WARNING! High Pressure Vent!
This is a major vent-fest so...read on if you feel...or don't. I'm a little upset about things so it will probably be a little scattered and I'm not sure I have a point, I just need an outlet.
So, according to Newsweek (online), there are a lot of people (politicians mostly, I think) who think the answer to our economic recession, oil dependence, and global warming is to raise the price of gas to $6/gallon. I already posted about it costing an arm and a leg to fill my tank. I could buy a smaller car and sell the SUV. It would be SO nice not to pay so much for a tank of gas. However, its paid for. As in, NO car payment. At this point, I can't take on a car payment and if I sold the SUV there's no way I could get a decent price for it because everyone is in the same situation as we are. So I'm stuck with the roomy, yet expensive SUV. If I pay $6/gallon it will cost me over $120 to fill my gas tank. I can't tell you how much I can't afford to pay that. What average person can? Basically we would only be able to pay for gas to get John from work and back and get groceries. If it goes higher than that, we will have to start using whatever food we have in our food storage which, sad to say is not what it should be. Our housing costs are 43% of our income, tithing is 10%, food is between 5% and 7% (I'm expecting it to keep rising), debt payment is 20% (almost got it gone though!!!), other monthly bills (insurance, phone, internet) at 5%, and if I can manage to only run errands once each week, do something on saturday as a family, and go to church and back - not to mention John going to work and back on the motorcycle - I should be able to keep gas at 10%. This leaves between 5% and 7% for extras on our saturday outings or emergencies. No savings. Zip. Of course, I have been making a little with my candle sales so that always helps but seriously, if gas prices continue to rise to $6 and $7 per gallon, there will be NO WAY we will be able to do anything. We had thoughts of doing some sort of trip this year (taking the 20% we are paying on the almost-eliminated-debt and saving it to possibly go see family) but those thoughts are quickly flying away. We are financially okay. I'm not saying we are hurting for money or need help. We can make things work...to a point. But I'm sure there are people out there who cannot. People who have their budgets stretched so thin, they are ready to snap. We set a goal at the beginning of the year to get all our food storage this year, however I just might have missed the bus on that one, with limits being placed on how much grain you can buy. I'm still going to work on it and get it DONE.
On another note, with airlines being the way they are, the costs are skyrocketing for Hawaii (as I'm sure they are everywhere...but Hawaii was expensive in the first place). My brother and his wife were going to visit this year (and still might). They had their tickets, but now the airline they had tickets on went bankrupt. IF they can get their money back, they might be able to come...but ticket prices have doubled so they would only have half the money they would now need. There are times I feel like I will never get off this rock. With a lot of the fun things we used to do eliminated out of our life in an effort to conserve gas and money, it has just made it worse. We have water park passes, but the water park is on the other side of the island. Do I drive over there and waste the gas or do I just go to the swimming pool down the street and pay the $1 to get in. Its cheaper (gas vs. entrance fee), but there's no shallow end and Miss Fabulous is not allowed to wear her floaties in it. Not really that fun.
I have a bunch of things I've got to get done and should have been doing instead of venting. But not tonight. Its 10pm and I'm heading to bed. I'll work on them tomorrow and hopefully things will look a little brighter in the sunlight. Not that they'll miraculously BE better, but maybe they'll look that way anyway.
Good night and sweet dreams.
So, according to Newsweek (online), there are a lot of people (politicians mostly, I think) who think the answer to our economic recession, oil dependence, and global warming is to raise the price of gas to $6/gallon. I already posted about it costing an arm and a leg to fill my tank. I could buy a smaller car and sell the SUV. It would be SO nice not to pay so much for a tank of gas. However, its paid for. As in, NO car payment. At this point, I can't take on a car payment and if I sold the SUV there's no way I could get a decent price for it because everyone is in the same situation as we are. So I'm stuck with the roomy, yet expensive SUV. If I pay $6/gallon it will cost me over $120 to fill my gas tank. I can't tell you how much I can't afford to pay that. What average person can? Basically we would only be able to pay for gas to get John from work and back and get groceries. If it goes higher than that, we will have to start using whatever food we have in our food storage which, sad to say is not what it should be. Our housing costs are 43% of our income, tithing is 10%, food is between 5% and 7% (I'm expecting it to keep rising), debt payment is 20% (almost got it gone though!!!), other monthly bills (insurance, phone, internet) at 5%, and if I can manage to only run errands once each week, do something on saturday as a family, and go to church and back - not to mention John going to work and back on the motorcycle - I should be able to keep gas at 10%. This leaves between 5% and 7% for extras on our saturday outings or emergencies. No savings. Zip. Of course, I have been making a little with my candle sales so that always helps but seriously, if gas prices continue to rise to $6 and $7 per gallon, there will be NO WAY we will be able to do anything. We had thoughts of doing some sort of trip this year (taking the 20% we are paying on the almost-eliminated-debt and saving it to possibly go see family) but those thoughts are quickly flying away. We are financially okay. I'm not saying we are hurting for money or need help. We can make things work...to a point. But I'm sure there are people out there who cannot. People who have their budgets stretched so thin, they are ready to snap. We set a goal at the beginning of the year to get all our food storage this year, however I just might have missed the bus on that one, with limits being placed on how much grain you can buy. I'm still going to work on it and get it DONE.
On another note, with airlines being the way they are, the costs are skyrocketing for Hawaii (as I'm sure they are everywhere...but Hawaii was expensive in the first place). My brother and his wife were going to visit this year (and still might). They had their tickets, but now the airline they had tickets on went bankrupt. IF they can get their money back, they might be able to come...but ticket prices have doubled so they would only have half the money they would now need. There are times I feel like I will never get off this rock. With a lot of the fun things we used to do eliminated out of our life in an effort to conserve gas and money, it has just made it worse. We have water park passes, but the water park is on the other side of the island. Do I drive over there and waste the gas or do I just go to the swimming pool down the street and pay the $1 to get in. Its cheaper (gas vs. entrance fee), but there's no shallow end and Miss Fabulous is not allowed to wear her floaties in it. Not really that fun.
I have a bunch of things I've got to get done and should have been doing instead of venting. But not tonight. Its 10pm and I'm heading to bed. I'll work on them tomorrow and hopefully things will look a little brighter in the sunlight. Not that they'll miraculously BE better, but maybe they'll look that way anyway.
Good night and sweet dreams.
Comments
Hope things were better in the sunlight!