Originally posted by sigma:It's when it costs me over $50 that I might actually begin to adjust my driving habits.
If you guys are wondering why gas prices are so high, its because the US (and most of Canada) is entrenched in this mentality.
Yeah, the mentality is that even if it did go up to $50/tank it'd still be one of the smallest monthly expenses I have at only about $200/month. I got better things to worry about than a few extra bucks a month.
I spend more for rent
I spend more for food
I spend more for cars
I spend more for car insurance
I spend more for health insurance
I spend more than that on non-budgeted incidentals
I spend more than that for electricity (some months)
I spend more than that eating out (some months)
Hell, I even spend twice that on car mods every month
I spend more than that on almost every single line item in my budget
$200/month. Actually, it's better said as $100/month increase over the last couple years. A relative gradual increase. Whoopty-Frickin' doo. My yearly cost-of-living raise alone vastly outpaces my monthly increase in gas expenses over the years.
I've got better things to do than worry about the extra $50 I'm paying this month on gasoline compared to this time last year. My health insurance rises at significantly a faster rate. On average, my rent goes up more than that every year . My car insurance went up more than that this year. With rising interest rates the house I want to buy will cost much more than $50/month extra than if I had bought it last year. My utility bills go up more than that every year (and I use renewable energy, so they can't blame it on rising fuel costs). When I was in school, tuition was going up at a rate of hundreds of dollars a month (if we were to break the yearly increase into months).
Do I need to continue on? Gasoline costs are not only one of the smallest monthly outlays that I have, but they're also rising slower (taken as absolute dollars, not percentage increases) than almost everything else in my budget. That's why I'll pay $50 a tank without really giving it a second thought. I've got bigger, nastier bills and various other things in my life to worry about than trying to adjust my driving habits to save a MPG or two here and there and save maybe 2 bucks a month. My health insurance bill alone went up $120/month this year.
I definitely understand that for many people rising fuel costs, or any sort of rising costs, is a very big deal. I really do. I come from rather impoverished families on both sides and know what that is like. But for me it's simply not. Nor do I see any reason why I should adjust my driving habits -- I'm not unnecessarily wasteful. For all the hoopla about rising gas prices, the difference in my gas budget from this month and this month last year is less than $50. If it came down to it, I'd just bring my lunch to work one day a week and save that much.
And for what it's worth, I don't own, never have owned, nor ever plan on owning, an SUV.
