gasoline and the pickup

Paul, same thing here in IA with the diesel..doesn't make sense.

My wife's SUV is has more room, is much more comfortable and is much quieter on the highway, but we have driven my focus wagon almost 4000 miles this summer on 3 rather long trips and several short ones. It gets 28-32MPG and her SUV only gets 14-20. I used to loose sleep over high gas prices, but then we decided we could spend less on other things on the trip (bring our own food and drink, go to free attractions, camp or stay with friends and family rather than hotels, etc.) and the worries were gone. My family takes 20-200 miles drives/day trips most weekends. If we didn't I would go crazy I think. Des Moines isn't a large city at all, but getting out to small towns and seeing the countryside puts a smile on our faces every time plus our daughter sees and does things most living here don't. Gas prices have been high for awhile now and I think I have just embraced it for a fact of life and moved on.

Frank Fusco said:

I cut back simply by staying home.
Two weeks ago I bought a replacement string for one of our thermal shades. The 'store' that had them is in a home in a semi-rural area north of town. I'm south of town. They couldn't make change for my $20.00. The string was $2.65. I agreed to bring the money later. Going for the string then returning to pay will cost a total of about $16.00 gasoline money. I ain't a happy camper with those folks.

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Could you just USPS it? It would be just the cost of a stamp and envelope. Send a check, they would probably burn up their profit going to the bank.

I'm not hurting too bad thanks to my 70mpg 150cc scooter. We're still way cheap compared to much of the rest of the world so it's tough to get too excited about our current prices when other countries are well more than double what we pay. Yeah, it's gone up ... it's still cheap energy. Too cheap? Maybe.

Then again ... I filled up the cage the other day and that little thing was over $50! '05 Dodge Straus. Gets around 23-25 if I casually hypermile.

I'm used to puttering up to the pump, *glub* and be gone for under $6 which gets me 75-80 miles easily.

One good thing, I think, is that these higher prices seem to inspire more conservation which is always good in my book! Maybe they should be higher?