The headline in my local paper on Wednesday was “Pumped UP”. There was a graph showing the price of gas as of Tuesday was $3.29 vs. last month’s price of $3.11 vs. last year’s price of $2.69. Sixty cents more than last year. Yikes!
A petroleum analyst, who was quoted in the article, was projecting that we could be paying anywhere from $3.65 – $4.05 by Memorial Day. It sounds like we might be headed back to the summer of 2008. Double Yikes! Of course it is only a projection and hopefully he is WRONG!
I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but I am keeping my eye on gas prices. Our business was affected by higher gas prices in 2008. Some customers confided that they couldn’t continue to buy our product because gas prices were taking a bigger chunk out of their budgets. Many businesses and families were affected by the summer of 2008’s gas hikes.
While my husband and I will continue to charge forward with our business, I’m still going to keep a sharp eye on gas prices.
Personally, I’ll be more watchful over wasteful driving and idling. With the warmer months coming, we’ll frequent the businesses within walking distance instead of driving distance. And I’ll combine all of my errands into one trip. While I don’t consider myself a wasteful person; these are things that I have taken for granted when gas is $2.69/gallon.
How will you deal with rising gas prices? Were you severely impacted the last time gas hit $4/gallon? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading. If you would like to receive FREE updates of FBS, there are four ways to do so:
- through your RSS Feed
- have updates sent to your email,
- become a fan and ‘like’ FBS on Facebook
- become a Twitter follower
Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Gas prices were a hot topic in our household too… right now we’re looking at $3.69 a gallon and I’ve seen as high as $3.79 in the North Chicago suburbs…
The news has speculated a few times that we might see as high as $5… my husband commutes and it’s kind of freaking me out… so what I’m going to do is double stockpile where I can and when the time comes, hopefully it will balance out with less money being spent on groceries… we have a small savings, that I’m trying to bolster but I don’t want to dip into that if I don’t have to
When Hurricane Katrina hit, we were in the middle of a round-the-US trip to raise support (going overseas as missionaries). It about killed us as we were already living on the little support that was coming in. We ended up cutting our trip short and heading home to do the rest of our support raising via email and newsletters.
Spring ahead to summer of 2008, and we were on the road again – driving to Alaska to work with a couple of mission organizations up there. In Canada, we paid as much as $6 (US) a gal. and were actually laughing about how we seem to pick the highest gas times to go on long trips!
Now that we’re no longer working overseas and my husband and I are both employed, we decided it was finally time to go from one car to two. However, we chose to do it because my job is very close, so I drive our SUV to work and hubby drives the more fuel efficient ’94 Honda Accord to his job. Even with two cars, we’re seeing a drastic reduction in gas purchases!
So all of that to say, my advice is that now is the time to look for a fuel efficient car – used. It doesn’t have to be fancy or new, it just needs to get you there and back and do it on a small tank of gas that stretches over 2-3 weeks.
with 2 trucks, the last time it went up close to $4, it cost $100 each to fill up. My truck has actually been broke since last July and hopefully should be fixed soon, but I have got used to using the bus and might continue to do so, except on grocery shopping days.
Dh has to drive, no matter what. Alot of his work is in town, but he has had to drive 30 miles or more(one way) to a job site(he’s a brick mason)
We felt the pinch in 2008, but we will feel it much more this year as we no longer have my full-time salary. I may be walking quite a bit, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. I could use the exercise.
If you don’t mind, what business is your husband in? I hope it will not affect you too much. It seems that the economy was just getting back on track and this might derail it somewhat.
We are changing our shopping habits. While there are only the two of us now (and a cat who can count cat food cans), we are shopping only every two weeks. I buy what is on sale and always buy two. I use coupons where possible. We are retired but still have to eat. That is our biggest expense. But we cut where we can.
It does feel like a repeat of 2008, doesn’t it? We weren’t affected severely, but we live in the burbs, so we’re kind of at the mercy of using a car. Since I work from home, that helps. But, we have two teens and will soon have four drivers in this house. Yikes!
Like everyone else, been having the same discussion at our house. We will be much more aware of where (how far) and how often we are driving, and my husband sometimes rides his bike to work. I also will be more diligent about combining shopping trips when I do gas up and go out.
@Andrea – good idea about the stockpile. I’m not much of a stockpiler, but this might encourage me to stock up on our basics.
@Carrie – the last time this happened, the was a surge in sales for fuel efficient cars, so I’m sure the same will happen again…boo hiss on the gas guzzlers
@Julie – 2 teens in the house…but maybe they can chip in for their own gas use??
@April – public transportation is a great solution, but I do feel for people like your husband who have to drive far for their jobs.
@Melissa – I’ll be doing more walking too. My husband is in the healthcare industry.
@Lynda – If gas gets too high, we’ll be changing our shopping habits too.
@Courtney – I bet a lot more people will be taking their bikes to work. I wonder if we’ll start seeing more bikes on the road soon.
Thanks everyone for the comments!