Gas Prices

[scooterbug44]

General question for the peanut gallery:

How much does gas have to cost before you would start changing your driving habits - letting it affect vacations, using public transportation, carpooling, buy a car w/ better mileage etc?

 

[6thGen]

I thought the oil companies were getting heat from record profits. Is this the response?
/QUOTE]

Political heat has relatively nothing to do with it. Record profits are a good thing, as they encourage competition which will lower pump prices. Shelly's on it with speculation and oil being USD based, but he's a little bit off on an easing Fed increasing inflation, ceteris paribus.

 

[elgordoboy]

General question for the peanut gallery:

How much does gas have to cost before you would start changing your driving habits - letting it affect vacations, using public transportation, carpooling, buy a car w/ better mileage etc?

Seems to me rising gasoline price is a psychological effect more than a real one as far as personal consumption in the vehicle goes. 15,000 miles per year at 20miles/gallon = 750 gallons = $2,325.00 call it $200/mo. That is not a large portion of household income I should think though it probably takes a whack out of disposable income these days which is the point. I am more worried about my income going down than gasoline going up.

 

[Smiling JOe]

i drive an escape so it costs between 25-30 bucks to fill 'er up. however she's got a small, 17 gal tank, so i need to fill 'er up more often.

You mentioned in another post that you are paying $3.19 per gallon. I, too, have a 17 gal tank and recently paid $3.199 per gallon, so that is why I know that your $25-$30 estimate to fill up, is way off. If you wait until the light comes on to fill up, your real costs to fill up is around $55, not $25-30.

Thomb Thumb at 98/331 is the cheapest price in town at the moment, and the other day it was $3.199 for the "cheap" gas, and that is up from $2.999 only a couple of weeks ago. Do the math, that is a 6+% increase in a very short period of time. Spring Break hasn't even hit yet. I heard an analyst on the news the other day saying that he expects prices to hit $4/gal by Labor Day. Remember, taxes have much to do with the current prices of gasoline in our country. It isn't all BIG OIL.

I said a couple of years ago, that it would take prices of gas reaching $5 per gallon to ween people off the inefficient beasts on our roadways. I think we are beginning to feel the pinch a bit early due to the current state of our economy. $4 per gallon will crush some people in this down market. Time to get my motorcycle tuned up and maybe some waterproof cargo containers.

 

[Smiling JOe]

A little reminder to Elgordoboy, gas price increases affect more than our minds. When prices of fuel increases, so does the price of transportation and production of everything we purchase. Have you noticed that a gallon of milk regularly costs around $5 now? Not too long ago, it was $2.99 per gal. If gas price alone was the only increase, I'd say you are correct, that it was in our minds, but the true effect is spread over each purchase we make.

 

[Minnie]

General question for the peanut gallery:

How much does gas have to cost before you would start changing your driving habits - letting it affect vacations, using public transportation, carpooling, buy a car w/ better mileage etc?

It affected mine when it went over $3.00.

 

[scooterbug44]

I think they use fuel prices as an excuse to jack up the other prices. :angry:

 

[tistheseason]

How much does gas have to cost before you would start changing your driving habits - letting it affect vacations, using public transportation, carpooling, buy a car w/ better mileage etc?

I think brief spikes in prices don't really affect our behavior -- as we can usually afford it, even if we complain about it. And we get use to small creeps in gas prices -- we become conditioned to prices above $2 -- and thus don't change our behavior. I really think that something other than gas prices has to happen to convince the majority to change their behavior.

 

[30abob]

If you're cheering for the Fed to lower rates, you're also cheering for inflation.
.

I'm amazed by how few people understand this concept. Of course, none of the three economically challenged presidential "front runners" have a clue what the Federal Reserve does either.

 

[elgordoboy]

A little reminder to Elgordoboy, gas price increases affect more than our minds. When prices of fuel increases, so does the price of transportation and production of everything we purchase. Have you noticed that a gallon of milk regularly costs around $5 now? Not too long ago, it was $2.99 per gal. If gas price alone was the only increase, I'd say you are correct, that it was in our minds, but the true effect is spread over each purchase we make.

Correct. I mentioned personal consumption in the vehicle for that reason, as we were discussing price at the pump.