Good news on gas prices

[disneysteve]

How come when gas prices were climbing, everyone was posting about how costly it had gotten and how much it was impacting the budget, but now that prices have dropped dramatically, nobody seems to be mentioning how nice it is to have less money going into the tank?

Around here, gas at the cheap stations peaked right around $4.00/gallon. As of yesterday, it was $3.37/gallon. That is a drop of $0.63 or 15.75%. And that has happened in just a matter of weeks.

Personally, the higher prices weren't really having much impact on us since we don't do all that much driving, but I know it hit some people a lot harder. I'm sure those folks have to be enjoying the drop in price.

[momof1in150]

The other item that has dropped is home heating oil. It was near $4.50 here and is now down to $3.55. I am watching it because we need to fill our tank and want to get the lowest price possible.

[maat55]

Like cattle, we become complacent when prices drop dramatically. It appears that 3.35 is the new 2.50. I still believe that 3.00 is outragous.

[billchrz]

The other item that has dropped is home heating oil. It was near $4.50 here and is now down to $3.55. I am watching it because we need to fill our tank and want to get the lowest price possible.

This was my main concern too. I can carpool to work, work from home, and find other ways to save money on gas. The home heating oil is what worries me because there is no alternative here.

[disneysteve]

Hadn't thought about heating oil as we heat with gas and the heater has been off for some time. I guess that's a nice savings, too.

[red92s]

As the price of oil declines, there is less incentive to invest in the development of alternatives, and less pressure to reduce consumption.

But . . . yes, it is nice paying less.

[billchrz]

Hadn't thought about heating oil as we heat with gas and the heater has been off for some time. I guess that's a nice savings, too.

It was and still is a huge concern. We have a 275 gallon tank and use less oil than normal families. Our house is very well insulated, our oil burner less than 5 years old, have programmable digital thermostats throughout, and we still used about 600 gallons last year. A typical 2100 sq ft house uses about 1000 gallons of oil per year (for heat and hot water). When home heating oil was approaching $5.00/gal a normal family was looking at close to $5k for the year. Some folks locked in at those rates as speculation and the news media suggested an even higher ceiling.

You can imagine the problems this can have to elderly or people on a fixed income.

I don't plan on locking in at a fixed price this year because of the volatility and will get my fills at going rate...gulp. You better believe that we plan on getting a few electric radiators to use as the primary heat source.

[irs]

How come when gas prices were climbing, everyone was posting about how costly it had gotten and how much it was impacting the budget, but now that prices have dropped dramatically, nobody seems to be mentioning how nice it is to have less money going into the tank?

Around here, gas at the cheap stations peaked right around $4.00/gallon. As of yesterday, it was $3.37/gallon. That is a drop of $0.63 or 15.75%. And that has happened in just a matter of weeks.

Personally, the higher prices weren't really having much impact on us since we don't do all that much driving, but I know it hit some people a lot harder. I'm sure those folks have to be enjoying the drop in price.

In my opinion , the increase in gas price is not so good for those earning less or for those who using transportation. The effect is not only on the gas price but also on the increase of our daily needs like our transportation fare, medical bills, groceries, and even our mortgage bills Drop in gas price is a good news for us and hope it will much okey in the few months.

[Gruntina]

Gas has gone down some lately but not even close to the point where it was 1 year ago. 1 year ago, we would not think the current price of gas is a deal as it is still higher than it was!

I believe this time around that we know it will go up as it’s been a continuing cycle of up and downs but overall averages keeps going higher and higher. We are less naive about the gas prices getting lower as we know it is not long term.

There are some now paying payments for their new hybrids or new vehicles with lower gas per mile mileage during the gas hike craze. While they are paying less for their gas, they are paying more for their car payments.

Food serving and portion sizes gotten smaller but did not lower prices when the the gas did.

[simpleyme]

I paid 3.97 for gas yesterday i am in Oregon it has not gone down here at all as far as I can tell ,

when ever they talk about gas price averages we are always way above average it was on the news here that gas had gone down 1 penny a gallon cannot quite explain why i did not get excted over that

[disneysteve]

There are some now paying payments for their new hybrids or new vehicles with lower gas per mile mileage during the gas hike craze. While they are paying less for their gas, they are paying more for their car payments.

You're right. I think a lot of people got caught up in the gas mileage hysteria and traded in perfectly good cars that were paid off, or nearly so, in order to go out and spend thousands on a new car that got marginally better mileage.

If you drive the average 12,000 miles/year and get 15mpg vs. 25mpg, at $4.00/gallon, you'd save about $107/month on fuel. Sounds good, but if you went from no car payments to a monthly payment with interest and probably higher insurance rates, did you really save any money?

[noppenbd]

Not to mention depreciation. The single biggest cost of owning a new car, in most cases. For instance, in the case of a 2008 Toyota Prius, for the first 5 years, fully 1/3 of the 5-year $45000 cost is depreciation. Fuel is only about 15%.

[GoodBuyGirl]

My problem with it is when oil drops they say it takes several days before we'll see savings at the pump. But when oil shoots up they have no problem raising the price .10 or more a gallon the same day.

[Coleroo]

lol... I too think $3.00 is outrageous. $4.00 was bad enough, but with average prices being $3.45 around here right now, that's still bad.

I remember back in January my husband and I had a hard time gulping the $3.29 price tag in upstate New York!

Regardless of what's going on with prices, we have the exact same weekly budget for gas for a $3.00 gallon as we do for a $4.00 gallon....we just change our driving habits accordingly.

I will agree that it is a bit of a relief overall though!

[Coleroo]

on a side note.... my hubby and I were driving back from the beach this past weekend (which wouldn't have been possible if gas would have still been at $4) and we noticed a deisel sign for a gas station just off a hwy exit...

It kept blinking back and forth between $4.11 and $4.03. It changed every 10 seconds. I know it was some kind of mechanical error, but when you're tired and hungry, it makes for a very humorous site and funny speculations about which price someone would actually pay, how angry some customers might be if they only looked at that sign once (at the $4.03 moment), etc.