Rising Gas Prices Make Me Consider Crazy Things
I just spent several hours recreating my corrupted spreadsheet. I still have no idea how it happened, but you best believe, that mug is now backed up, password protected, and secured like Fort Knox. As I was gathering the data, I noticed a recurring theme. Gas is getting friggin expensive! Ok, ok, that’s no surprise, but seeing the numbers in black and white gave me a serious reality check. Here are my monthly gas expenses for the year:
Jan: $74.86 <–not bad
Feb: $80.17 <–slight increase
Mar: $144.57 <–dang, what happened here!?!
Apr: $163.26 <–creep, creep…
May: $99.01 <–wishful thinking!
Jun: $184.09 <–told ya!
In addition to this month’s (June) gas expenses, I also paid $26.84 for an oil change plus $90.00 for parking, resulting in total transportation costs of $300.93. Umm, wow! This doesn’t include the ~$30 I’ve contributed to friends when I’m a passenger or the $409.10 I paid for six months car insurance premium. Then immediately, I thought to myself…
I wonder who buys premium gas these days and why?
I wonder how people manage with gas guzzling SUVs?
I wonder how people manage with car payments?
Hmm…I wonder - what is my auto expense threshold before I consider riding the metro?
[pause]
The metro???? Naaaaaaaaah! LOL!
As you can see, even with a fuel efficient Honda Accord and no car payment, the progressively increasing auto expenses are going to make me lose my mind!
~*~*~*~*~*~Work to achieve, not to acquire.
And as always, BE FABULOUS!
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I am so thankful I only drive on the weekends. NYC subway can be erratic at time, but for the most part it is pretty reliable. Once gas reaches $4.75 I will have to re-evaluate the weekend thing too.
Hmmm.
FWIW, I guess this is the upside of stress testing. Even though I haven’t run one recently, I used to build my fuel budget based on SoCal gas prices, starting from when I lived in Orange County, CA (2000 - 2002). I still use those prices, and then I run numbers to test my allocation. I figure I can get to about $6.00 per gallon before I’ll have any impetus to change anything, and my worst case scenario carries me to about $8.00 per gallon. My monthly transportation budget is $750, and that includes parking, the occasional Metro trip (living in Silver Spring helps), and the inevitable parking tickets. (There’s a racket - DC parking tickets!)
Of course, I drive a paid off 2000 Honda Accord so…
Stress testing and worst case scenarios are beautiful things.
Hey,
I vacillate on my like and dislike for public transportation. However, my employer subsidizes my commuting costs and since the costs are lower than the subsidy — I have a free ride to work. And while I miss the convenience, nothing beats free and money in pocket to pay down some of my raggedy unsecured debt.
Hi SM,
I feel you with the gas. I use premium gas : 1. It is recommended by manufacture. 2. I drive a sports car and I’m a little scared that if I go to a lower grade my ride will be rough(er).3. God forbid something happens under the hood because of the grade of gas I used.
I have read all of the info out about there not being a difference and so forth, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I usually do an entire fill up once a month and the rest of the month I do not drive past a half-tank before refueling. My gas on 6/19 was $4.79 @ Costco.
I recently switched to public transportation after gas hit the $4 mark a few months ago. It’s currently hovering around $4.18 in my suburb and much more than that in the city. I was paying $17/day for parking and with gas, well over $200/wk on transportation costs. Ridiculous.
I refuse to take the train because it’s nasty where I live, so I take a bus. It adds about 30 min. each way to my commute, but it is definitely cheaper. My employer subsidizes commuting costs as well, so I may look into that as well.
Hi Single Ma,
My paid off 1989 Jag takes premium gas. In Charlotte, NC, I am seeing premium at about $4.16+. When I am in South Charlotte (I live in West Charlotte), I drive the extra 4 miles into Fort Mill, SC and gas up there - the gas is about 10 cents per gallon. Not alot but over time it all adds up. I attempt to fill up when I get to half tank. I use AAA. com and GasBuddy. com to look up the lowest gas prices. I fill up at night or early morning if possible.
I have, also, been blessed enough to go to a 4 day 10 hour schedule at work. My commute to work is about 12 miles one way so this is saving about 24 miles a week.
I write all errands down and group them by area. If there is only one errand in a particular side of town then I evaluate the importance - do I need to do this and/or what are the consequences of me not doing this. Rarely are there any consequences.
I am starting to ride the bus several days to work, too. My employer does participate in a program called WageWorks and we can buy public transportation fare cards pre-tax. I have to get up a little earlier but I am able to write the bourgeis, I mean Express bus to work and back from Uptown (this is after riding the brokedown, I mean regular bus to Uptown). The cost is $1.30 (includes transfer) each way. The Express is never full either way - of course, the regular bus is ALWAYS full. .
I would like to carpool as there are several co-workers that in my area but they have different work schedules and none can see the benefit of the 4 day work schedule for their lifestyle right now. But they do envy me being off on Mondays!
Have a wonderful week!
My boyfriend uses premium gas because if he doesn’t, his engine knocks.
I already take the bus to work because I am too cheap to pay for parking. The only change I’ve made is to try to talk my boyfriend into letting me drive more instead of him because my car gets better gas mileage. So that actually costs me more! But I only only fill my tank about once a month.
Maybe in time public transportation will actually be better, in response to other people’s demand, and then it won’t be so funny for you to consider it!
Premium gas is generally recommended or required for higher compression engines. That means any “premium” engine like in sports cars or luxury cars. However, our MINI Cooper requires it (91 octane). My wife gets about 29mpg in highway driving, but that highway is like a parking lot every day.
I’ve overheard a few conversations where people say they’re going to buy a MINI for the fuel economy. But they have no idea that not only does the fuel cost 20-30 cents more per gallon, but you’re also spending about $5000-10,000 more for a similarly sized card as a Toyota Yaris. It’s a much more fun and stylish car, and has more features, but it’s a hefty premium over other compacts.
Back to gas, we mix 93 and 89 octane now. It cuts about $1 out of each fill, which comes out to about $45 per year at our current rate.
My transportations costs are pretty painful… $477 a month for my car payment, plus $90 insurance, purchased right before I moved to a commuter-friendly neighborhood. But, only filling up once a month (Prius + barely driving, but @ $4.67/ gallon in SoCal) does help. On the flip side, I have to pay $157 - next month going up to $169/ month for the train I take to work. At least my work has the commuter-savings program, so $115 of that each month is paid for with tax-free dollars. Still painful!
I’ve never used a higher grade of gas than regular. Never saw the point, and my cars have run fine. I’ve been taking public transportation for like two years now for the convenience - it saves me serious money on parking. It’s a short bus commute that doesn’t really bother me at all and I actually walk half the time. My transportation costs are between $450 and $500 a month, which includes car payment, insurance, gas, and bus tokens, and it vacillates depending on how much I drive. The only way I could make it cheaper would be to sell my car and use rentals. I won’t be doing that…
I buy premium gas because the manufacturer recommends it. My area doesn’t have reliable public transportation, so I’m pretty much stuck. Fortunately I don’t live that far from work, so I’m not really hurting. Although I will admit it’s a bit shocking to spend over $50 to fill up a Mini Cooper!
I also have a paid off car and don’t think I would be able to survive if I had a car payment to go along with the price of gas.
Love your blog!
I don’t even have a driver’s license, nor does my husband (we’re 30 and 31). I never understood why anyone would want a car.. so many negatives and they almost never go up in value. It seems like all they do is eat up money and now that gas prices are crazy high, I think this is becoming more evident to people in general.
What I’ve always done is move next to my place of employment so I can walk there. That means I get exercise, save money AND time. That was easier to do as a single woman, though. My husband works from home 3 days out of the week so he only has to travel a bit. We also live in a city with an amazing transit system. It’s much faster to use it than to drive, unless we have to travel very, very far (a couple hrs away.) Within a few mins walk we have a major subway station and streetcar lines. Even if we had a car we’d lose the $150 a month we rent out our parking space for, we’d have to pay high insurance, parking is very expensive, and then there’s gas and car payments?! Doesn’t make sense at all.
@1001petals, that’s a rather close-minded view. I think there are MANY reasons why someone would want, or need, a car. Living in a city may have spoiled you because of all the mass transit options, but growing up in a suburb in central PA like I did, you have 1 bus line that runs every 30 minutes and covers only a minimal fraction of the whole city of 40,000+ people. If you don’t have a car, you need a really good friend who has one. Repeat that scenario thousands of times for every small-medium town across the country and world, and you get hundreds of millions of people who aren’t in your situation. Heck, even I live in an area where there’s feasible mass transit, but it doesn’t get me to all the places I need.
The better question you should ask is why do people buy a large SUV (Chevy Tahoe, Hummer, Landcruiser) when it’s just 1-2 people in the family. Why doesn’t everyone just own what they need 95% of the time and rent something for the 5% of the other times they need it? Owning a car isn’t bad, if you need it; it’s just owning MORE than you need that doesn’t make sense (I’m guilty of this too).
I am paying a lot for gas -
Its really made me change my driving - I get things done in one trip
I spend abt $200 a month
I heard that people in Mexico are complaining about CA residents crossing the border for $2.99 gas. One station was ran dry by the Ca folks. If I lived closer to the border, I might consider a trip.
Fortunately we work from home and live in the city on a great bus line. I’,m expecting $15 gas to hit sooner not later.
@Clever Dude — agreed sometimes you do just need a car. I moved out of one of those suburbs, personally. I think mass transit should be available to everyone though.
I had forgot to mention the environmental impact as well. I am a ‘car-free’ snob!
I recently bought a big SUV because I have 3 1/2 kids — 2 who are in car seats that take up one whole row by themselves. I then have a 10 year old with long legs, and a 5 year old relative who is with me the majority of the time. A smaller vehicle was not an option. I also wish I lived in areas in which you all live. I live in a rural area—there is no such thing as public transportation! But on the up side of that, it only takes me 10 minutes to get to work. Gas in my area is currently $3.89 at the cheapest gas station which happens to be Wal-Mart right now. It takes me about $85.00 to fill up. A tank of gas usually last me about a week and a half give or take.
People are now starting to steal oil and gas from peoples cars and homes. here in the UK a old lady died of a heart attack after finding someone stealing oil from her farm. Where is this all going to end.
Gas prices are certainly crazy. It cost me almost $90 to fill up my SUV when it is empty. Luckily, I only fill up about once a month or so because I drive a company vehicle during the week. They deduct $30 per paycheck which includes insurance, gas and maintenance. They haven’t said anything yet but I’m sure the deduction will be increasing real soon!
Now I am at a business trip for 2 months. And I have to commute here with a car, because nor public transportation exist. This car drivig reduced my quality of life a lot. With public transportation at home:
1. I was getting more physical activity since I had to go to the station …..
2. It is cheaper
3. I can sleep or read during my commute
4. From eviromental point of view it is much better than the car
If the publich transportation is really so bad, where you are living, then it is an excellent possibility to do something good for youself and the community and actively demand from the city administration or whoever is responsible for that to do something about it.
I will never live in the exurbs. And if I’m even in the suburbs, I’ll be a short walk from the bus or train…
Could it be that living in NYC is getting to be comparably cheaper due to the lack of gas costs?
Premium is recommended but not required for my car. So I don’t use it. I used to use 89 octane, till gas hit $4.00 So I downgraded to 87. No difference. (I haven’t gone over 70 mph with the new gas, but I shouldn’t be doing that anyways!)
As for gas prices, it’s not hitting me as hard as others. I live a couple of blocks from where I work, so I walk everyday. It’s hot as hell, so I had to start taking water with me. (At first I was buying it at work, til I came to my senses.)
I do have a BF who lives like 30 miles from me, though, so, uh, we’ll see if we can stand the test of gas money. LOL