Wow, just read this, didn't know it was going to be this interesting to read. I guess I was surprised that gas went from $3.00 - $3.50 in one day. Gas was not the biggie on vacation - food was even higher!!! I can't believe a family of 4 eating out - Bob Evans, Ponderosa -( we didn't eat at big fancy restaurants )- pay on an average of $40 (including tip). We could of ate at McDonalds for every meal - but.... I wanted some variety. I just determined that it takes lots of money for a vacation. Set the money aside, spend it, have a great time and then come home to reality
We are a family of six and drive a full size van. The cashier almost past out a couple of weeks ago when I filled up on gas. It cost $100 and I was the first customer, besides commercial vehicles, that she had seen that high of a total on. Now it costs $125 to fill the tank. I do not complain about it because it really does not bother me. We live in the country and have to drive to town everyday to pick up our mail and ship out packages for our business. While it does cost more than earlier this year, I have decided to accept the fact that we will not take another trip with gas less than $3 and that is okay with us. We do not make a ton of money and both work hard but have decided that we want to continue to do all the driving we normally do. In exchange for the higher price we are paying in gas we are not eating out, camping more, and pinching pennies in other ways. We have three big driving trips scheduled this summer. This weekend we are going to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam (over 2000 miles round trip), to Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana in July (over 3000 miles round trip), and Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon in August (over 3400 miles round trip). We are planning to spend only 1/3 of our nights in hotels. We would like to stay at a campground every night but do not know if it will work out that way. We pack everything for our meals including a crockpot and coffee maker. We are planning on one in every eight meals (at the most) being at a fast food place or something along that line. We try to eat out as little as possible and go out for ice cream instead. We do plan one nice meal with regional foods on our trips but it does not have to be an expensive place to get good food. One of the ways we are cutting down costs this summer is that we are building a solar oven. This will allow me to cook outside with the power of the sun and not heat up the house with the oven. I am also purchasing reusable grocery bags to cut down on the use of the disposable bags. We refill water bottles and fill them with Crystal Light, Gatorade, and Koolaid instead of drinking pop. We are planting a garden for most of our produce. I have also been selling a ton of stuff online. I have been selling scrapbook stuff, toys, books, homeschool items, DVDs, games, etc. that we no longer use. I have been using the money that I make from the sales to buy our homeschool materials for next year and pay for a few fun things to do this summer. I suppose that I would have to say that the gas hike has actually been a blessing for us. It has definitely motivated us to cut costs in other areas, clean out our house, and put our priorities in line. And family trips around the country our definitely a priority for us.
Mainly western Ohio- the Cincinnati area. We are planning on spending most of our time in south eastern Indiana, north central Kentucky, and south western Ohio. We are actually hoping to move to the area next summer and are going to check out the area to see what we like. We will be there the first week of July.
I live up in the Northeast Ohio area. Thought maybe you would be close enough to meet. It's a 3-4 hour drive to Cincinnati. I have a cousin that lives in Batesville, IN and his brothers live in the Dayton area.
Just thought I would share this article on Gas stations. It opened my eyes up a bit...Maybe you have read it.? Sorry a bit long... Hit by high prices and fees, some gas station owners stop selling fuel By THOMAS CONTENT tcontent@journalsentinel.com Posted: May 23, 2007 http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=610122 As gas prices hit another record last Friday, Jeff Curro couldn't take it anymore. He wasn't a motorist at the pump fed up by the blur of numbers spinning higher as he filled his tank. Curro is a gas station owner who has stopped selling gas to his own customers. After selling gas at N. 124th and W. Burleigh streets for 20 years, Curro turned off his pumps at his Shell station in Brookfield when the price he was being asked to pay was just too much. Including the wholesale cost of gas and other taxes and charges, he was being asked to pay $3.44 a gallon Friday, a day when the competing stations down the street were selling gasoline for $3.47. "Three cents a gallon doesn't cut it," Curro said. "It doesn't pay the bills." Add to that the money he loses every time a motorist uses a credit card at the pump, and there was no reason to keep selling gas, Curro said. Credit card companies and banks get an average of 2.75% on every gallon of gas sold, and credit card processing fees now rank as the second-biggest expense for gas station operators, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores. "The way I see it is, I'm doing all the work of providing the labor, the wages, the electricity, the lighting, the maintenance of the pumps, the repairs and the insurance, which is quite substantial," Curro said. "I'm doing all the work, and somebody else is getting fat on me." Curro isn't alone in deciding to not sell gas anymore. Casey O'Gorman did the same thing. In business for 25 years near State Fair Park, his West Allis service station is now doing business exclusively as Auto Analyzers. The Shell name came down a few months back. "I finally had to just pull the plug on it and say, 'I can't afford to do it anymore,' " O'Gorman said. High wholesale prices Curro and O'Gorman are leaving a relatively small and disappearing group of service station owners who both sell gas and repair cars. Independent auto-repair shops face competition from car dealerships and quick-lube repair shops, and in the sale of gasoline, they compete against full-line convenience stores. Most gas stations today double as convenience stores, and although they generate more than two-thirds of sales from gas, two-thirds of profit comes from in-store sales of cigarettes, drinks and food, according to the convenience store association. When drivers are paying more, they think that means higher profits for the filling station, said Bob Bartlett, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores Association. The case of the two Shell stations stopping sales of gas illustrates the challenges faced by independent station owners across the state, Bartlett said. Nine of 10 stations in the state are independently owned and run, he said. Between Feb. 1 and Monday, Bartlett said, the average wholesale price paid by service stations in Milwaukee to buy gasoline rose from $1.66 to $2.94. Add in taxes paid to the federal and state governments, as well as transportation costs, and the average service station had to cover $3.47 on Monday, without charging any profit. On that day, stations were charging their customers $3.47 on average in Milwaukee, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. "People are upset about oil and gas prices, but it's not this guy right here," Bartlett said of the independent gas station owner. "He's not OPEC. He's not refining it. He's buying it kind of like I am, right at the end of the line here." Sales up, profit down Curro has been thinking about shutting down his gas pumps for about a year, and he has complained to his supplier about prices. When he shut down his pumps, he was charging $3.59 a gallon, 12 cents higher than the competing stations nearby. "Even at $3.59, I was making 15 cents, but I was still giving 10 of those cents to MasterCard," he said. Nationally, the Association of Convenience Stores estimates that sales rose 12% but profit fell 23% industrywide last year, and for the first time, credit card fees were higher than the industry's profit. Lower margins on the sale of fuel and credit card fees were the two main factors behind the drop in profit, the association said, as profit margins on the sale of fuel dipped to their lowest point since 1983. Until January, O'Gorman and the predecessors at S. 84th St. and W. Greenfield Ave. sold gasoline on that corner since 1938. He says he never made much money selling gas but started seeing margins nosedive last year when gas prices rose. "More and more, it was crowding out my real form of income," O'Gorman said, referring to car repairs. "Then you listen to the public, and they say we're gouging them. Who needs to listen to that? I'd need to have my head examined."
After reading the article, I have come to the conclusion that it is almost inevitable for the little man to have to shut down. A person who owns one or two stations can't compete with a larger company. It isn't a good thing either. When all the single businesses close or shut down, the larger companies can raise their prices more because people will not have a choice but to purchase the more expensive gas. I am going to a BBQ at my uncles house next week and I am going to have an enlightening conversation with him. I do not know all the ins and outs but something is fishy. The company Handsome works for has two pumps on the lot because they are always using gas for their machines and tractors. The company purchases the gas for much less because they buy it in large quantities. A few times Handsome was in need of gas for something and he did not want to drive many miles to the office to fill up the pumps he carries on his truck so he went to a gas station that was around the corner. When the boss received the receipt, he was not pleased. He told Handsome the reason he purchases it in mass is so he can keep the price down. Handsome was told never to do this again because it costs more to buy a few gallons at a time. It doesn't seem fair to me! They should pay the same amount we pay to gas our cars. Patty
Yea, my problem with gas hikes, is that I wonder how necessary it is. I mean, if it was necessary and that is just life in the big city, than fine. However, it seems more is afoot. That is what I don't like. I don't like seeing the little guy going out of business. I don't like people having to struggle to pay gas because the prices can be raised but do not have to be raised. I understand that prices only go up...but I am wondering if we are being taken advantage of. At least I have the choice of not buying designer clothes or national brands to save a dime and not spend more money than necessary...but we have not such choice with gas. It is just one way to hit everyone and then tell us there was no other way. I hope I am not being too simplistic. Basically, I just don't want everyone taken advantage of. If there is nothing we can do or anyone can do but pay more than fine. I only object if we are paying a higher cost to benefit a CEO. (oh and I am not a socialist..lol...or a marxist...I have no problem with some attaining wealth and some not.)
Ava I totally understand. I worked this weekend at my MIL Marina and gas is 4.09 there but it did not stop the boaters one bit. The sad thing is my MIL doesn't make but a few pennies on it. Happy Holiday
I agree that something else is "afoot". The CEO's of the oil companies are getting fat raises every year. The other thing that bothers me is that we HAVE the technology to not use fossil fuels- but that isn't in the interests of those with power and influence, so "they" say these alternatives aren't feasable, or are "too expensive"- not true. I have a couple of friends who just started making their own bio-diesel. I hope we can figure out some alternatives for ourselves.
Our gas recently went down! Woo-Hoo! Now it's "ONLY" $3.24! That's at least 15 cents less than it was for some time!
Ours is now about $3.05. My theory is that they hike it up to an outrageous price so that when it comes down, we are glad to pay $3.05 instead of freaking out.
Cheaper than mine! Hey, it's good to hear that prices are down a bit! Are they planning to go up again for the summer season?
$2.88 here today. Our city seems to stay slightly below the 2 larger cities close to us. They have both been over $3, but the highest it got here was $2.96.
