There’s a lot of talk in the media about how gas prices are affecting consumer buying habits and hurting retail stores. What about you? Are you feeling the pinch? —MEGHANN MARCO
(Photo: superchou)
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I ride my bicycle to work most days, and only have to fill up once a month or so.
@GirlGoneRiled:
where do people find others to rideshare/carpool with? I have signed up with as many sites as I can find, & can’t find anyone either in my company or in an office nearby to carpool with. I’d bike but its 24miles one way and 1200′ difference in altitude. any suggestions are appreciated
Because I work 2 jobs to support my family while my wife is in school ‘carpooling’ is not an option for that you need a close schedule with others. I see a lot of people saying how ‘oh its just a dollar per gallon’. REALLY? Could the general public be that dim witted? That increase in gas has had several effects in the market. Food costs more, electric will go up, taxes go up (yup gov has to buy gas too) my favorite was the schools not being able to bus kids because no one had thought gas would jump 1.50 in a years time much less 4 months.
What I have done is when the cool Kings Dominion ad comes up I remind the family that we have to buy the gas to get there AND pay the insane entry fee, We dont eat out much anymore, trips to the beach are a thing of the past, grass cutting is done once a month ONLY, we dont go to movies anymore as they require financing almost, we dont go to the mall or shop at the retail stores any more… We became secondary market shoppers.
When gas goes reasonable again after our summer vacations are over we may be able to do something but alas a cost of living raise is only 3% or a bit more a year and prices are way over that.
@rogue: You could bikepool with Lance Armstrong.
@rogue: That’s my point. Even people who *want* to do it find it difficult b/c so many people think they’re schedule is so almighty important that they couldn’t possibly give up even a small amount of control, or wait 30 minutes for the carpool partner to be done.
My SIL recently offered to take a friend to the grocery store, the bank and the PO. Said friend was all on board until my SIL revealed that she also intended to hit the dry cleaner and then claimed she’d be too busy to wait the 10 minutes for the SIL-only errand. Go on any budget-related message board where people talk about gas prices – as soon as carpooling comes up as an option all you get is “Oh, I couldn’t because I like to leave right at 5 p.m. and the carpool doesn’t leave until 5:20. I don’t get paid for those 20 minutes.” and “Sounds like a good idea, but my friend wants to get dropped at the daycare center and that’s two blocks away from my place so…”
Seriously, it’s incredible how shortsighted people can be when it comes to short-term vs. long-term priorities. Shortsighted and incredibly stupid, that is.
Car pooling is simply not an option for people with mult-tasked workers. If I get a call from my son’s daycare that he is sick and I need to get him… How do I do that? A cab? What about when I have to go site to site? Perhaps I need to go home early or need to get something. What happens when you have a second job and need to get there and THEN home? Its not short sighted its reality. For some it works others that are mobile it doesnt. Me I would love to telecommute but many managers are technically illiterate and dont want to pay for work performed off site.
Its not a one fits all thing.
i chose “yes, i’m eating ramen”, but not solely b/c of the increase in gas prices at the pump. has anyone else noticed that food prices have increased drastically over the past 2 years? $100 at the grocery store stocked me up for at least a week prior to the initial surge in gas prices. yesterday, barbeque chicken for 3, with some veggies on the side was $50. one meal (actually 1 meal X 3 ppl = 3 meals): $50?!?
due to this, my shopping habits at the grocery store alone have changed dramatically. i no longer buy cereal, snack food, premium coffee, fresh rolls, desserts, frozen food, most seafood, my gourmet cheese intake has dropped *sobbing uncontrollably* & i find myself choosing “save” over “organic”
don’t mean to hijack the thread, but that’s my 2 bits. if i could quantify how much MORE of my money is being spent on gas these days, i think it would rival the amount i send to the tax man.
Gas prices? Dude, I run on vegetable oil. It’s free, and gas prices going up only increases the amount of money that I’m saving. Of course, around here, 99% biodiesel is cheaper than gasoline or petrodiesel.
Its funny how gas has almost quadrupled in the past 7 years while the minimum wage is the same.
Gas went up in my area almost 75 cents in the past 30 days.
Anyways why is it with any industry where you buy in bulk the price goes down except gasoline. Our gas should still be under $100 like back in the year 2000 as the gas companies have no problems selling it or supplying it.
Don’t give me that not enough supply and too high demand crap.
There are no supply problems as I have yet to see any gas stations run out of gas.
Its so obvious they are gouging, Why do the oil companies have the biggest surplus profit they have ever had in the history of their companies?
It would be nice if you has a 4th option: “I am choosing not to buy gas” which certainly has different connotations than “I do not purchase gas”.
The cost of gas has made us stop driving our car, we now ride bikes to work and use Zipcar for all our errands.
I also notice that low-income neighborhoods are some of the first hit by gas cost increases. A few weeks ago the Shell station down the street from us in West Oakland had regular gas at $4.34 while in more affluent Rockridge it was fairly stable at $3.64. What gives with that?
@r81984: the problem is that the market is manipulated by a small number of players that control all aspects of the market – harvesting, transporting, refining, & distributing.
they determine supply AND demand, which is an anamoly.
some day someone will have the balls to break those bastards apart.
We have drastically changed our habits. Gas has gone up but food has gone up quite a bit also. The double whammy makes things tight.
Gas does make a difference. The car I have available during the day gets 15mpg. If I drive to where all the stores are around the mall it takes me a gallon of gas for the trip. So right now it costs me $3.40 just to drive to the mall, Target, decent grocery store or Lowes. If that trip is just to get some cheese that is some spendy cheese with the gas added on.
With a $1 jump in gas prices a tank of gas in the gas hog costs us another $20 per tank. When we were using it as a work vehicle for a business we went through two tanks a week easy. That is another $40 a week for every dollar jump. It starts to add up.
Oh, and if we had public transit or even a way to ride a bike to town I would. We have no paved roads that allow bike traffic between here and there.
I consolidate trips, use the small local grocery for forgotten items, wait until the fuel efficient car is available or simply don’t go.
An emphatic yes.
I’ve started riding my bike to work. (Thankfully it’s only 2 miles away, and I am used to doing sometimes for fun)
I’ve stopped using air condition in my truck.
I’ve started turning off the ignition at stop lights. Heck, I’ve started turning off my ignition at the top of hills and coasting into red lights.
@Buran:
VW and other European car makers stopped selling diesels in the US for 2 reasons; 1) They didn’t sell well, 2) They polluted more that their European counterparts. The pollution is due to the fact that US diesel fuel has a higher sulfer content than European diesel fuel.
Refiners in the US will be required, starting in 2010, to produce ULSD (Ultra Low Suplher Diesel). This will bring us in line with European standards. However look for diesel prices to rise when the standards take effect as it will require upgrades to refineries and additives to the fuel to replace the lubrication benefits that the sulfer provided.
Mercedes Benz has a new line of diesels that should be available in the US soon. Other manufacturers, including VW, will follow suit.
My family of 3 has averaged about .74 gallons of diesel a day (or 22 gals a month) for our Jetta TDI Wagon since the fall of 2004 (yes, I keep track), so even at $3 a gallon our fuel costs are about the same as our cable/broadband bill, and probably less than most individuals spend on soda.
Gas prices have changed my buying habits — in that they caused me to buy a new car with better mileage.
I do not purchase gas, but the high prices have affected me as well. I have made several changes to my grocery list because of higher prices and have changed my spending habits in general.
I like how the city slickers here jump all over the people in the country who really don’t have the option to carpool or explore alternative transportation. People who have always lived in cities don’t understand that in many places there is NO public transportation, and even if there is it usually sucks. They also don’t realize that yes, a vehicle might get less than 20 mpg, but when you’re on a farm or out in the middle of nowhere, you often need a vehicle like that. They also don’t realize how rediculous carpooling sounds to us. To illustrate this point, I’ll describe a normal morning in my household. My father and stepmother get up at 3. My stepmother leaves at 4 to drive to work. She drives 50 miles northeast. My father leaves for work at 5:30. he drives 40 miles Southeast. I get up at 6, leave for work at 6:30. I drive 30-200 miles east/south depending which office I’m in. Carpooling is obviously not an option. Neighbors? I don’t have neighbors, and the only people within several miles are farmers who work at home.
I’m not complaining about the fact that I drive a long way and that in a given day I may use 20 gallons of gas in my truck. I don’t care about how much gas costs me. I’m using my situation to illustrate that there are people who can’t do anything but drive by themselves, and they don’t need people to jump their shit when they post.
I voted “no” – we’re still within our gas budget. However, we’re carpooling more, and we’re always looking for ways we can save more money.
@GirlGoneRiled:
when I lived in the bay area the only person I could find to carpool with me was a foreigner (ie not attached to his car by birthright like some over here are) he lived 3 miles from me but it was worth picking him up as we got carpool/HOV lanes. We tried to convince others to join us, (one lived on the same street as me) but they “couldn’t” as they “might need a car for lunch” – of course every time I saw them they were in the break room at the same time as me brown bagging it. My carpool buddy & I often marveled why we couldn’t find anyone to join us. We reasoned that it must be something to do with getting access to cheap vehicles at a young age leading to a dependency/attachment to them. Of course the HUGE land size of the US and the subsequent spreading of suburbs doesn’t exactly promote efficient public transportation except in a few inner cities.
Girl I hear ya
I’ve been in Europe for the past two weeks. I rode two cars, one a tax, and another a new friend who took me to a couple of museums. The rest of the time I traveled on foot, or on electric trams and trains. I still haven’t filled up the car for quite a while.
I currently live in a suburban hell with no reliable public transportation, so driving is my only real method of transportation. My daily commute is 15 miles each way, so it’s not even possible to supplement driving days with biking or walking days.
Since I have those limitations, I’ve attempted to reduce the amount of fuel I use by purchasing a fuel-efficient Honda Fit. My average mpg is around 35, which isn’t too terrible.
Still, I don’t understand how some cities (hello Boston) and suburban areas can ignore the need for reliable, fast, 24 hour public transportation.