey between Florida and Ontario now costs between $1000 and $1500 (not sure if that’s US or Canadian dollars), and it’s cheaper just to park the thing for six months and pay storage costs.
We’re paying $50 more a month for gas, approx., than we paid 3 months ago. I’ve already cut out cable, eating out, taking the kids on the kinds of outings that cost money, driving anywhere that’s not necessary, going to the chiropractor we’d been with for 7 years. As a one-income family with 4 kids, we need a minivan (kids are required to be in booster seats until 90 lbs and none of mine are that big yet - 4 boosters simply won’t fit in a smaller vehicle). I can’t exactly put 4 kids on the back of a bicycle and bike to the grocery store. Even if they could all ride bikes, which they can’t (even if I had a bike, which I don’t), it’s impractical in the extreme.
We’re eating more bread, more pasta…cheap foods. It’s tough. I can’t exactly afford to go out and buy a new, more efficient vehicle even if there was such a thing in minivan size, because we’re pinched at our current income level, never mind adding on a $300/month car payment and higher car insurance.
We’re not going hungry, but I’m at a loss what else to cut from our budget. And I really dread the price of gas getting worse. The next solution in mind is to get an early-morning job (like barrista?) so I can work a few hours a day before my husband goes to work, and bring in a bit of extra income. It’s that, or have to get day care for our littlest, and that would mean working full time just to pay for the day care.
No affect on me. I budgeted for $3/gal years ago. I’ll bump that up to $3.50 for next year.
When adjusted for inflation and average miles per gallon driven I’m paying less in fuel costs then I was in the 70’s. Compared to any other oil importing country it’s a bargain.
I’ve yet to find someone who will admit that they expect prices to stay the same or go down from last year. But for those people who want to pay less than the current rates they should instruct their representatives to open up drilling in the United States and add more refineries.
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