Gas Prices---geez

[darlindeb25]

Average gas price here on Long Island has just been listed at $4.05 a gallon!!!! Yesterday, I heard on the radio, there was a station in Amagaset, on the east end of the island, where the gas was $4.60 a gallon, diesel $5.25. This has got to stop! Between here and Michigan, the lowest price I found last week was $3.69, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Michigan and Long Island are very close to the same prices. Yet, 2 weeks ago, they told us how much of a profit the big fuel companies made last year!!!!

[blueeyedmanda]

Gas prices are out of this world! Right now it varies between 3.69 (which is few and far between) to 3.79....Outrageous!

I am in Central PA. It is the same in Northern PA as well, I was there over the weekend for Mothers Day. My neighbor, is from Michigan, and she said they hit $4 already in some areas.....

We are going on a mini-vacation in July to the Finger Lakes and I know gas in that area has topped 4 in some spots already too.....

[Lisa]

I'm glad that you started this thread deb. OK, I have a question.

The gas station in the middle of our small town will raise it's gas prices 10 cents one morning. Then, within fifteen minutes, the other four stations jump their prices up 10 cents.

Now, tell me, is this not collusion! Is there no regulation! And, as consumers, are we helpless as we watch the corporate windfall climb into the billions and why are we playing dead!

(I feel better now... well not really )

[home-based-mom]

Several years ago I wrote an article which has been posted on my web site, many of the major article sites such as Ezine, Hub Pages, etc. The gist of it was that if people drove 60 mph instead of 80 mph on the freeways, they would save a tank of gas per month. Some of them per week, depending on how much they drive. So each person who does that saves money. Multiply that by the number of drivers involved and you can see that it wouldn't take long before the gas would pile up in storage and they would lower the price just to move it.

At this point I would say keep driving 60 no matter how cheap it gets. The ethics of this whole situation stink. Oil companies report record profits quarter after quarter, and people are losing their jobs and truckers are going out of business because of those record profits.

There are times when I want to ask those oil moguls, "On Judgement Day, how are you going to explain to God why you thought this was OK?????"

Off of soapbox.

[RiceGuy]

They're already talking about $200 per barrel oil, so I think they know exactly what they are going to do to us. The is no substantiating the prices. It entirely artificial.

And to add insult to injury, there's so much natural gas in Alaska, they don't know what to so with it, so they run a dozen aircraft engines 24/7 to pump it back into the ground!

[blueeyedmanda]

2 weeks ago, the Turkey Hill raised it's gas prices 10 cents each day....and never did I see a delivery truck come by.....

[home-based-mom]

For what it's worth, for most products you buy you are charged based on what the vendor paid for it plus their own mark-up.

With gasoline, you are charged not based on what the station owner paid for what you just bought, but on what the station owner will have to pay to replace what you just bought.

[blueeyedmanda]

Look what these high gas prices have done to food at the grocery store....yikes!

[lizard00]

Gas here is 3.79... well that was yesterday anyway. Who knows what it will be when I leave work. It all has to do with the suppliers. There is NO shortage of gas. Back when Katrina hit the Gulf and all the stations were skyrocketing their prices, a lone station owner nearby refused to raise his prices like everyone else. He kept insisting that there just wasn't the need, there was no shortage as people were being led to believe. He eventually had to becuase his suppliers basically told him if he didn't, we will stop supplying to you and you will go out of business.

I hope they're enjoying their record high profits...

[blueeyedmanda]

I hope they're enjoying their record high profits...

I hate when they broadcast on the news about their record earnings.....such a slap in the face!

[lizard00]

I hate when they broadcast on the news about their record earnings.....such a slap in the face!

Yeah, and there are families who have to cut back at the grocery store to put gas in their cars just to get to work. That is just not a decision people should be forced to make.

[dlp252]

Yeah, it was over $4.00 on Tuesday when I filled up...talk about sticker shock, lol. Fortunately I have a small tank and fill up when it reaches 1/4 tank...still spending the same amount of money anyone else would, it just doesn't seem so bad when you do a smaller amount more often.

[blueeyedmanda]

Yeah, and there are families who have to cut back at the grocery store to put gas in their cars just to get to work. That is just not a decision people should be forced to make.

I agree....My husband and I are struggling and we have decent jobs, I cannot imagine people who live off minimum wages....terrible!

[Ursa Major]

I am not sure how this compares, but here in Canada the gas prices have been anywhere from $1.20 to $1.30 a liter lately. Up from about 85 cents just a few months ago.

Meaning that I have to cut back on my trips to visit my grandchildren. Who tell me I don't see them often enough as it is.

To go to visit my oldest daughter and her large family (a five and a half hour drive) cost me a little over $150.00 just in gas a couple of weeks ago. And seeing our second oldest daughter for her oldest girl's 2nd birthday party last weekend was over a hundred dollars as well (a 4 1/2 hour drive).

Those gas prices stop me from seeing my precious grandchildren, that really bothers me!

By the way, in my avatar right now, the little red-haired girl is my second daughter's oldest girl (they have a ten-month-old girl as well), and the little dark-haired one with the pigtails is my oldest daughter's youngest (she is 21 months old).

[Jestgar]

OK, bracing myself to get slapped around, but,

stop driving

take public transportation, carpool, combine errands, work from home if possible...

I put gas in my truck once a month, if I've done a lot of driving that month.

[dlp252]

OK, bracing myself to get slapped around, but,

stop driving

take public transportation, carpool, combine errands, work from home if possible...

I put gas in my truck once a month, if I've done a lot of driving that month.

No slapping from me, lol. I'd actually LOVE to take public transportation, lol. I HATE driving, especially in traffic. With my weird hours and the area I work in it's not the safest thing in the world, and I'd probbly have to get up even earlier than I already do, which is WAY too early for a normal human being. I DO combine errands though and I've cut my driving speed down a little (they say that helps, lol). I'm even looking at some more feul efficient cars (although admittedly the one in my avatar isn't a huge step greener than the one I have).

[Ursa Major]

OK, bracing myself to get slapped around, but,

stop driving

take public transportation, carpool, combine errands, work from home if possible...

I put gas in my truck once a month, if I've done a lot of driving that month.

Well, your suggestions are fine where there IS public transportation. Where I am there is not. I am out in the countryside, no bus, no train, no nothing. Without driving I'd be sitting in my house, not going anywhere.

My husband does work from home two days a week. He takes his car south (a forty minute drive), where he parks it in the carpooling parking lot and takes a bus and the subway to work in the city. That takes him nearly two hours each way. It takes longer that way, but is cheaper, and he avoids the terrible traffic congestion in Toronto during rush hour.

To see my grandkids I'd have to be driven to Toronto (a one hour drive from here) to catch a bus or the train, respectively to their places. Then somebody would have to pick me up, which would be another 45 minutes each way by car for whoever picks me up and brings me back.

Then I would have no car being there. I am in very poor health and can't walk places. Plus, my oldest daughter's van is barely big enough for their family (it is a seven seater, and they have five kids), so I couldn't even go anywhere with them.

And on the way home I usually visit other relatives as well.

It is easy for you to say that everybody should just take public transportation. But that isn't always feasible.

If I would live in Germany, I wouldn't even need a car. In Europe they have such a fabulous public transportation system that you can go anywhere in the country (countries, really) by bus, subway, trains, ferry etc.

Here in Canada the public transportation system is dismally inadequate, and you NEED a car, especially if you are outside large cities.

[Jestgar]

I know about that lengthy commute. I get up at 5, and my commute is 1.5 hours each way. I suppose I could cut it by about 40 minutes by driving, but the expense would kill me.

[lizard00]

My husband and I have discussed him taking the bus, except there's not one that leaves early enough to get him to work. When we tried to plan it out, our options were get up and 1:30am and walk, or get to work an hour and half late.... needless to say our public transit system has room for improvement.

And Raleigh is not such a walker/biker friendly place. We have a grocery story within walking distance to our house, but there are just certain times a day you don't try it. I would love to stop driving so much, but for us it's just not allowable. I know of or have heard of too many people that were hit and or killed walking or biking around this city. I have a 3 yr old and I am not prepared to take that chance.

[dlp252]

Yeah, I already get up at 4:00 and that's actually sleeping in a bit, lol.

[blueeyedmanda]

OK, bracing myself to get slapped around, but,

stop driving

take public transportation, carpool, combine errands, work from home if possible...

I put gas in my truck once a month, if I've done a lot of driving that month.

We dont have public transportation from where we are to where we work, but My husband and I carpool together since we work at the same place. That saves alot. We do all our errands after work or on a weekend day.

[RiceGuy]

Well, I was hesitant to post this, as some think it's not true, but heck, it IS true:

Open Original Shared Link

So there is something we can do after all, and I'd say it's only just the beginning.

[home-based-mom]

OK, bracing myself to get slapped around, but,

stop driving

take public transportation, carpool, combine errands, work from home if possible...

I put gas in my truck once a month, if I've done a lot of driving that month.

While I agree in theory, public transportation isn't always available.

Carpooling requires that people who live somewhere near you also work somewhere near where you do and also work more or less the same schedule without the need to drop kids off at school or pick up kids on the way home, etc.

Combining errands is something everybody should have always been doing. Not doing so is and always has been a waste of everything.

Working from home is something I think we will see more and more of. Obviously many jobs cannot be adapted to home but I think more can than people realize. "Necessity is the mother of invention" and people will discover just what they can do once they start thinking outside the box. (How's that for a combination of cliches! )

I see you live "in the middle of Puget Sound" which by my calculations would be Vashon Island? No wonder you don't drive very far!

[Jestgar]

Bainbridge. I do bus, ferry, walk.

[Ursa Major]

Well, I was hesitant to post this, as some think it's not true, but heck, it IS true:

Open Original Shared Link

So there is something we can do after all, and I'd say it's only just the beginning.

Well, in order to stop those oil barons from holding us all hostage, it is a great idea to use technology that lets us power our car with something other than gasoline.

While we here have to pay for the water we use as well, it obviously isn't nearly as expensive as gas.