Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Freaking Gas Prices


The reality is just now setting in. Over the winter, I was content to hole up on my couch and watch movies for months, but daggummit, now I am ready to get out and enjoy the fresh air. Today, I went on a business trip (my OWN business so I foot the expenses) to Philadelphia. Roughly 300 miles round trip. That's $65 in gas!!! Last week, I was in Detroit on business. To rent the car was $13.95 a day. To fly there was $140 round trip. I spent $250 in gas for the trip! It's just getting crazy. I am starting to opt out of doing things if they mean "spending gas."

On the trip today I started thinking about my trip to the Outer Banks and how much it will cost me. My car averages 23 miles to the gallon and it is approximately 1000 miles round trip for me. Check my math since I am a math imbecile, but that's about $175 in gas (assuming it stays around $4 a gallon), no? YIKES!

I feel like I need my wings clipped!

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

It would be really interesting to read a study (I'm sure several have been done) over the differences in leisure activities between Europeans and Americans that can be traced to gas prices. I realize there are many other huge differences (density in Europe, cultural factors, # days off per year) between the two, but their gas prices are, I believe, at least twice what ours are on similar or lower salary bases.

It's definitely a shocker right now though! I'm so split - the environmental side of me wants them to just go higher so that it drives both innovation and decreased consumption, but the budgeting side of me gets nervous.