Gasoline prices will reach $4.25- lifestyle change time

My morning newspaper is blaring the headline at me today- gasoline at $4.25 per gallon is probably going to arrive in a week or two, as the wholesale price spike arrives at the pump.  On the international market, gas roared up $10 a barrel just yesterday. Ouch. Reacting to this in a way that is constructive sort of depends on your situation. For most of us, we get a trapped feeling. We have built our entire lives around cheap gasoline, and when that goes away, our entire lives are messy. There has been a surge in "staycations" this summer, but it goes beyond that now. People are looking at ways to use less gas in their daily lives, not just that yearly trip to Florida.

I am actually happy that one of our two cars is really getting old now- because when we replace it we can get something with better mileage. I sort of congratulate myself that both our cars are old Saturn sedans that get 25 city and 34 highway- that helps cushion the pain. But still, when I think of driving fifteen minutes to the closest walmart, I think that is only worth doing if I am going to get alot of stuff. If I just need a jug of milk and a loaf of bread, might as well go to my local grocery store which is only three minutes from my front door because the walmart trip would take around $4. Back when we bought this house we did not realize how lucky we were for having nearby food shopping.

So what do you do if you are not lucky? What do you do if you own a couple of Lincoln Navigators, and you bought them only 3 years ago? Trading in one of those may not make sense, because nobody wants it for one thing. For another, the prices of used vehicles that get really good mileage is shooting up due to demand. Some people are looking at this and saying, I am not going to drop $10,000 in order to save twenty bucks a week on gas. In that situation you probably just suffer through, and try to take fewer trips that you do not have to take. Right now, you could buy a hybrid such as the Prius for $22,000 and get 45 mpg combined rating. Or you get get a cheaper conventional car for around $15,000 and get mpg not quite that good. Or if you wait until 2010, you are supposed to be able to buy a Chevy Volt plug in car and buy most of your "fuel" in you electricity bill at a much lower price. Your gasoline will be around one gallon per 100 miles- pretty good. This is supposed to save GM from falling apart. But yes, that is two years away and who know if they will even get the battery to behave?

Gasoline consumption in the USA has dropped recently around 4 to 6%, after going up steadily for twenty years.  Please accept the fact that is is a good change! We need to figure out how to reduce our gasoline consumption another 5 percent, and we probably will if things keep going this way.  Our family has been lucky in one detail this summer. Our college daughter got an internship in downtown Richmond, and we discovered that there is a bus from our local community college that runs to downtown Richmond for a round trip fee of $5. Great! For one thing we do not have a third car for her to park in Richmond all day. For another thing, it would take nearly $5 gas to do the round trip, so the bus makes more sense.  The unfortunate thing is that most people do no have access to public transportation anywhere near their homes. Check on it, you might be surprised- but sadly you probably will not. It would be nice if that could change. Our County government is saying sorry, we are out of money, can't run any more buses. That is a failure to meet our needs, and they are just rationalizing about the money. Most of us really do not have workable carpool solutions unless we hang around somewhere to meet someone else's schedule requirements.

What is your plan to deal with this new reality? Are you making no changes to your lifestyle? Are you making small changes- combining trips, fewer trips, looking for gas rebate incentives? Or are you making a major investment- changing vehicles, switching to public transit, relocating?