[Smurfysmurf]

I guess gas/petrol prices are high everywhere right now, and I was wondering if they affected you in any way. Like vacation, food, smurfs, or anything else

They have made a big impact on my way of living as I drive 110 miles every day to and fro work, so not only have I put over 100 000 miles on my car in three years, but I spend more than I want to know each month on gas/petrol. Since I no longer go anywhere during the weekend and only work four days a week (10 hours) to save on gas, my life is very much impacted and I made the decision this weekend to ask my manager if I can work at home. She agreed and put my name up to be among the first to work from home. This could mean I can start in two months or next year

I am looking forward to it as it means I can spent more money on my hobbies and credit cards again...and really go travelling... One way to start is to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday in a few weeks with a weekend in the Smoky Mountains which will be mine and Curt's birthday present for her

How have the gas prices impacted your way of living..or have they at all? I know a lot of Europeans use public transportation but I can imagine that the prices of those have gone up, too...as have the grocery prices over here

[Tojo]

The price of petrol has rocketed here but as we didn't use the car much it didn't affect us much at first especially as I go to work by train. Mrs Tojo started a new job at the beginning of April though & has to use the car every day. Now we really notice the petrol prices as our car isn't at all economical as it has a 3.0L V6 engine. We can't afford to buy a second car though so we'll just have to put up with it.

The other problem is that the price of heating oil & gas has rocketed over the last few years too. We have oil heating so we decided to have solar panels installed on the roof 2 years ago. As a result we can turn off the heating in the summer months so we save lots of money. With the way oil prices are rising the system should have paid for itself in another couple of years time.

[Elvissmurf]

This made me snigger to myself....the other week on MSN news i saw that the price of "gas" in the States had reached $5 a gallon....a GALLON!!! ..and you`re moaning!!.....no offence intended Moey or any other American members.

The price of a litre in the U.K. at the moment is on average £1.20 ($2.50 or thereabouts).

Anyway in my opinion it`s all just a cover-up for the governments to make more money out of so-called green issues...it`s not just the price of fuel that has risen..road tax has gone up too...and will continue to do so.

Hey!!..what am i moaning about...i don`t even drive

The cost of public transport has risen too..even though the companies purchase their fuel months in advance..i.e. when it was cheap

As for the food prices!!!!

"A cover-up what is new....

Corruption,you`ve been screwed."

THE EXPLOITED

"Ever get the feeling you`ve been cheated?"

John Lydon..A.K.A. Jonny Rotten

[SmurfingH]

I usually only drive locally and my car is economical but the petrol prices are scary. I have friends a couple of hours away but I haven't gone to visit them lately because of the petrol prices.

I have oil heating too and that has sky rocketed.

It's all a bit scary if you stop to think about it so I try not to. I'm mostly concentrating on the cheaper smurfy items such as stickers and pins but I do have the occasional slip.

That sounds exciting that you can work from home, Moey. I hope that works out for you soon!

[misszell]

Gas prices are out of CONTROL!!....we got rid of out SUV and hoped to save some money w/ a car but it's still sickening....20 us dollars doesn't even give us a quarter of a tank.....that's just not right.....and here taking the bus costs about as much as it would if we drove! .... my husband and i were just talking about ways to save money.....there honestly isn't much to do!......food prices are up....gas.......just using your stove!......sick

[FlamingO]

Fortunately I do very few miles as a lot of my work I do from home . But I still think twice before using the car and we tend to make our trips a lot more local then we used to. I think petrol in the UK is equivalent to about $9 for a US gallon which sounds pretty steep.

We have no plans for a holiday this year now and have put a strict budget on our grocery shopping

[Syd Smurf]

It hasn't affected me personally YET....but EVERY SINGLE DAY I hear it mentioned over here in the US....and even from back home occasionally. Talk of gas prices seems to be everywhere these days...I hear it from the people I meet, on the radio, tv and now on the forum. I wish we could use trash to fuel our cars like the Doc did in the Back To the Future movies....now that would solve 2 problems in the world.

The thing I still can't believe is that so many Americans over here are still driving these ginormous vehicles that must cost a fortune to fill up each week. We have been doing some miles with our travels too. We recently came back from a drive up to Maine and back, and this week we just came back from a trip to Virginia, so we had to fill up several times as I got really tired of pushing the car after a while....especially up the big hills.

I can't see the prices going down either.....maybe we will be back using Bedrock technology before the end of the year.

Dyar

[Lia]

Here in Holland, it`s the same! ..or worse...

Our government even thought of "packing tax" ...for every item ,bought in the supermarket, there is 1, 2 or 3 cent tax for the package.....crazy!!
And as the only country in the world, they made us pay an extra tax for airtickets...because it`s bad for the envirement...no one in Holland believes that one cent of this money will be used to improve the envirement...it`s just another louzy trick to rip us of some money. It makes travelling by air incredibly expensive...
And because, it often cold here, we pay criminal amounts for the heating!

Lia

[eggie smurf]

The airlines here are starting to charge absurd items too, Lia!! Not only will they start charging to check your bags, they have added a fuel surcharge on top of the ticket (I thought the ticket was supposed to include things like, um, FUEL!!!) and you can pay an optional fee to make the environment cleaner....I'm sure that will be mandatory soon though. It is quite ridiculous that our entire world is run on oil when there are so many other cheaper, cleaner options out there. I know that the rest of the world has always paid a lot more for gasoline than we have but I guess Americans got spoiled paying under a dollar per gallon in the past decade or so. Now we are finally getting hammered with oil prices so we can be caught up with all the other countries I thought it was just our sucky politicians but if the rest of the world was already paying obscene fuel prices, then it must be sucky politicians everywhere.

The thing I still can't believe is that so many Americans over here are still driving these ginormous vehicles

Me neither!!!! I get over 30 miles/gallon on my car and I still hate having to fill it up, which may be why I'm driving on "E" for the past few days - oops. But with a one mile commute to work, I figure I can get away with that for a week or so! I can't imagine driving a few miles in an SUV and having to buy gas constantly for huge sums of money.

[Smurfysmurf]

A lot of Americans I know are getting rid of the vans....finally

I think the problem a lot of Americans are facing (at least where I live) is that you can't survive without a car. I never had a car or even driver's license in Germany as public transportation took me whereever I needed to go or I walked (I walked a lot). Here in my area in Tennessee...public transportation is more or less non existent (except for the bus that takes you around downtown Chattanooga for free), and since walking isn't a real option because of distances everybody has one or more cars.
You do see more people walking though, not just in the city, but also on the mountain which is funny. When we first came over here we caused an uproar by walking from one aunt's house to the another aunt's house which was a mile or two away. One of my aunt's called my cousin who drove up to us with a story that he saw us walking and stopped to see if he can take us some place. When we declined he nearly became whiney saying, we need to let him drive us to our aunt, as he wouldn't be alive for long otherwise, since he already got one call about us....

[Pitufo]

Very very hard months are coming for spanish people!!!!There is a great economic crisis at this moment and I am afraid prices will go up again...

[Smurfysmurf]

A friend told me today that her son doesn't have to pay for his gas at all right now

He drives a small car with a Diesel tank that he had converted for usage of old cooking oil. He already has three restaurants that supply him with that oil free of charge and apparently it takes him a long way

I had good news today on the work at home front. It looks like I will have a shorter drive to work than Staci does in about four weeks

[misszell]

i have recently read about the cars that run on vegetable oil....i know that w/ Mercedes cars you can buy a conversion kit for around a thousand US dollars and all will be good....except that you have to find resteraunts and such to supply to you......and then you need to purify that oil through strainers and such......and the smell is horrible!......lolsounds like a bunch of trouble.......

[SmurfingH]

That's great news Moey!

[Gerda]

I think it impacts American's a bit more with the gas prices as high as they are simply because of the fact that we don't have the public transportation like over in europe. The way we are set up is cities are so far apart and there is no way of getting to the next town. And most small towns don't even have a grocery store so you have to travel. Where I live we don't have a city bus so you have to have the car (or in my case a mini van because of the kids ) But I will be the first to say it that american's are spoiled.. we have had it easy compared to Europe who always had much higher fuel costs, they just survived by havieng other ways of getting around. Hey American's are after all known for fast and easy (don't kill me please)
Now.. fuel prices aside what has really hurt us is the price of food.. it's getting nuts what they want for every day things now. Almost $2 for a dozen eggs and these are not very large eggs either.. $4 for a gallon of milk (and mind you we live in Dairy country) Now today I almost fell over when I saw the off brand of potatoe chips went up in price by .50 cents in less than two weeks.
When we did go out to eat at a buffet I use to tell the kids to stock up on meat as that is usally the most expencive thing in the grocery store and I wanted to get my money out of the buffet, but now it's like hey kids eat as much salad and drink as much milk as you can because those are luxury items.
You know what is really sad... I can feed my kids for less eating off the mcdonalds $1 menu than what I can make at home.. most meals anyway. (not that we are living off of mcdonald.. that gets old )

gerda

You started something here Maureen

[Tojo]

That's interesting to read about the grocery prices Gerda. In Britain the prices seem to have gone up dramatically too from what my parents say.

We didn't notice it when we were there as we had the benefit that the € is very strong against the £ so we were getting a good deal anyway. The latest I saw was that the inflation rate is about 3% here in Germany & it's about 4.5% in the uk!! I think I'm glad to be here at the moment.

[steveparkes]

Almost $2 for a dozen eggs and these are not very large eggs either..

Gosh Gerda, I wish I could get a dozen eggs for $2, we can only buy them in 6's over here in the supermarkets and they cost about 2 pounds (4$)

[Elvissmurf]

We can get a dozen eggs from Tesco..but they are £2.53 ($5 or thereabouts) for free range...that means the chicken has about a square metre to run around in

I have noticed certain things increasing in price in the space of a fortnight...i.e. Marmite 91p went up to £1.12...Sultana bran cereal went up by 50p.Some might say big deal,but when you`re buying 100 or more items when your buy your groceries it can equate to an extra £40-£50 on your bill..........it`s ludicrous!!!...it also means less money to spend on the important things in life.....SMURFS

OK,OK,so the price of wheat has gone up due to it being used more and more for bio-fuel...so why the hell has the price of eggs and cheese and other non-wheat products gone up.........The powers that be think we`re all fools methinks

[SmurfingH]

I think it's to do with the price of animal feed, Elvis. If you feed the animals wheat and the prices have gone up then the animals' products will go up too. Add fuel for delivery and we're paying loads more.

I was shocked this week when I went to get my normal dog biscuit. It had gone up from £6.99 for 15kgs to £9 something for the same weight!

[Elvissmurf]

Reading all these comments i come up with one conclusion....

I wish i lived in the U.S.A. ...dozen eggs for $2....a gallon of milk $4 ...gallon of gasoline $5.....all sounds pretty good to me.

I know it probably doesn`t feel that way to our American members (and of course there are reasons for that),but to the rest of the world it sounds like you`re getting bargains.

There is no offence intended by this post...i do realise that you are feeling the pinch as much as us.