Gas Prices Going up

[Skippy123]

I went to the pump yesterday and was surprise how expensive it is right now $3.22 a gallon and it is only suppose to get worse.

Are you worried and are you going to find other means of transportation instead of driving or just drive around less??? here is a news article on prices going up http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/080311/031008_gas_prices.html

 

[Ellen]

Ours is about 3.19. And yes, I heard it''s supposed to go up. We''ll be walking to my SIL''s in Ohio this summer.

And I already cut out a lot of my leisurely drives up the River Road a long time ago.

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 3/11/2008 8:35:52 AM
Author: Ellen
Ours is about 3.19. And yes, I heard it's supposed to go up. We'll be walking to my SIL's in Ohio this summer.

And I already cut out a lot of my leisurely drives up the River Road a long time ago.

I wonder if airline tickets are going to go up? Darn, how far is your SIL from you, Ellen?? 2 years ago I calculated driving somewhere versus flying and flying was cheaper so we flew but this is scary! I guess being out of town for 2 weeks and then finally gasing up made me realize gas prices are nutty

; I have not put gas in the car since the beginning of Feb until now!! I might pull out my bike and add a basket to the front and bike over to Trader Joe's for groceries.




Here is an old thread where prices in 05 were averaging $2.50 to $3 and people were worried https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/rising-gas-prices.32458/

 

[Ellen]

She''s about a five and a half hour drive, but even at crazy prices, it will still be cheaper for the 3 of us to drive. Oh well.

And I would bet money airline prices will go up, they gotta pay for that fuel somehow.

 

[CrookedRock]

My BF runs a commodities hedge fund, so he tells me about this stuff everyday!

Honestly, this is just the start of it. You can def look forward to at least $5.00 a gallon in the next year to two years. And it will not stop. We have hit peak oil, and it is time for the govt to invest in figuring out how we are going to handle this. Five years down the road it is not at all unreasonable to to expect to pay $10.00 a gallon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! I''m just bummed as the rest of you!

I''m thinking vespa... LOL

 

[asscher_girl]

I can''t believe the prices either. I''m in Northern CA and yesterday I paid $3.87 for the mid grade!!!!!!

It''s so awful!

 

[LitigatorChick]

I am in Alberta, Canada. I don''t know price per gallon (we do metric north of the 49th), but it was about $1.39 I think for premium. But DH and I make our money from oil and gas, so it all balances out in the end, I figure.

 

[LitigatorChick]

Okay, I just converted my price into US gallons, and that is $5.25 per gallon. Yikes!!! You are getting off easy south of the border! Must be the taxes up here!

 

[Skippy123]

Ellen, true, I am sure airfares will go up too

CrookedRock, thanks for stopping in and giving us your take on the thing. It is interesting you say vespa because if you go to Europe you see people own smaller cars and motor bikes because of the cost of gas. I wonder how things will change for us in the long run in addition to the rising gas prices?? More hybrids, biking, public transportation, etc? hmmmm, interesting

Asschergirl, wow, almost 4 dollars! Hopefully you don't have to drive too much.

LC, wow $5 something; crazy; hopefully you are driving a car that does not need lots of gas!!!

 

[LitigatorChick]

Skippy, I drive an SUV and a car - my car is worse on fuel than the SUV, but damn is it fun to drive!!!!

 

[scarleta]

Yes gas prices are so high these days.I plan my long trips carefully so I can accomplish many tasks in one trip.
One may wish to buy some oil stocks now and make some profits in order to pay for gas..

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 3/11/2008 8:52:29 AM
Author: CrookedRock
My BF runs a commodities hedge fund, so he tells me about this stuff everyday!

Honestly, this is just the start of it. You can def look forward to at least $5.00 a gallon in the next year to two years. And it will not stop. We have hit peak oil, and it is time for the govt to invest in figuring out how we are going to handle this. Five years down the road it is not at all unreasonable to to expect to pay $10.00 a gallon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! I''m just bummed as the rest of you!

I''m thinking vespa... LOL

peak oil is a scam.

 

[Linda W]

Gas prices make me sick

We pay 3.65 or more. What a ripoff and it will only get worse. Everything is going up, how do they expect people to live!!!

Linda

 

[choro72]

I might be flamed for this...

As a person who grew with public transportation, I''m hoping that the gas price will go higher so that people will be open to more about alternatives, and give the government incentive to build a better public transportation system. In SoCal, the number of people driving at any given time is ridiculous. PT just makes more sense here.

 

[gwendolyn]

Just did the conversions, and here in Cambridge, UK, gas (sorry, ''petrol''

) prices are $8/gallon.

 

[musey]

Date: 3/11/2008 9:08:58 AM
Author: asscher_girl
I can''t believe the prices either. I''m in Northern CA and yesterday I paid $3.87 for the mid grade!!!!!!

It''s so awful!

Yeah, I filled up last week in SoCal at $3.61 for min grade.

My end tab is always close to $60. Ouch.

 

[Linda W]

8.00 a gallon

YIKES!!!!!!!

Linda

 

[LegacyGirl]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:51:44 PM
Author: choro72
I might be flamed for this...

As a person who grew with public transportation, I''m hoping that the gas price will go higher so that people will be open to more about alternatives, and give the government incentive to build a better public transportation system. In SoCal, the number of people driving at any given time is ridiculous. PT just makes more sense here.

But those of us who don''t have public transportation available to us are just going to suffer

I really wished I lived in a place with PT or somewhere I could walk everywhere. It just can''t be done here.

I''m thinking about getting another bike- a Ninja 250. They''re pretty good on gas.

 

[musey]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:51:44 PM
Author: choro72
I might be flamed for this...

As a person who grew with public transportation, I'm hoping that the gas price will go higher so that people will be open to more about alternatives, and give the government incentive to build a better public transportation system. In SoCal, the number of people driving at any given time is ridiculous. PT just makes more sense here.

I'm not flaming, I promise

but that's one of those things that would take a long time to give results. Not that it's not a good thing to shoot for, but I don't think the best way to go about it is to piss people off enough that they'll demand better public transit solutions.

Here, the bus system takes roughly 3.5-4 times longer than driving yourself. I wouldn't mind that so much if my commute were only 7 minutes to start with, but my normal commute is anywhere between 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. Using public transit as my primary mode of travel is simply not an option with things how they are, because that would eat up more than 6 hours of my day.

As it is, I mostly drive only when I absolutely have to for work. For all errands, I walk.

Date: 3/11/2008 2:08:14 PM
Author: gwendolyn
Just did the conversions, and here in Cambridge, UK, gas (sorry, 'petrol'

) prices are $8/gallon.

Yeah, I remember seeing a report on European prices back when it was at $6/gallon. Ouch. But it is more of a walking population there, no? Like in New York?

 

[musey]

Oh also, I read a report on the failed plans for subway and elevated train systems in SoCal. The land here is much too unstable for both--one small earthquake and the ground would collapse into the subway, or the elevated rail would topple.

There's a rail system in San Francisco, though.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:51:44 PM
Author: choro72
I might be flamed for this...

As a person who grew with public transportation, I'm hoping that the gas price will go higher so that people will be open to more about alternatives, and give the government incentive to build a better public transportation system. In SoCal, the number of people driving at any given time is ridiculous. PT just makes more sense here.

Totally! I'm all for walking along side the highway for five miles to the nearest bus stop so I can take my son to preschool every morning

. . .


The other day, I paid around $3.30 at AM/PM, but I don't drive that much so it's not that big of a deal, but my husband does drive a truck and that does add up! He needs to the truck and a few times I've mentioned to him if we sell our house, we should get him a car instead, and he agrees, but right now with our large maintaince yard, we'd have no other way to haul out all the yard clippings, etc. It'd be impossible to fit an acre's worth of grass in the yard waste pickup container, so we own a truck and pay a fortune to drive it.

 

[choro72]

Date: 3/11/2008 2:16:28 PM
Author: LegacyGirl

Date: 3/11/2008 1:51:44 PM

Author: choro72

I might be flamed for this...


As a person who grew with public transportation, I''m hoping that the gas price will go higher so that people will be open to more about alternatives, and give the government incentive to build a better public transportation system. In SoCal, the number of people driving at any given time is ridiculous. PT just makes more sense here.

But those of us who don''t have public transportation available to us are just going to suffer

I really wished I lived in a place with PT or somewhere I could walk everywhere. It just can''t be done here.


I''m thinking about getting another bike- a Ninja 250. They''re pretty good on gas.

Thanks for not flaming

. I''m suffering too. What I was trying to say was, SoCal is definitely a place for PT, but there isn''t any. The shopping areas are flat instead of vertical, no trains, no buses...And yet you see millions of cars bumper to bumper every day. It just makes more sense here to add regular trains but they don''t.

But then, I guess I have to still appreciate that it''s not %8/gallon!

 

[rockzilla]

I agree with Choro...so many cities & suburbs have been built up around the assumption of cars and cheap gas...but really it is so inefficient! Moving a 4,000 pound vehicle around every day, when all you really need to transport is a 100-200 pound person!

Don''t forget, the enviornmental cost of that gas you use every day is NOT baked into the price. It will just make people reconsider how much "convienence" is worth to them - and hopefully encourage driving less, carpooling more, and more public transit. Also, maybe people will stop choosing to live 30-40 miles away from where they work just so they can have a 4,000 square foot McMansion. (but probably not...)

 

[gwendolyn]

Date: 3/11/2008 2:30:14 PM
Author: musey
Yeah, I remember seeing a report on European prices back when it was at $6/gallon. Ouch. But it is more of a walking population there, no? Like in New York?

Within cities, aye, I would say lots of people walk. However, it''s a bit difficult to do the weekly grocery shopping if you have to walk a couple of miles lugging all your groceries, so most people take public transport for those sorts of things, which is overpriced. For me to get a round-trip bus ticket to the grocery store and back, it costs £3, or $6. And once you want to leave your city to go elsewhere in the country, you either have to drive or be willing to be at the mercy of the UK rail service, whose prices are horribly inconsistent. Sometimes, alarmingly, it''s cheaper to drive long distances: for my boyfriend to get from his home to Reading, it would cost about £50 round-trip in petrol, but the train ticket, at £98, costs about twice that. I''ve only been here six months, so I could be missing something, but the prices of public transport here seem like nothing more than a crap shoot.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Date: 3/11/2008 3:01:58 PM
Author: rockzilla
Also, maybe people will stop choosing to live 30-40 miles away from where they work just so they can have a 4,000 square foot McMansion. (but probably not...)

Is it better to be crammed into a 1000 sq ft box in the city where you have to keep your curtains closed out of fear that others can see inside?

FWIW, my husband works from home and only recently decided to sell his portion of his co. and work for someone else and will be commuting. We haven''t decided what we''re going to do for sure. . .we''re considering selling our home and getting a 2000 sq ft condo, but still he WILL have a commute. Here in the Seattle area, there are not as many choices regarding housing and we plan to stay in the same area. Unless we had been living in NYC or London all our lives, it''d be different and we''d be use to living in small apartments, but we both grew up on an island here in the Pac NW and are use to wide open land and in fact, I lived in a wide open waterfront home for 12 years with no curtains since there were no neighbors to the front of our house, so I''d rather drive distances that cause others to judge and b*tch about than be cooped up and clausterphobic in a small place.

Just my input.

 

[CrookedRock]

Date: 3/11/2008 1:22:39 PM
Author: strmrdr

Date: 3/11/2008 8:52:29 AM
Author: CrookedRock
My BF runs a commodities hedge fund, so he tells me about this stuff everyday!

Honestly, this is just the start of it. You can def look forward to at least $5.00 a gallon in the next year to two years. And it will not stop. We have hit peak oil, and it is time for the govt to invest in figuring out how we are going to handle this. Five years down the road it is not at all unreasonable to to expect to pay $10.00 a gallon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! I''m just bummed as the rest of you!

I''m thinking vespa... LOL

peak oil is a scam.

That''s hysterical!

 

[Stephanie]

Grr.. ate my post.

The problem with the oil prices is two fold. There is a hike because of the lack of oil available. The second issue is the fact that the US dollar is declining in value - quickly. When OPEC was signed, the dollar was the currency that was chosen for trading oil commodities. With the dollar value at a low, the price of oil that can be purchased is smaller and smaller. So yes, as a recession sets in, it will get worse. Also, it''s not very good that China is fighting inflation with the Yuan and energy costs. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[musey]

Date: 3/11/2008 4:33:44 PM
Author: MC

Date: 3/11/2008 3:01:58 PM
Author: rockzilla

Also, maybe people will stop choosing to live 30-40 miles away from where they work just so they can have a 4,000 square foot McMansion. (but probably not...)

Is it better to be crammed into a 1000 sq ft box in the city where you have to keep your curtains closed out of fear that others can see inside?

I''ll ditto that!!

 

[LitigatorChick]

Date: 3/11/2008 3:01:58 PM
Author: rockzilla
I agree with Choro...so many cities & suburbs have been built up around the assumption of cars and cheap gas...but really it is so inefficient! Moving a 4,000 pound vehicle around every day, when all you really need to transport is a 100-200 pound person!

Don''t forget, the enviornmental cost of that gas you use every day is NOT baked into the price. It will just make people reconsider how much ''convienence'' is worth to them - and hopefully encourage driving less, carpooling more, and more public transit. Also, maybe people will stop choosing to live 30-40 miles away from where they work just so they can have a 4,000 square foot McMansion. (but probably not...)

Public transit is a great idea, but not a real good reality in many places. I see gas prices hurting many low income earners in my city, where it is expensive to live downtown (where they may work), but need to live in suburbia where they can get some relatively affordable housing. Add kids to the mix, and a car is not a "convenience" but a necessity (factor in -40C windchills, if you get the picture).

 

[Linda W]

Michelle,

Food has already increased here. Rich and I shop at Costco and we have one of those Food Saver thingys. I freeze the meat and chicken. We also buy bread and freeze that too.

Pretty soon, no one will be able to afford anything.

Linda