Where do you draw the line at the gas pump?

I just filled up a 97 Ford Escort, on empty grant you, for $27.59. I'm sure that others have larger tanks, thus greater bills. So how do you afford it?

My wife asked me perhaps the 1st PO question of her life today. She wanted to know when we were going to make lifestyle changes concerning the cars we own. At the moment, either of us could walk/bike to school or work. Grocery store is around the corner. In theory, we could walk for just about anything that we would need to purchase.

Her thoughts were that we could save a bit by not driving so much, thus allowing us to have a little extra money for the increased cost of goods. Its not perfect, but it will do for now. Her specific question was to the effect of "How much are we willing to pay at the pump before we figure something else out?"

Well, how much for each of you?

Phishi

 

We have already started planning more carefully, and not making any unecessary trips to town.

 

Liveing 6 miles from the nearest 'wide spot in the road' town and 15 miles from the nearest town where you can get groeries or other shoping, and no work in the area unless you drive 15+ miles, you draw the line when you cant make more at work than you pay to get there, then you lose what ever you have. Other than that you have to be able to work from home and as a tree trimmer thats not an option so, I just get to keep paying untill I can learn a new trade, get the land payed off and self sufficient, or SHTF and the bank forgets I have a mortgage. I hate it but cant afford currently available alternatives and so am stuck with paying whatever it costs or lose everything.
We do minimize trips and normaly pick things up on the way home from work or go to town on payday to get everything in one trip. I know the other day I paid $30 for 11.5 gallons in a 22 gallon tank in a truck that gets just over 10 MPG, its getting rouph, but for us theres currently no other option.

 

The same old routine here - I sit home and wish we had food and the wife runs all over town wasting gas "shopping" and comes home with either 1) nothing or 2) something living that's our new pet. Argh.

About $63 to fill up the Dodge last time - I am turning into Al Bundy!

LOL

 

I paid $30 last time to fill up the gas tank on the Aztec. Takes about $30-$35 to fill up the 4x4. I use the truck but rarely and then basically for dump runs or when I need to load it up with stuff I can't fit in the Aztec (and you'd be amazed what I can fit in that vehicle once I take the rear seats out).

Normally a tank of gas will last the truck through the winter (I don't drive it anywhere and only run it once or twice to keep the battery up - if even that, or because I need to move it).

A tank of gas in the Aztec will last me 3-4 weeks if I'm careful. Believe me I do my best to conserve gas. Usually I plan everything to pick it up on my way home from work (and it's about 9 miles round trip to & from work). Include 3 different grocery stores & several other forms of shopping I might add 2 maybe 3 miles at the most.

If we have to do any shopping on he weekends (by we I mean mom & myself) well if it involves big items we take my car, small items - she goes and I stay home

Hardest is during the winter - then it's definitely every 3 weeks because of warm up time (and sometimes every 2 weeks), but I don't let the car get down below 1/4 tank or in winter 1/2 tank.

 

I think Ghrit stated what I was trying to better that I was able to. Unfortinatly my comute changes every time I go to work since I work all over a couple of counties at folks homes and my truck only gets around 12 mpg so a 22 gallon tank only lasts me about 1 week. On average I drive about 50 miles whenever I go to work round trip and then we also have to haul our water from town about 5 miles away. We do have a donkey, I guess if things get bad enouph we will have to find some kind of cottage industry and use the donkey with a cart to haul water from town.

 

I just hope I can get my land payed off before it gets to bad. As long as I have some dirt under me I can get by but the bank isnt gonna care what the gas prices are if I cant make the payments and dont see any viable options at the moment to driveing for work.

 

Yes Tracy I do track my spending on gas (and food). I cut down a lot when I bought the Aztec because I no longer got 40 mpg like I did in the old Toyota I owned. However, the trade off was I got airconditioning (for mom when she's with me) and the fact I can get in and out of the newer car better which I needed. I spend on average no more than $30-35 per month on gas. $60 if I gas up the truck (which only averages 2-3 months out of the year at the max. Some months I can get by with $25 or less (especially if I take a vacation and don't go anywhere - like last May).

And melbo it's definitely going to get worse.

 

That is the really crummy thing...they kinda have a us over a barrel on this...The world has to have Gas at this point. Now 30 yrs ago when they did this we should have started developing Alternate fuel sources that we control. Alas Government and big business does as it always does and roll on by, until it blows up in their face and they look bad.

 

I want one of the conversion kits I read about a year or so back. As I recall it made the motor dual fuel, gas or hydrogen. It had tanks that were specialy developed so the H would bond to the tank then be slowly released by the heat from the exhaust so it made it so that the H tank wouldnt blow up even if shot through with a tracer. It has a hydrogen generator that you would have in the house that pulled the hydrogen out of tap water and stored it in these tanks that were detachable from the car and each tank of H would run the car (IIRC) about 150-200 miles then you could switch over to the gasoline if needed to get back to refuel. The main draw backs were that it didnt go as far on a tank, the tanks were a few grand each, and of you hooked the tank up wrong and got outside air in them it ruined the tank. The price on the tanks was supposed to come down to around 1K however since they didnt have them in mass production yet and were haveing to pay outrageous prices to have them custom made when I read about it. I will have to see if I can find that link. Other than that get an engine converted to methane and start driveing on sewage.

 

This isnt the site I was thinking of but is a similar idea.
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/watercar/h20car2.htm

 

Sucks for me. My commute is about to turn in an 1 hour long.

Thats my luck. :|


$68. 00 for me to fill the van.