I heard something mildly scary today from a friend of mine who is a trucker, He said he spends $900 a day on fuel for his truck, an avg 5mpg. He said...you know im going to loose my job in like a few years if things keep the way they are, there predicting gas will be $10/gallon by 2015

I spend about $140 dollars to fill up (I have dual tanks) an i fill up about every 5 or 6 days. How much do you est. you spend a week on gas and what are you doing to try and save money at the pump?

I'm just trying to keep my foot out of the pedal. If im redlineing it all the time, i get about 7mpg, but if i use cruise control and dont hall ***, i can get around 13 or 14 city, and 16-18 highway.

 

What am I doing to save? Not eating, combining trips and trying (it's hard) to keep your foot off the pedal. There is only so much you can do, this is b/s all these price hikes, it drains every penny out of us so we HAVE TO just buy what we NEED not want anymore. Hopefully some day when all the trucks stop, poverty hits third world status and 90% of business' are gone, they'll get the point, ..............hopefully. We need not to have this dependancy on oil stripped from us overnight. Thank God it's coming on summer where I can get 17-18 mpg's again.

 

Fortunately for me, the vast majority of my driving is reimbursed to me by my company at 50.5-cents-per mile. The only personal miles I really put on my vehicles are assorted short trips around my small town for groceries, the hardware store, etc.

However, I have noticed the price of a lot of things going up at the grocery store. Chips used to always be $2.49 a bag, and now they're $3.49 or more depending on the flavor. I also used to routinely be able to satisfy my Diet Pepsi addiction for around $2.00 - $2.50 per 12-pack, stocking up on it whenever it was on sale. Now Diet Pepsi is sold rock-solid at $3.89 per 12-pack. I've avoided some of these increased food cost by switching to store brand of some things -- surprisingly, many of them taste just as good as the name brand products!

 

keeping my foot off the pedal and actually letting traffic pass me... normally i don't (yeah maybe an ego thing who knows)

65mph sucks...but bad part is EVERYONE is slowing down...gas is really hurting.

 

If I'm just going to work and back (~40 miles round trip) I get away with filling up once a week (Fridays) with about 13-14 gallons of gas (1/2 tank). Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less... Depends if I have any client calls during the week as well. (I do get to submit my client call mileage to the office @ .505 or whatever it is a mile)

So, just going it work is costing my ~ $200-250 month... Not bad really, considering I'm driving my truck.. No choice, as that's my one and only vehicle! And no, I'm not going to get an econo box to commute with.. First, I'd have to buy it. Then insure it. Then still put gas in it. Then I'd be having to actually drive the econo box! Uggh....

Now that camping season is upon me, I go out once a month from May thru Sept to various State Parks that I have to reserve for 9 mos ahead of time... On those trips, I can spend between $100 - $250 in gas just for a long weekend!!

For May, my gas bill is around $550, with one long weekend trip included in that!

I don't 'Hot Rod' with my truck, as I'm an old fart now and I just don't do that anymore... Well, if I still had my Mustang, I'd probably do more of it!! But I don't have it anymore, so there it is...

$10/gallon gas will cripple the Nation IMO... Sure, in Europe people are spending around $8/gallon for gas, but they don't have the 'dependence' on gas that we do either...

Anyway, it is what it is and WTF can we do about it?? Those internet emails saying to not fill up on this day or don't use this specific oil companies gas for a day is BS and won't do a thing... Now, if everybody in the US did not drive for an entire month, and I mean EVERYBODY not even starting their vehicles, you might be able to make a dent, but that ain't gonna happen (I know I wouldn't do it).

Personal things I'm doing... Well, I'm not 'Hot Rodding' anymore.. I drive like a Grandma now... We take the wifes Rav4 for road trips now.. We used to take the truck, because it's actually more comfortable on long trips.... We don't go on as many road trips now... We shop at Wall Mart more often (Hate that place however, but you see the same products for dollars less then at the Top Food grocery store..) Don't buy as much 'stuff' anymore.. Cancelled 'most' of my magazine subscriptions..

I still have a life, so that's why I'm willing to spend the extra bucks to go camping once a month.. I will still drive my truck to work, because at least I still have work to go to!!

Blame the Environmentalists and Left Wing politics for the $4 - $5 - $10 gallon gas now... They made it so no new refineries could be built since the mid 70's.. They made it so that we could not tap into our own crude oil supplies right under our feet.... They made us all 'think' we are the cause of 'Global Warming', so that scared us into believing them at the time...

I have no problem with the emission stuff we have on our vehicles now since the mid 70's.. It's actually a good thing, otherwise we would be like freaking China right now... I don't know how they are going to pull off an Olympic Games with the kind of pollution they have?? I used to live in Los Angeles when I was a kid in the 60'-70's and we had SMOG alerts and could not go outside for recess!! My lungs would hurt when you breathed on really bad days!! The skyline was so brown, it was disgusting.. So, those of you that want to cut off your cats, think again... Now, I'm no Tree Hugger by any means, but we have to have some common sense about these things too... We need more production of crude oil and we need more locally obtained crude oil to be able to get off the OPEC deal..

Ughh... This is the longest and most 'political' post I've ever made and almost deleted it, but I'll post it just because I don't give a ***** anymore!!

Mitch

 

If it keeps going, i am selling the truck and buying a Huffy. This really sucks. Gas prices and everything else associated with it, directly and indirectly, goes up, but my pay-rate stays the same. It's going to come a time we all HAVE to make some drastic changes. Cost $92.00 roughly to fill up every 6 days. I HAVE to get to work, and dr. visits, etc. Unfortunatly, Tampa is not friendly for mass transit. Taking a bus to work 13 miles would take around 1.5 hours one way, between all the transfers. Then, if i need to stay later and work O.T., last bus picks up by like 5:45 to get home. I swear, i hope i never see an Oil executive walking the streets, or he will see just how tough my Ford is... to avoid. Hope they all sleep well at night...

rant over for now..

 

Like so many other guys here, I'm slowing down. Don't take off so fast from red lights, and keep the speed to 65 / 70 on the highway. (It's tough, but getting easier as time goes on!) I've noticed other people slowing down too, so at least I'm not the only one putting along in the right lane!

Combining trips seems to help too. No more randomly running to the hardware store because I need one thing. We try to use my wife's Pilot for around town. We're seriously considering a scooter for her since she has a 2 mile drive to work. My commute is ten miles.

I'm more conscious of vehicle maintenance now. Checking tire pressure more often. I'll be changing air filters more often too. I think that will help.

I moved the bike rack off the roof of the truck down to the bed rails. This should improve aerodynamics, especially while towing the camper. Having anything on the roof is a real drag.

And of course the bottom line is this; I only have so much money. If I'm spending more on gas, I'm not spending it on something else or saving any. Something has to go.

Happy Trails!

 

If I knew this fuel was going up so high and fast, I wouldn't have retired so soon. Now I'm thinking of picking up a part time job and couple days a week to pay for my gas. Maybe a greeter at WM

 

A couple things come to mind..... You said $10 a gallon by 2015..... Well 7 years is a long time, and that's actually a much slower increase then we have seen in the last 2 years ! By 2015, we better be making a little bit more $$$ perr hour than we are now too, and so $10 then, won't be worth what $10 is now.

The other thing is, I believe we are going to start hitting a point soon, at which raising the prices any further, starts to reduce profits, because the lower, and lower-middle class simply cannot afford to buy gas.

I expect $5 or maybe even $5.99 9/10ths (isn't that 9/10ths thing stupid ?) in the next couple years, but not higher, because I think after that, oil companies will start to lose profits.

Just MPO though,
Fish

 

Gas is already $8 / gallon in other countries............We will catch up very soon. I just have a really bad feeling about all this.............

 

if you do a little research that 8$ a gal in most euorpean countries is a average 70% in taxes our tax load is average 11% the total cost of a gal, so putting it in that light

$3.63- 11% = 3.2307 U.S. average

$8.70- 70% = 2.61 E.U. average
so when you do the math they are paying less for a gal than we are



time magazine article:http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...809900,00.html

 

I have the same problem...the ego thing...I hate to see traffic passing me!! But then again, the traffic that passed me doing 85mph i see at the next stop light, so i rather go the speed limit on cruise control and get better gas mileage then be doing 85-90mph keeping up with traffic and have my RPM's around 3,000 and burning twice the gas...

 

I'm buying the discount toilet paper.

 

http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/20...l-speculation/

This is a bit of news

 

Here is the issue America has with high gas prices. It is the LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSIT. Sure it is available in major cities. Not much anywhere else. Most of the country is still rural in nature and requires trips of 15-20 mile trips to get things. My area is a prime example. Very little industry and most ppl have to drive over 20 miles a day to get to work.