David and I just returned from a long weekend visiting my parents. (You didn’t even know I was gone and blogging from somewhere else, did you?) While there we stopped to fill up the gas tank. A large pick-up pulled out of a spot and we pulled in. They had spent $75 to fill up. Yikes! I think it is terrible when we have to spend $24 to top off the tank when it is about half full. I can’t imagine spending $75 and who knows how often he has to do this.
While working at home/being self-employed has its disadvantages (like health insurance premiums – another topic), it also has some huge advantages. One of them is gas and car costs. Our average monthly cost for gas is around $55. It is running a little higher than that right now because we’ve been making so many trips to the doctor, but that is about our average. So even with gas now at over $3.00 a gallon, it doesn’t impact our budget a whole lot.
However, on a discussion board I visit, someone asked these questions – At what price per gallon would the cost of gasoline begin to impact you significantly? At what price per gallon would the cost of gasoline become a serious crisis for you?
I’m interested to hear what people have to say about this. I can already see that the price of gas is running up the costs of groceries and so on, so the cost doesn’t just impact when we drive the car. For us, I am guessing if gas got up to $5.00 a gallon, it would start to impact our driving. If it got up around $7-10 a gallon, it would start to have a serious impact on our driving.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! (And please keep this non-political. Consider it a chat between neighbor ladies over the fence, not a political discussion. Thanks!)
actually prices are already having an impact on our driving. We have income insues already so every penny going out is pinched beyond belief as it is.
You know, it’s hard to say. I can’t even wrap my head around paying $3 yet we do and probably will continue to. However, the high prices did alter our vacation plans this summer. We were thinking of going somewhere about 12 hours away but decided to just go 4 hours to help save money on gas.
I fully understand what you are saying. Hubby and I both work for the same company; however, we telecommute for the price of broadband interent and a phone line.
We have over 5000 independent contractors around the country- mainly stay at home moms- that work for this company and a recent survey about this same issue showed a huge number of them choose to do this FT now with gas prices rising the way they are (combined with the savings on daycare- the top 2 “financial” reasons).
With the kids home this summer, we rarely go out at all. Part of it is sheer time, cause it’s 20 min to town for us now- and part is gas. I treasure my Land Rover … but it’s not cheap to fill.
Once the kids go back to school, we will be back in the “gas race” again, and I anticipate our gas bill eating up a significant amount of $$ – partly our fault, we choose to keep them in an out-of-district school for a better educational opportunity, so have no bus available.
We are already looking at ways to cut back on things to absorb what I anticipate will be a $40-50/wk gas bill, and will be combining pickups from school with trips to the store for things we are out of.
Great topic- I’ll be back to see how others are impacted and what they are doing to survuve 🙂
It has already impacted us. I’m very careful about how many times I go out during the week. I try to schedule appt’s, shopping, etc. on the same day and near each other so I don’t have to go all over the place. Unforuntately, I live in suburbia so I have to drive everywhere. Thankfully, most everything I need is within 3 miles. Still, I try to be careful.
Considering the nearest stores are 10-13 miles away, it’s already impacting us! Gosh! We’ve never seen a $55 gas bill for a month. We have to drive everywhere. The malls are 35-45 mins away (we live in the country).
But, I don’t worry about us. I worry about my single daughter, with 4 children, 2 of them teenagers, who have to drive to sports practice, school, and my daughter who drives about 35 miles one way to work and back every day! I definitely know it’s hurting her! And, to think the USA could be producing our own! 🙁
The price of gas has really affected us. I put $80 worth of gas in my van today, and that was only a little over 3/4 of a tank. My husband has started to carpool with a co-worker, which we estimate is saving about $150 a month. We homeschool and are having to decide which outside activities we will and won’t include this year, based on how much driving is involved. In April I sat down and calculated how much we had spent on gasoline for the month; it was over $650. We have 8 children, one in college, and the price of gasoline is a huge issue for us. It is cutting into funding for other areas of life.
I feel like it has already impacted me as I really try to organize my errands to drive less. We have relaitives in the area but not terribly close and we don’t just jump in the car so easily to visit.
Ugh, I can’t even imagine $5 per gallon!
In the UK it costs about 8 and a half US dollars for a gallon of petrol.
That’s about 98p per litre or $1.85266
In the UK converting your price for petrol of $3 it works out at £1.61 per gallon.
Petrol has not been that cheep in the UK for over 20 years.
This is why we all have smaller cars 🙂 No one can afford to run larger cars in the UK.
Hope you can understand the conversions, I was using google, I have no idea how dollars work!
We spend upwards of $100 each week on gas. My husband drives either the Jeep or his Yukon and has a 40 mile commute, round-trip. I’m driving, on average, to 4 doctor’s appointments each week. Our house is on the market, and we’re hoping to move closer to the church (where he works). But until then, we’re pretty much stuck with a lot of driving, which unfortunately is costing us a fortune!
I’d like to say that there is some point in the near future where the prices will heavily affect us, but he can’t walk to work, and I have to be able to get our daughter to all of her appointments, so we’re basically slaves to the gas pump! It’s scary that we’ll probably see $4 a gallon sometime soon, isn’t it? I would’ve never imagined it!
The last time gas shot up to $3.50 a gallon (here in the DC area last fall, it might not have been quite as high elsewhere) my husband got a bike so he could bike to the metro when it was nice weather and it was not dark during his commute. We later learned that the weekend he bought his bike was the highest bike buying surge since the 70’s!
We live fairly close to most things we need, even his ride to the metro isn’t that far, but he saves parking fees as well as gas when he rides his bike. However, next time we move we’ll have to look at getting a more fuel effecient car to replace his truck, depending on where we get moved. My car is pretty fuel efficient. The bike is the most fuel efficient, though!
We haven’t been seriously affected by the cost of gasoline except for the rising prices of consumer goods. I have really noticed the price of many items going up 15 to 25 cents. Example: Small bottles of Dawn at the dollar store have always been $1. They are now $1.25. And so on. We live in a small town and both hubby and I are within walking distance or our jobs, our bank, our downtown area, my mother’s home, and the bread store where we can purchase milk and other items besides bread. So if we need to walk these places, we will do so. We are content to be at home most times. Our largest cost for travel is to meet our daughter halfway between their home and ours to pick up or take back our oldest granddaughter who spends weeks with us during the summer. She goes home on weekends. As for our gasoline prices, I feel Americans really shouldn’t complain as we have it good compared to other countries where it is twice, even three times as much. I am interested to see if these rising prices will have an affect on people’s lives .. whether it be they
conserve more, stay home more, cook at home more, travel less (so much to see and do in one’s own home area), and just, in general, become more aware of being wasteful with our time and resources, both natural and man-made.
Just my thoughts on this humid Missouri morning! I have to go and hang out clothes now.
We have not been inpacted by the rising gas prices, yet! I live within 2 miles of my office/work. However, my husband has a 45 minute commute. So it’s a wash for us. Also, we live in a community where just about everything is within a block. So, one of us stops on the way home to do grocery shopping, etc. Also, our subdivision has is a swim/tennis design – so we have social events within the subdivision often. Hubby is big into Tennis, and our courts are 1 block away. Consequently, unless it’s church-related we rarely drive unless it’s to work. However, we are praying about giving up my husband’s Ford F-150 pickup truck and buying a Honda Accord for him to commute in.
It is already impacting us because before the gas price increase we were living very tightly (read: paycheck to paycheck…not the way we want to live but right now its where we’re at). So with the increase in gas it has gotten us already. I stay home more rather than flitting about just to be out. But, we travel alot in the summer to see my mom down at the coast and that has gotten expensive.
Then there is the rising cost of almost ALL groceries, due to the fuel surcharges distributors are charging them….
It goes on and on. I try not to grumble or complain too much but livin’ is tight around our house right now.
It’s already impacted us. My commute to work is 21 miles one way so it adds up. We try not to do a lot of extra driving. For instance, there was a street fair that I wanted to go to, but it was a good 40 minute drive away and so we didn’t go because of the cost of gas.
The gas prices have affected my family enough to where I’ve begun planning a just once-a-week-errands day. Besides, I was just tired of spending all summer, it seemed, driving around in the car. The last two weeks have been more relaxed because of it, and we’ve spent more time reading and outdoors.
I’m also watching my grocery bills closer.
Last time I had to fill up the gas tank in my mini van, it was around $55.
Emily
2 years ago we bought a diesel estate car which has come in very handy since! Diesel is more efficient for long journey’s which is great becuase we do the 4 hour drive to London quite regularly. I’m not even going to try and convert figures like Susan did, but to fill our tank from empty would now cost between £60-£80, over $100 dollars. We rarely fill the whole tank!
It has affected us very much because we are on a fixed income. (My husband had to go on disability due to an illness.) I used to hop in the car to go into town without thinking but now I have to plan each trip.
I saw a friend at the grocery store this morning. We were both commenting that we’re spending more on groceries and such. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised since it cost more to transport everything.
I’m sure Susanna will confirm that it’s not just the cost of running a car, the knock on effect is that other things have risen in price too. Food and services, and public transport, that I use, has gone up too.
After spending up to 4 hours a day on public transport going to and from university I now plan to work from home.
Not just to save on transport costs, but my sanity after spending hours stuck in traffic queues.
It has already impacted us. We had a vacation to Washington State planned to visit family, and we’ve canceled it and planned something closer to home instead. We also bought a motorcycle for hubby to take to work to save on gas (although he can’t take it on 100+ degree days or he gets heat exhaustion). I just had to permanently cancel our daughter’s voice lessons because it was an hour round trip. It costs $55 to fill up my car, and almost $100 for my hubby’s truck. I hate to imagine how much more it will impact us if it goes much higher. My hubby commutes an hour round trip everyday. It’ll be a bit easier when the weather gets better and he can take the motorcycle.
Wow! I can’t imagine paying that much for gasoline each month! I know in an abstract way that people are paying a lot, but hearing stories like these really drive it home. For some of you it is like making another house payment each month!
Thank you for being willing to share your stories.
I was one of those $75 fill ups today, and I was thinking that it really is disturbing to me. We’ve always had spikes in prices, but they have come down, unlike recent months. We are heated by oil in our home, and last winter was mild, so the spike wasn’t too noticeable. If this winter is a “normal” one, or a cold one, it will be noticeable. Fortunately, we do not live paycheck to paycheck, but something will be impacted. I may not drive less (but I do already think before just running around, as many others have said), but if I don’t drive less, then I will buy one less coffee that month, or forgo a shoe sale, since the gas is now eating into our discretionary funds each month.
My husband and I used to commute together 2-3 times per week since we both worked in the same city which is 60 miles from our home. I am now a stay-at-home wife (a really recent event) and we are simplifying our lives and thinking about moving closer to his work and more potential future employers for myself if that is God’s will. Our commuting miles have dropped but so has our income substantially. All planned and we always maintained that we can support ourselves on one income.
We currently spend about $75 a week and our car gets 28 mpg. We thought about getting a hybrid or a higher gas mileage car like a VW diesel. After we worked out the figures and found the gas savings wouldn’t pay for the car until 10-12 years and considering how many miles we put on a vehicle we decided to stay with a sedan that gets reasonably good mileage.
I, too, try to make my trips count and go out 1-2 times per week. I am driving a pickup truck that gets about 12 miles per gallon. We are thinking about selling the truck and getting down to one car.
We are prayerfully considering our options and thank the Lord that we are blessed with resources to provide the fuel we need now. We have talked about if fuel goes up to $5 we may have to seriously consider moving.
My husband works about 25 miles away from home and he says he spends about £120-160 a month on petrol. That’s about $220-295 a month. It is a hefty chunk out of the wages.
And as I said we have a small car, 1.4 litre. No idea what that is in american car sizes. But it does about 35 miles per gallon.
There is a tiny car, two seater, in the UK and Europe called The Smart Car and it does about 80 mpg.
If we ever get a second car I’ll seriously think about that one.
I am a Parole Officer for the state of Ma. and it requires a tremendous ammount of driving, an average of 1500mi. a month. Besides that my husband is now disabled due to a work related injury, so that leave us a family of 4 with just my income. Then add cost of medical care, mortgage, utilities, taxes, etc, etc,…well I guess that my job and my income has becomed totally taxed by the cost of gas, and the gas companies continue to make record profits for the rich, while the rest of us struggle to keep them rich. I think that we as a people need to start voicing to those in power what their greed is doing to the rest of us. Complaining and not doing anything about it is just a waste of time.
I’m republishing this post in February 2023. Interesting to see the discussion then, what developed after that, and what we’re living with now.