Flirting with $120/barrel today.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

If the price of gas keeps going up, maybe the gubment needs to think about starting a fuel stamp program for the working poor.

I carpooled to a recent alumni weekend in Athens but that was as much for companionship as for economics. Since I had a dining companion food costs were much higher. Mmmmmm..... Dillard house.

Gas prices were part of the reason I took my 38 mpg wagon on vacation instead of the truck. But the #1 reason was I didn't want to unload all my work supplies from the truck.

The biggest discretionary change is I used to head for the Smokies nearly every Sunday the weather was nice. Now i'm just as likely to go to ijams or go sit by the river.

____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs

This example of necessity being the mother of invention is on one of the Flickr pages of Matt Heeren, a Wisconsin & Southern engineer who is also a railfan and amateur photographer.

Visit us at

The Home

I drive less, combine trips more. Use the phone and e-mail more. Clothes shopping yesterday, and things I might have bought for half price, I decided I didn't like enough to spend the money. If they had been 75 percent off, ok.

The food thing is another tough one. I spent the weekend w/ family, most are working class, some retired, two on disability at 40 (arthritis for one, MS for the other). There was lots of talk about where to get what cheaper and how they were doing w/o certain things.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

The hubby's employer requires the work trucks to go home with the employees. Starting today the hubby is now on 4 ten hour days with the hope that fewer trips to the office will reduce the amount of gas the employees are burning.
When that does not work the employer will change the policy and work trucks won't go home with the employees at all. All that means to my wallet is we will be paying for the gas to get to the office to pick up the work truck.

This is not a pity party for my wallet. I just want to say watch out for changes in how quickly utility workers respond to outages.

We normally take two driving vacations a year. We have decided not to go to Colorado in June. We will evaluate our fall trip in late summer and decide then. (Probably will go though)
Our Ford 500 gets about 25 on the road so its really pretty good but at 3.35 to $3.50 per gallon a 2500- 3000 mile trip costs.

Our cars average 30 mpg but we drive a bit further than your example so it works out to about the same thing.

We can afford it but that doesn't matter, we are trying to be more concious of our trips an have reduced the mileage...Not as much as I'd like. But we are carpooling to the Plant-Kraus concert..Does that count?

Just a quick calculation:

20 miles R/T to work
20 vehicle miles per gallon

200 miles R/T per week - work (2 workers)
100 miles errands per week
100 miles other per week
-------
400 miles per week

400 miles /20 MPG

20 gallons per week

$0.54/gal more ($2.85 in 4/2007 vs $3.39 4/2008)
$10.80 extra dollars per week ($1.54/day)
$43.20 extra dollars per month

What do you give up to pay the extra $10.80 per week? $43.20 per month? Bring your lunch? What if you were already bringing your lunch? Even cheaper groceries or less groceries? Colder home in winter, warmer in summer? Sodas/pop? Cable TV? Cell phone?

This is kind of hard to quantify, but I'm curious what Knoxviewers perceive the personal impact to be.

The past few months total US gasoline demand is down 1-2% from a year ago. I suspect that may climb even higher due to the recent spike in prices.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.