Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Gas prices continue to go up and up. Everyone's lifestyle and financial situation is different. Some people can accomodate the increased price without altering their commute, discretionary expenditures, or housing decisions, others are not so fortunate.
So for you, have you altered your lifestyle in response to higher gas prices? if not, at what hypothetical price/gal would you choose or be forced to alter your lifestyle due to higher transportation costs?
For me, my commute to work is about 40 miles, but only 4 of those are in a car (the rest is commuter rail). Most of our shopping is done within a two or three mile radius from home, and we don't really travel too much. We should be relatively immune from rising gas prices. Obviously if gas prices shoot up rapidly to $10/gal and the whole economy collapses we'll feel the pain along with everyone else.
My daily commute is round trip 20 miles. I have the majority of the stores I would need within a 2-4 mile radius. So I dont drive a lot. (I recently drove from Phoenix to Vegas to visit family. But I have no intention of doing that again no matter how much gas costs because the drive itself sucks and consists of many miles of absolutely nothing...) In the spring, my employer is going to work from home I believe, so that will cut my usage way down to just short local jaunts. In which case I am not sure how high it would have to go to make me think twice.
I'd probably psychologically freakout over $5. Financially I would seriously reconsider driving to work at much higher. In Cleveland where I lived until September, parking was $12 a DAY in the garage attached to my office. If you got there early there was a discount to like $9. Out here parking is free where I work. So if I had to burn more than $9 in gas a day to get to work that would be my real tipping point. I get around 25 mpg (grocery getter Mustang V6), so that would round out to about $8 a gallon plus or minus before I would implode. ;-)
That said, also factor in other things would get much more expensive. Like food. So my tipping point may actually be lower once factoring that in.
...if gas prices shoot up rapidly to $10/gal and the whole economy collapses ...
$10 seems like a good guess. For a while, as gas goes to $4, $5 etc. people will try to hang with it, but when it hits $10, it'll sink in, and people will start finding jobs closer to home.
The big plus will be less traffic congestion and less smog.
my commute is 40 miles round trip,Im thinking of moving to an apartment in the city to be closer to jobs and change mine or move to a smaller town which I already want to do,I miss the days when I could leave 5 mins early to get to work.
I'd freak out when it hits 10$ a gal. My commute is 50 miles round trip and gas here in Atlanta just went up to $3.22 and I'm feeling it. No SUV here just a four cylinder Suzuki
It's already changing mine. I'm lucky having a company car during the day, so I do everything (shopping etc.) while I'm on my way home from work. My other vehicle doesn't move until the weekend, but even then it's a purposeful trip; no more driving around. It only gets 18-20 mpg, and I'm in no place financially to make a change. Besides, I can't fit my family into something with great fuel economy-those cars are just too small.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
