Might I inform you all of http://gasbuddy.com/ ?
Thanks, Troy!
Extravagent isn’t in our family vocabulary so there’s no place to cut. Besides, a 50 cent a gallon increase in the national average since a year ago (according NBC this morning) only amount to about $10.00 more a month towards fuel for us.
There’s not a lot I can do. I wasn’t much given to driving around just for the heck of it in the first place, and we’re lucky enough to live in a pretty small place so that I don’t have to drive very far for most things. I do kind of wish that the timing was better on a trip we’ll take next week, but it’s not all that far and I can’t very well cancel it because it will cost a few bucks more than I would like.
We live far out of town so we tend to conserve anyways. When we go into town to do errands on my husband’s day off we try to do as much as we can while we’re out, and usually ask his parents if they need anything, too. We recently decided that we are purchasing a motorcycle as our commuter car has taken quite the beating and needs to be laid to rest. Right now we’re saving for downpayment while “FrankenCar” continues in its long and loyal service. If it weren’t all highway miles, I’d definitely be looking into a Prius about now, but they aren’t much of a help for our type of driving. I am in Southern California btw and cheap gas is around $2.31 a gallon. Last fall we went on a roadtrip up the 395 and saw it get above and beyond $3.00.
We used my Big, Lovely, Manly, Full-Sized Dodge 1500 Conversion Van as a trade in on a dinky little Hyundai Elentra Hatchback. So what if the Van only got about eight MPG? I loved it and the damn lousy SUVs didn’t bully me when I drove it. The damned Hyundai only lives here; I use it when I have to but I don’t love it and never will.
Not much. I already drive the most fuel-efficient car that I can fit into comfortably (Honda Element, 24 mpg), and we live in the optimum location for optimizing my wife’s and my commutes to work. The only place I can realistically cut down my driving is weekend outings to go hiking or into San Francisco, but gas prices aren’t high enough yet to make me stay home. Gas has been $2/gallon out here for a long time, so $2.25 isn’t exactly the end of the world.
Well, since gas is $2.35 here, I don’t fill up my tank anymore. Not because I don’t like a full tank of gas, but because I only have $20 a week for gas money, and that $20 doesn’t go as far as it used to. It also means that I’ve cut all unnecessary driving and errands out.
Have you considered taking the CalTrain to SF? Some workplaces offer discounts or even free travel on it. (My husband works for Stanford and rides for free - worth looking into!) If you usually pay to park while you’re there it might work out to be cheaper even! If you don’t, you can think of it as putting money into the “right” pockets (public transportation) rather than OPEC jerks. (Plus you can do something constructive during the ride like read or knit or whatever instead of just sitting there stewing in traffic.)
I have a 40 mile round trip commute, so not much help for me.
Except my lovely Honda Civic gets 36.6 miles to the gallon. I love that car.
I’m eating out much less and drinking less beer. Just driving a bit less. I usually drive a 92 Ford Ranger PU w/ a 4cyl. Unfortunately it has 280000+ miles on it, and I usually only get 22 to 24 miles to the gallon. It got 26 to 30 when it was new. A good headwind or hilly terrain seems to really take a toll on its gas mileage too.
Nothing. I don’t want to walk ten miles to work. As a matter of fact, I’m looking for a big sixties gas guzzler to drive on weekends, so I’m likely to start spending more on gas soon.
Not a thing. I have enough income in my life that gas prices would have to reach economically apocalyptic levels for me to be affected by them.
I’m not sure about everyone else but I don’t see the big deal either.
The car I typically drive I tend to put roughly 13 gallons in it whenever I fill it up (I may be slightly off there.)
At 2.50/gallon that’s $30.55. At 2.00/gallon that’s $26.00. At 1.50/gallon that’s $19.50.
So honestly I’m paying a little over $10 a tank more. That only works out to like, maybe $35/average more per month. I don’t see how that’s a high enough number to affect me. But I understand there are lots of people that drive more than I do. Of course I drive frequently but rarely great distances and the car I drive incidentally gets good gas mileage.
Looking at it from the perspective of the U.K., longer term I don’t think the price rises will have any significant impact. People need to drive, and as much as the government keeps raising petrol duty, people keep buying, because they need to. We currently pay 80 pence (US$1.50 approx) per litre
When I moved to a town with an adequate public transport system I left my motorbike in my old town and sold it several months later. It’s a very large saving I came to find, no rego, no petrol, no fixing, no insurance to pay.
No change here. I live about 2.5 miles from where I work, and my car get pretty good mileage (27-28mpg), so I only have to spend an extra $3 or so a month. I don’t really drive that much outside of going to work either.
This is sort of on target.
Gasoline demand in the short term remains inelastic. That is, people are going to use what they need to use. The extra cost will come out of other parts of their budget. So rising gas prices tend not to effect gas sales but do effect all other sales (including luxuries, entertainment, and food purchases).
In the medium and longer term, however, there is a significant chance of higher prices effecting change. The types of cars, in particular, show demand change due to higher price-at-the-pump. So if prices continue to stay above $2.10 or climb to $3.00 per gallon we’ll see a rebirth of tiny hyper-efficient cars and SUVs will end up sucking wind. C’est la guerre, Detroit.
In addition, public transportation and non-fuel-consuming transport (bikes and such) will enjoy increased demand.
And for those of us on the extreme…
One of the reasons I packed up and moved from the DC ex-urbs to rural Ohio was gas prices. When we were commuting into DC each day from the Blue Ridge our gas budget was roughly $1100 per month. 60 miles, one way, for two cars meant filling the tank of each every two days or so. And that was more than a year ago when gas was at what…$1.50 per gallon? Now it would make my budget $2000 per month or more.
Now? Neither of us commutes. I can go several weeks without filling up my car and my wife’s Jeep stays in the carport for (literally) months. A mechanic pal advises us to take it out for a few miles once per month to keep it loose.
But that’s it. Our average monthly gasoline bill is now $115 (I did the math in Quicken). And it’s only that higher because of several cross country trips. If I corrected for that I bet we’d be below $80 per month.
Urgh, stop. A gallon of unleaded in Texas only cost something like a little over 1 GBP, a quater of what we pay in the UK (roughly, even taking into account the difference in a UK and US gallon) Even a hop over the Irish border to take advantage of lower prices and the exchange rate doesn’t help 
Which reminds me, what country does have the highest fuel prices? I hear that some countries are at AUD$5+ a Litre.