Gas is Expensive
Get over it. If you don’t like it, don’t drive. I mean it. Gas was 99 cents back in the day. It’s pushing 4 bucks now. Ride public transport. Make different choices on work. I don’t blithely say this either. I mean it because it’s what I’m doing right now.
I was sitting on the bench with an opportunity to work near BWI airport north of DC staring me in the face. That’s a 90-minute drive from the far side of DC where I live. It’s also a crap-load of gas. Unfortunately I’m going to have to decline working this job. It’s a year long commitment and man, is it going to get old after a few months.
I’ll pass.
But these are the choices you make with work. I can’t afford to be too choosy, else I’ll end up flying to Indiana every week instead. But I think I can do better than the airport across town and find something closer. I had my fingers on a gig south of DC. It’s not metro accessible, and I would still be driving to suburban hell, but I suck up the ~$4/gal charge on gas since the job is close to my friend having a baby. I hope we can have lunch together all summer with her new bundle of joy.
The way I figure things, my car has at most a 15-gallon tank.
$3.65 per gallon
15 gallon tank
————-
$54.75 per tank
1 tank weekly for 50 weeks = $2737.50
Divide by 12 = $228.13 per month
That should be my budget for gas for May. Later in the summer, when gas goes up to $3.90, I should budget $243.75. At exactly $4.00 a gallon, I should budget $250.00 even.
In 2006, when my dad was ill and I was going home all the time, I spent $1416.03 on gas. I was able to tank up for free at my parents’ gas station. A year later I spent LESS, $1410.39. That’s about $117.50-118.00 per month for the last two years. During the first 3 months of 2008, I spent $107.00 a month on gas. Not that much less. My alternatives to driving still cost me quite a bit of money. Metrorail in DC cost me about ~$41.00 a month.
It stinks to have to budget an extra $100-135 a month on gas, but realistically, it’s not that much for my fuel-efficient Altima. There’s a reason why those gas guzzling SUV’s are being handed back in. $350/mo for a lease payment, on top of $60-80 bucks per tank of gas, that has got to suck.
Amphritrite wrote:
I lived in Glen Burnie (southern ‘burb of Baltimore) and commuted to Bethesda. The commute isn’t what kills you - it’s not even the gas…
..it’s maintenance on your car. If you think gas is bad, think about having to put tires on your car once a year from wear and tear. Think about having to replace the windshield at least as often because Maryland can’t figure out whether to rip the roads up or repair them (thus, chips, dings and cracks from flying debris). Consider, if you will, the oil changes, the antifreeze changes, the wiper changes, and…best of all… the amount of value leeching out of your vehicle as your mileage grows and grows.
I drive a 2001 with almost 100K miles on it. I only did that commute for a year.
Yikes.
Posted on 02-May-08 at 8:30 am | Permalink
BD wrote:
LOL @ “I’ll end up flying weekly to Indiana”. Speaking from experience, let me just say that a local project would be better.
Posted on 02-May-08 at 10:28 am | Permalink
Twiggers wrote:
Some places (like Indiana) have crappy public transportation. I either drive the 10 miles each way to work or I would have to walk it or bike it. Neither of those are options (I can walk 4 miles per hour, but there are no sidewalks either), especially when it is -35 outside in the winter. So I’ll continue to gripe and moan about gas! Believe me…I’d rather use public transportation and have extra time to relax in the morning…I hate driving!
Posted on 02-May-08 at 11:01 am | Permalink
Dean J wrote:
Starting with “get over it” and ending with “that’s gotta suck” is quite the swing through the post?
Posted on 02-May-08 at 5:37 pm | Permalink
Shana wrote:
Interesting. I just wrote about this from the other point of view — that the cost of gas in the US is actually cheap to much of the Western world. (http://smarteasymoney.blogspot.com/2008/05/you-think-gas-is-expensive-its-not.html) I’m also pretty against most people commuting by car when it is only just them in the car… I think carpooling or public transportation is vastly better, even when public transportation means a longer commute.
Posted on 03-May-08 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
dogatemyfinances wrote:
I totally agree! My fiance and I drive less than 10 miles a day because we made a choice to spend more on our (rented) condo near the city.
Others made choices that require them to drive 100 miles a day. And now that choice seems much worse. It’s all about your own choices.
Posted on 04-May-08 at 3:09 pm | Permalink
Twiggers wrote:
Oops…I forgot to say in my original comment that I added you to my blogroll! Sorry it took me a bit to get you added
Posted on 04-May-08 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
Trent Hamm wrote:
Gas is currently $3.50 a gallon here and it costs me $70 to fill my truck. I used to have to fill it once a week before I quit my job - now I fill it about once every six weeks. That’s about $300 a month in savings and we’re already noticing it big time.
Posted on 05-May-08 at 7:59 am | Permalink
Melissa wrote:
Hey Twiggers, I hear you on Indiana’s crappy public transportation system. I work in the next county over from where I live. No public transportation goes between the two. I have to drive to get to work. I can’t move anywhere to save money because that would cause my rent to increase by at least $100. Believe me, I’ve looked…
Our town just got a public transportation sytem last year. And this is a town with a university that doesn’t allow Freshman to have a car on campus. You used to see them crossing the nearby busy, four-lane highway to get to shopping. How they made it that long without transportation and not having any students injured, I don’t know.
I’m at a loss on how to decrease my driving or gas spending, unless I start car pooling with others. That would mean some of us would have to adjust our work schedule, though.
Posted on 05-May-08 at 8:59 am | Permalink