Gas prices and you

[Kyle Love]

Ok, so some areas of the US has seen EXTREME gas prices come in to affect. I heard Indianapolis is now charging $4+ for a gallon of 87 grade. Do you think this will affect the way you drive? How much is gas in the areas where you live?

(For Firefox users, get the Gasbuddy extension, it helped me predict this spike in prices.)

[sanddrag]

I don't think it is going to affect the way I drive (pedal to the metal baby!) but it will kind of inhale audibly since in about a month I will be drving 75 miles a day 5 days a week and getting only ~15mpg.

[Madison]

I don't drive.

[Billfred]

Columbia has some of the cheaper gas in the country--around $2.50 last I checked.

It still inhales audibly, since I'm relying on savings to get through the year. I have started parking about as far away from my room on campus as you can get, since it's a pretty straight shot from (and to) the interstate.

It had better not reach $3 a gallon here, though--if so, I'll probably have to cut back on FIRST driving more than I'd like. And that would inhale very audibly.

[Bcahn836]

I just paid $2.48 for gas a few mins ago, and with prices still going up I have backed off the pedal just a little. . .

[Lisa Perez]

With Hurricane Katrina shutting down 10% of the nation's domestic supply of oil, I've heard prices may go up anywhere between 20 and 50 cents (for Michigan, at least). We're definitely cutting down on the driving over here.

[sciguy125]

I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about gas prices. They aren't that high. There's a small spike right now, but it's not that bad. (There's also a storm interupting gas production at the moment...) People are failing to take inflation into account. Didn't anyone ever wonder why you could buy a new car for less than $500 in the early part of the 1900's? Inflation my friends. People right now are so happy that their retirement funds may make it over $1 million by the time they need it. But you know what? That's nothing. A few decades from now, a $250k house will be over $1m.

Back to my point about gas:
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/I..._Inflation.asp
The price of gasoline in the US has been about the same since 1986 when taking inflation into account. The only reason people complain about gas as opposed to the rising bread prices is because gas fluctuates more. Gas stays at a reasonable average, but it has temporary highs and lows. Didn't you notice that people start complaining every few months, then a little while after, the prices start to fall again and people stop complaining? Most other things are still affected by inflation and increase in price, but they are more of a stable increase.

But to answer your question more directly, I think I'll ease up on the pedal a little while the prices are up. In the San Jose area, it looks like gas is around $2.75 at the moment.

[Lisa Perez]

Originally Posted by sciguy125

Back to my point about gas:
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/I..._Inflation.asp
The price of gasoline in the US has been about the same since 1986 when taking inflation into account. The only reason people complain about gas as opposed to the rising bread prices is because gas fluctuates more. Gas stays at a reasonable average, but it has temporary highs and lows. Didn't you notice that people start complaining every few months, then a little while after, the prices start to fall again and people stop complaining? Most other things are still affected by inflation and increase in price, but they are more of a stable increase.

On a somewhat related note, I was reading a report the other day in which the growth of gas prices and household incomes were compared. The thing that surprised me a bit was the fact that both prices and incomes were growing at a very similar rate.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by sciguy125

I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about gas prices. They aren't that high. There's a small spike right now, but it's not that bad. (There's also a storm interupting gas production at the moment...) People are failing to take inflation into account. Didn't anyone ever wonder why you could buy a new car for less than $500 in the early part of the 1900's? Inflation my friends. People right now are so happy that their retirement funds may make it over $1 million by the time they need it. But you know what? That's nothing. A few decades from now, a $250k house will be over $1m.

Back to my point about gas:
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/I..._Inflation.asp
The price of gasoline in the US has been about the same since 1986 when taking inflation into account. The only reason people complain about gas as opposed to the rising bread prices is because gas fluctuates more. Gas stays at a reasonable average, but it has temporary highs and lows. Didn't you notice that people start complaining every few months, then a little while after, the prices start to fall again and people stop complaining? Most other things are still affected by inflation and increase in price, but they are more of a stable increase.

But to answer your question more directly, I think I'll ease up on the pedal a little while the prices are up. In the San Jose area, it looks like gas is around $2.75 at the moment.

I disagree. It was only like two summers ago when gas was below $1 per gallon and that was in California. Okay, that may have been just a short dip but it was constantly around maybe $1.50.

For whatever reason, as soon as we started the war in Iraq, the gas prices went over $2 and never came back down and they never will.

I don't disagree that the fact that inflation is occurring but I think gas prices are increasing at a much accelerated rate, and most of it I believe to be artificial.

Gas prices are raising far more quickly than salaries, and with how many products depend on gasoline and diesel transportation to dispurse them, their costs are going up too.

However when you do think about it. Gas isn't all that expensive. It just seems like it because we use so much of it.

So look at it this way, where else can you get THAT MUCH combustible energy for less than $3? Actually, the only thing I can think of that you can get for less than $3 per gallon is water and maybe milk (not a grocery shopper so I don't know exactly) and neither of those even have any combustible energy (unless you use some more energy to separate the hydrogen out of the water).

[Denman]

gah its easy for you
petrol is about double that over here.
(nearly £1/Litre, which is $1.803 /litre which is about $6.825 / US gallon)

Originally Posted by Kyle45

Well I have just drove all over Kokomo looking for a locking gas cap for a 97 S-10...I never knew something so readily available a month ago is now scarce...its a good investment I think, considering my car sits out.

you mean cars don't require a key to get to the petrol inlet bit over there?!

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Denman

gah its easy for you
petrol is about double that over here.
(nearly £1/Litre, which is $1.803 /litre which is about $6.825 / US gallon)


you mean cars don't require a key to get to the petrol inlet bit over there?!

Typically, most cars don't require a key at all to get to the gas tank. Some require one to push a button inside the car, for the cap to pop opne but it'd be very easy to pry it off, if you really wanted to get inside. My car doesn't have either - the gas tank cover just flips open, and you unscrew the gas cap to fill up. No keys or button-pushing required!

And, I realize gas is much more expensive in other parts of the world, but when it was $1.88 a year ago, and is $3.29 now ... when I'm at home, I drive about 20 miles each way to get to work (basically using a gallon of gas each way) - I haven't gotten a raise to help compensate for the jump in gas prices. So every time I work, it costs me over an hours worth of pay just for transportation. No, there isn't any better form of transportation I could take to get to work. The only other option is to call a cab and, well, that would be evern more expensive! My boss gets angry when she asks me to come in for a two or three hour shift and I say no ... really, it's just not worth it.

[santosh]

Today was horrible. Driving home from school, people were lined up around blocks trying to get into the gas stations. Som gas stations were closing at 5 PM here in Gorgia. Our main gas pipe line for transport is having some issues because of Katrina, but luckily most of our gas apparently comes from ports. People were driving like maniacs cutting each other off to get to the stations because everyone thinks that Georgia wont hav any gas soon,. And the fact that they are lining up outside of gas stations doesn't help prices much. Gas jumped $0.25 from befor school started this morning to after school. This is ridiculous.

[Andy Baker]

At this time, thousands of people could be dead in New Orleans. I could give a hoot about gas prices. We need to figure out how we can help the people of the Crescent City instead of worrying how much gas costs affect us.

Think. Pray. This is a dire time.

Andy B.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

At this time, thousands of people could be dead in New Orleans. I could give a hoot about gas prices. We need to figure out how we can help the people of the Crescent City instead of worrying how much gas costs affect us.

Think. Pray. This is a dire time.

Andy B.

Agreed, Andy. Gas prices are incredibly trivial compared to what's happening in the affected states. After extensively watching coverage of the damage tonight, and the rescue teams searching for the trapped/dead, I have never seen more sobering sights other than 9/11. The scale of complete destruction is unimagineably large. The area is in chaos. People have no food or water. Stores are being looted right and left, with the police able to do little to nothing about it. People have no idea if their relatives made it through the storm or are dead. Those who lived are left with nothing except their lives--which are now forever changed.

--And we're complaining about how much a gallon of gas for the cars we can still drive, in our damage free cities costs.

Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

At this time, thousands of people could be dead in New Orleans. I could give a hoot about gas prices. We need to figure out how we can help the people of the Crescent City instead of worrying how much gas costs affect us.

Think. Pray. This is a dire time.

Andy B.

This is a dire time Andy. Gas prices affect how much I can help. When the gas station I usually stop at between home and school jumps the price of regular gas more than $1.30 from Sunday night to this afternoon, it costs me an extra $15 dollars of gas every week and a half. That is $530 a year increase in my cost of living that happened in the past four days.

With my funds already limited, this increase makes it such that I can't afford to help financially. :-/
But I do donate blood regularly.

Wetzel