What kind of hippy bullcrap is that? I agree a higher quality of life is what everybody should strive for. The best way to accomplish that is with an economy that sustains enough decent paying jobs for people to live comfortably.

 

Second this.

I don't buy that you're paying double for groceries, and if you are, you're not buying the same things, at the same place.  And no, you don't know what hyper inflation is.  You haven't experienced anything like it.

If you made $10 an hour over an 8 hour workday in 2000 and gasoline was $1.50 a gallon, you could afford to buy 53.3 gallons of gasoline for that money. If your wage rose to $15 an hour by 2012 but gasoline rose to $3.50 a gallon, you could afford 34.3 gallons of gasoline. Gasoline would be becoming more unaffordable.

 

This is true, but a lot people relying on public transit are seeing similar spikes too (but the baseline was so much lower, it doesn't hurt as much). A lot of big cities are pushing $100 or even exceeding that for monthly passes. And sometimes those passes are only covering certain parts of the metro area. They still have to pay cash when leaving the city or transferring agencies. The price of everything needed to survive is going up while wages remain flat in most cities. A big plus for transit though is that you can deduct it from your paycheck to pay lower taxes. And even if you're paying $100 or more a month for public transit, that's still cheaper than the $200 or more people are paying for gas. Not to mention you're avoiding the costs of parking, maintenance, insurance, etc.

 

The gap between driving and transit costs should remain for the foreseeable future. Nothing will ever beat walking or biking...

I don't buy that you're paying double for groceries, and if you are, you're not buying the same things, at the same place.  And no, you don't know what hyper inflation is.  You haven't experienced anything like it.

 

I have been eating healthier. As we know, eating healthier means eating more expensive. I buy a lot of fresh fruit, whole grain cereal, and lean meats. If I loaded up on sweet cereal, meat with sodium nitrite, and frozen produce, I could save some money. To be honest, eating healthier has made me healthier despite not having as much time to work out. It's money I'm willing to pay. I guess if you have kids, you can feed them Cap'n Crunch and Mac-n-Cheese while you dine on fresh fruit and Grape Nuts. That's one way to cut the family food budget!

 

Interestingly, the one item that still seems to be the same price as five years ago is liquor! I pay the same price for Bombay Sapphire and Bacardi Silver as I did five years ago. Ditto with Franzia.

 

*Overall, the price of most food is going up fast. Looking at commodities, my favorite things are about to get a whole lot more expensive...wheat is going to get uglier than it already is. Rising gas costs just add fuel to this fire.

Another cause in the rise of food prices is "flight to necessity" as I call it, or simply renewed interest in commodities at the expense of other asset classes. Pixel money is increasingly considered frilly as compared to the money that goes into feeding the Earth.

 

I know that there are brokers out there holding commodities as investments, but those items are no more "necessary" now than they were at the conclusion of the Clinton presidency when the ratio of commodity prices to median incomes was at historic lows.  The demand for food is going to be strongly correlated with the population, which has increasing steadily but very slowly (and even more slowly in the rest of the developed world).

 

The traditional explanation of the commodity bump in a loose-money environment as a "flight to the real" has more explanatory power, IMO, but even that is dangerous because that can rapidly reverse itself if the Fed becomes stricter with the money supply, which could happen under either Obama or Romney.

 

Ironically, the collapsing dollar that Gramarye mentioned has made it profitable for some companies to shift manufacturing to the U.S.. For example, many foreign auto companies are moving (or planning to move) final assembly here. With typically much higher domestic content to boot, so local parts manufacturers benefit too.

 

Indeed, this is one of the main reasons progressive think tanks and policymakers frequently favor inflationary fiscal and monetary policies.  Their argument is that manufacturing jobs brought here by disguised wage cuts (via inflation) are better than not getting the jobs at all (or losing the ones we already have).  It's a reflection of the strategy China used (and still uses, to an extent, though Romney's focus on them is a bit late ... they've been letting the yuan appreciate significantly against the dollar in recent years) to boost its export-based manufacturing base.

 

One of the main problems with that strategy is the topic of this thread: Weakening the dollar in order to boost wage competitiveness also boosts the nominal prices of just about everything else needed for daily living.  This is particularly brutal to those living on fixed incomes (especially those with no cost-of-living adjustment) and to those with substantial portions of their savings in cash.  Those, unfortunately, tend to be those on the lower end of the income and wealth spectra, because they are uncomfortable in the equities markets and other markets that have more innate inflation tolerance.  It can also hurt private industries with significant commodity needs of their own, though of course, they all hope that they have the pricing power necessary to pass commodity price increases on to their customers.

 

It just sucks that I've had to double my grocery budget in five years. If that's not hyper-inflation, I don't know what is. How the hell do people with families feed their kids anymore? If I'm single spending this much money, I can't imagine what a family budgets for food these days. I bet there has been a huge spike in food stamps and assisted meal programs...

 

That is not hyperinflation.  I believe that you may have had to double your food budget in five years, but hyperinflation might mean doubling your food budget every week.

 

In technical economic parlance, hyperinflation is generally defined as monthly inflation greater than 50%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation.

 

Ordinary inflation can be bad enough, however.  No need to resort to loaded terms.  As this thread notes, rising fuel prices (and food, textile, metal, etc. prices) have already put a pinch on household budgets.

What kind of hippy bullcrap is that? I agree a higher quality of life is what everybody should strive for. The best way to accomplish that is with an economy that sustains enough decent paying jobs for people to live comfortably.

 

All I'm trying to say is that some economic hardships (eg. rising gas prices) can encourage people to live their lives a little differently and even though it could cost them more of their income, they may become happier as an end result. I'm not saying that the economy isn't important. Right now our unemployment rate is very high and needs to be lowered.

>The gap between driving and transit costs should remain for the foreseeable future. Nothing will ever beat walking or biking...

 

Actually during the summer at least a very long bike ride to work means you're going to drink all of your water bottle and have to stop at a gas station for either water or a gatorade at a cost of about $1.50.  This is actually similar to bus fare in most cities!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transferring wealth from households and businesses to energy companies is 100% bad.  Therefore higher fuel prices are 100% bad.  Any idea worth pursuing is worth pursuing without using misery to force people down a certain path.  Efficient living is no different.  There are significant cost savings to be realized, and that money can be used for purposes other than enriching energy companies.  That makes a better sales pitch than "you suburbanites need to walk more."

Today is 999th day of $3+ avg. gas price

 

Average new car fuel economy hits record 24.9 mpg

By Brandon Turkus

Posted Sep 12th 2013 6:30PM

 

With more stringent federal fuel economy standards coming, it should be no surprise that the average new-vehicle fuel economy is on the rise. Automotive News cites a study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (Go Blue!), that shows that the 24.9-mile-per-gallon average for August of 2013 is nearly five miles per gallon better than when UMTRI started keeping track in October 2007.

 

The methods for the study are alarmingly straight forward. To calculate the average sales-weighted fuel economy, which is what that 24.9-mpg figure represents for August 2013, researchers merely calculated the monthly sales for each individual model line and the combined EPA fuel economy listed in the EPA Fuel Economy Guide. If there were multiple fuel economy figures for a model, like, say a Ford F-150, researchers used the average of the combined EPA ratings. Low-volume exotics and luxury car manufacturers, like Rolls-Royce or Ferrari, had sales and fuel economy for their entire model range calculated to come up with one number.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/09/12/average-new-car-fuel-economy-record-24-9-mpg/?sf17163381=1

Ford has a new 3-cylinder engine that they're going to introduce in U.S. cars (Fiesta and Focus) in 2014, promises 40+ mpg:

 

They're also claiming that the timing belt is lubricated by the engine oil, somehow making it impossible to break. 

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/2014-ford-fiesta-will-offer-3-banger-option/?_r=0

 

 

 

Hmm.

 

Either way, I actually saw gas at $2.89 on my way in to work today.  Certainly hadn't expected to see that again for a while, even though I know we're fading into off-peak season at the moment.

^^ Ford also announced that these under-powered cars will be sold only by dealerships located at the tops of hills so the cars cannot be returned for refunds. ;)

When gas prices go down.......

 

Hah!  Somewhat hilarious (and informative) to look back on the discussion from before the bump, back when we were just beginning this fuel price slump.  And this slump may continue for a good long time now, with far more consequences than most people appreciate (geopolitically, macroeconomically, etc.).

From 2008 until now the population of the United States has grown about 6% and in those 8 years the number of Millennials (largest generation by quite a bit) who have their drivers licenses has nearly doubled. The fact that we're just now slightly above the peak in 2008 shows me that recent trends of people driving less, especially Millennials, are turning out to be longer term changes than the "they'll change their habits when gas drops" crowd claimed. Total vehicle miles doesn't say much without relating it to the number of people driving and what the average individual is doing.

VMT/capita is what you are referring to?

Yeah. Do we have recent info on the breakdown of VMT/capita by age group and region like we did a handful of years ago? That's super useful in figuring out what trends are happening within what groups. I haven't seen anything recently though other than the total VMT or VMT/capita for the entire country as a whole which leaves out too many other factors.

A gallon of unleaded is now selling for about $1.70 at many gas stations around Cincinnati.  Is OPEC planning to pull back on production in 2016 in order to cause a price spike just in time for the presidential election?

I wouldn't be surprised to see them cut production soon, but how would you distinguish between a cut that they would make because the price has fallen to $1.70 and a cut they would make specifically because it's an election year?  The fact that the price of oil has fallen so much used to be a near guarantee that they were going to cut production no matter who was in power and no matter where we were in the election cycle.  Right now, OPEC itself has a certain amount of internal disunity, which is one reason that they haven't been able to agree on cuts collectively yet; Saudi Arabia, the dominant partner of the cartel, has conflicting reasons for wanting to increase prices (for obvious reasons) and reduce prices (because it sees that reduced prices might actually disadvantage its opponents--Iran and maybe Russia--more than the Kingdom itself), and that conflict affects the entire group.

 

Saudi Arabia sees the sanctions about to be lifted on Iran.  Iran has some 30M barrels (I think that was the number I saw) ready to be sold the instant the sanctions come off.  It will basically have to sell them quickly, both because there's a chance that a new president will reimpose sanctions (to the best America can do so unilaterally, anyway) and because the Iranian regime is simply starved for hard currency and oil brings in dollars.  Saudi Arabia keeping the price low at least until that happen will force Iran to liquidate its inventory at perhaps the least opportune time in the last few decades.  That does mean Saudi Arabia starving itself (or, more crudely, the monarchy starving its people), since Saudi Arabia's budget deficit is about 14% of GDP.  That's not sustainable in the long term, but Saudi Arabia doesn't mean this to be a long-term strategy (which is why if we were smart, we'd be doing what China is doing and using this as a golden and temporary opportunity to increase strategic reserves--China is buying somewhere around 300kbd).

Cheap gas prices should negatively affect ISIS. They get a lot of money from selling oil.

A gallon of unleaded is now selling for about $1.70 at many gas stations around Cincinnati.  Is OPEC planning to pull back on production in 2016 in order to cause a price spike just in time for the presidential election?

 

OPEC is in disarray. It's every sucker for himself. They can't even agree on when to meet.

This thread title (and the peak of peak oil talk) are great reminders how terrible we all are at predicting the future. And how gloom merchants get traction just by peddling gloom. Similarly, all that "shadow inventory!" and "currency debasement!" hysteria in the US Economy thread is funny to look back at now.

 

To build on what Gramarye said, I think the Saudis are also happy to watching low prices beat down and drive out some of the expensive-to-extract producers, so when prices do rebound, there's less competition (at least for a while).

These guys want to destroy fracking activity in the U.S. by keeping oil prices low. They can afford to cut their income for a while in order to stomp the fracking companies flat.

These guys want to destroy fracking activity in the U.S. by keeping oil prices low. They can afford to cut their income for a while in order to stomp the fracking companies flat.

 

It harms US fracking and reigns in Putin. 

 

Last year I talked to some "smartest in the room" guy who claimed to be a lawyer for the oil industry who asserted that fracking was about to "explode" and that I should be putting my bottom dollar in fracking stocks.  All of those stocks have lost 50% since 2014 if not much more. 

 

This reminds me of how so many people in finance and real estate didn't see the 2008 collapse coming, despite all being the "smartest in the room" kind of guys. 

 

 

 

Bill Gross from Pimco warned people over and over about the 2008 collapse.

Broken clocks are also correct twice a day. The vast, vast, vast majority of economists and market analysts were caught with their pants down in 08. And even today they're full of crap. Market drops - why, it must be a correction. Market increases - why, it must be due to global confidence.

 

Other than market fluctuations due to earnings reports, it's all armchair, quarterback, hindsight, self-congratulatory, guessing at the end of the day.

 

 

Fracking beat itself by over-drilling and over-producing. The US government encouraged it to improve our economy while weakening Russia's economy and Putin's power. And the US is now considering selling off a significant portion (up to 40%) of its strategic reserves to raise revenues and reduce the federal debt.

 

None of this is surprising. Even the doomers foresaw a temporary shot in the arm from fracking (most of which is targeted at natgas). Once the easy stuff in the Dakotas is used up, prices will rise and allow the difficult oil in Canada and the eastern US to be to tapped again. If gas prices stay below $2.50 beyond 2020 I will be surprised.

These guys want to destroy fracking activity in the U.S. by keeping oil prices low. They can afford to cut their income for a while in order to stomp the fracking companies flat.

 

I've read that oil has to drop below $35-40 for the fracking industry to be seriously affected.  Oil hasn't dipped to that level for a meaningful length of time, yet.

It used to be $80/bbl was the cutoff.

$35-$40 sounds like the actual number to me.

We've only just scratched the surface on fracking.  Technology and extraction efficiency is getting better all the time. 

 

In other news I filled up innckeveland for $1.75/gal today.  Boom!

Gas prices would actually be a lot cheaper if 1500 refineries were functioning right now like they were last year. Alas only about 500 are running at this time. So remember that refining capacity has a major, major effect on fuel prices. If fact, low refining capacity can lower oil prices since there's nothing to do with it except stockpile it.

Broken clocks are also correct twice a day. The vast, vast, vast majority of economists and market analysts were caught with their pants down in 08. And even today they're full of crap. Market drops - why, it must be a correction. Market increases - why, it must be due to global confidence.

 

Other than market fluctuations due to earnings reports, it's all armchair, quarterback, hindsight, self-congratulatory, guessing at the end of the day.

 

 

 

 

What's crazy is that the handful of guys who were "correct" in 2008 might miss a similar situation in the future because in '08 they weren't so much prudent as they were lucky. 

 

 

 

Broken clocks are also correct twice a day. The vast, vast, vast majority of economists and market analysts were caught with their pants down in 08. And even today they're full of crap. Market drops - why, it must be a correction. Market increases - why, it must be due to global confidence.

 

Other than market fluctuations due to earnings reports, it's all armchair, quarterback, hindsight, self-congratulatory, guessing at the end of the day.

 

 

 

 

What's crazy is that the handful of guys who were "correct" in 2008 might miss a similar situation in the future because in '08 they weren't so much prudent as they were lucky. 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, it's also enlightening to go back to "hot stock" articles written 1-5 years ago.  The "experts" are totally wrong over and over and over again.  When you see how wrong prominent people are now it helps you understand why people were so wrong in the past in not anticipating the collapse of Penn Central and other spectacular Wall Street events. 

 

Same thing with real estate.  Very, very few people pull off "shrewd" real estate moves more than once in their lifetime.  And often that one shrewd move was just luck. 

 

 

 

Why driving in the US is making a big comeback

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/25/9800614/peak-car-driving-rebound

A good related link in the related links (imagine!) section on that Vox story:

 

http://www.vox.com/2014/12/16/7401705/oil-prices-falling

 

The break-even graph is particularly useful.

 

The fact that predictions from 3 or 5 years ago were shown to be bad today does not mean that making the opposite prediction now is necessarily better for the next 5 years.

 

In other words, just because fuel prices have now crashed and are fueling a resurgence in driving does not mean that we couldn't be back to $3.50/gallon gasoline well before 2020, possibly even by 2017.  The price war between OPEC and North America right now will not last.  Saudi Arabia can sustain it for quite some time, and probably will (because low oil prices hurt them but hurt their political enemies more), but even the Saudis and their $750 billion war chest cannot last forever with Saudi Arabia's budget deficit reaching 10% of GDP.  They will have to raise prices again eventually.  When they do, it will restart North America's investment again, too, since the price will sneak back above the break-even point for a lot of those unconventional sources, and that will probably contain the nightmare scenario of $5+ or $6+ gasoline for a while, but there is no way to reasonably believe that gas is going to stay under $2 much longer than this winter, if that.

 

Also, note that none of this necessarily disproves that Millennials want more walkable neighborhoods than their Boomer parents.  It's quite possible to live in a well-designed, walkable neighborhood and still put a lot of miles on your car (and, of course, it's also possible that a disproportionately large part of the recovery in per capita miles driven is taking place among the more auto-friendly demographics, too).

I bought my last car in 2007, a small Japanese import that sips the fuel. It has 160K miles on it now, and my hubby and I 

(1) are getting tired of being a one-car pair, and

(2) realize that the 2006 car won't last much longer for long trips.

 

We also bought a house in a walkable neighborhood that barely has parking for two cars, but we'll manage.

 

I'm toying with the idea of buying a more comfortable, bigger car (I'm 6'4", and 2xxlbs), but hubby wants a Prius, or something else very efficient. Neither of us are convinced that the low oil prices will last through the life of the next car, to say nothing of the environmental impacts of burning that much dinosaur sludge. I'm hoping we can settle on something like a Camry that is a bit bigger and comfortable on the road, but that still gets 35mpg or so.

 

Anyone else thinking of buying a new-ish car in this era of cheap fuel? I'd be happy to buy American (or European) if I thought the car would be as reliable as a Japanese car (we both have strong connections there), AND hold its value.

 

Any suggestions?

Heh.  I'm looking like a fool right now for buying an electric (with plans to possibly upgrade that to the Tesla Model 3 when that comes out in about a year and a half), but this story is still being written.  And even with fuel down at $1.75, I'm still more efficient; I estimate that my energy cost to go 30 miles is about $1 (and that's being conservative, it could really be closer to $0.90 or $0.85).  But the kicker is that that will remain the same even if gas goes back to $3.50, as long as electricity rates don't also skyrocket (and they tend to be both lower and more stable).

I'm sure fuel prices will go up now that I've dumped the last of my investments in commodities and petroleum futures.

Heh.  I'm looking like a fool right now for buying an electric (with plans to possibly upgrade that to the Tesla Model 3 when that comes out in about a year and a half), but this story is still being written.  And even with fuel down at $1.75, I'm still more efficient; I estimate that my energy cost to go 30 miles is about $1 (and that's being conservative, it could really be closer to $0.90 or $0.85).  But the kicker is that that will remain the same even if gas goes back to $3.50, as long as electricity rates don't also skyrocket (and they tend to be both lower and more stable).

 

Efficiency is a relative thing.  Just because you're not spending money on gas doesn't mean you're not spending money on driving.  New cars, gas or electric, are expensive and costly to insure.  Wanna be efficient & green?  buy a used Saturn sedan.  run the piss out of it.  Now that's cheap mileage.

Heh.  I'm looking like a fool right now for buying an electric (with plans to possibly upgrade that to the Tesla Model 3 when that comes out in about a year and a half), but this story is still being written.  And even with fuel down at $1.75, I'm still more efficient; I estimate that my energy cost to go 30 miles is about $1 (and that's being conservative, it could really be closer to $0.90 or $0.85).  But the kicker is that that will remain the same even if gas goes back to $3.50, as long as electricity rates don't also skyrocket (and they tend to be both lower and more stable).

 

Efficiency is a relative thing.  Just because you're not spending money on gas doesn't mean you're not spending money on driving.  New cars, gas or electric, are expensive and costly to insure.  Wanna be efficient & green?  buy a used Saturn sedan.  run the piss out of it.  Now that's cheap mileage.

 

Hah!  I'm all about cheap used gasoline engines and living close to things.  I spend little on cars and love it.

I'm sure fuel prices will go up now that I've dumped the last of my investments in commodities and petroleum futures.

 

Sorry, I'm still holding mine, so I think they'll probably crash for a while longer yet.

Heh.  I'm looking like a fool right now for buying an electric (with plans to possibly upgrade that to the Tesla Model 3 when that comes out in about a year and a half), but this story is still being written.  And even with fuel down at $1.75, I'm still more efficient; I estimate that my energy cost to go 30 miles is about $1 (and that's being conservative, it could really be closer to $0.90 or $0.85).  But the kicker is that that will remain the same even if gas goes back to $3.50, as long as electricity rates don't also skyrocket (and they tend to be both lower and more stable).

 

Efficiency is a relative thing.  Just because you're not spending money on gas doesn't mean you're not spending money on driving.  New cars, gas or electric, are expensive and costly to insure.  Wanna be efficient & green?  buy a used Saturn sedan.  run the piss out of it.  Now that's cheap mileage.

 

That is true, but this is the rising fuel prices thread, not the rising cost of driving thread. :-P

 

However, the electric car also has lower maintenance because it just has so many fewer moving parts, not to mention it doesn't rely on a few thousand miniature explosions per second as its primary way of releasing energy.  And I bought mine used, so I didn't pay the tax-subsidized premium for a new electric.  But sure, it costs more to insure than my old 2001 Altima.  That's because it's worth more than 10 times what my old Altima was--the latter was 12 years older and had almost 175k on it when I got rid of it (I was really hoping to hit that 200k mark, just to say I got it there, but the maintenance costs were starting to become more frequent and more expensive than I could justify) instead of 21k.

Unfortunately, the data is finally out about electric car depreciation and the news is bad. Nissan Leafs, according car magazines are only worth 18% of their original sticker price after 5 years. iMEVs and Electric Smarts don't do any better. Most gasoline cars are in the 40-50% range, even Kias and Hyundais. Diesel pickups are even higher. Lincolns seem to do the worst in the gasoline realm at about 35%, but that's nothing new -- they've always been bad about that.

 

People don't trust those old batteries and the government subsidies that make electric cars more desirable are absent in the used market. The cars lose battery capacity fairly quickly and batteries cost in the mid four figures to replace.

 

I don't know how this is affecting Teslas at the 5 year mark. They haven't been out as long and have buzz, constant downloadable upgrades, no model year designations and snob appeal helping them. Two year data exists though and they're not doing bad at that mark.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/resale-prices-tumble-on-electric-cars-1424977378

I think part of the reason it's only worth 18% after 5 years is because no one really pays the MSRP. They receive that huge federal subsidy and sometimes state subsidies, so they aren't paying close to MSRP. That's part of the reason, I imagine. I wonder what the value would be if you looked at discounted price vs. resale value.

Even if you knock $7500 off the price, though, you're still looking at a vehicle that retains only about 23% of its value instead of 18%.  I bought my Leaf used for a reason: At about 2.5 years old, I paid $14,000 for it instead of $35,000+ for that trim level.  And I'm well aware that I'll be lucky to get $9000 for it in 2018.  There is truth in that rapid depreciation curve for the current generation of electric cars, and that is because the current generation of electric cars (Teslas excluded) will be remembered something like Betamax or HD-DVD.

 

For example: The Leaf has two outlets, a standard J1772 one and a CHAdeMO 62.5kW 440v outlet.  Nissan was hoping CHAdeMO would become the standard fast-charging protocol, but CHAdeMO chargers remain vanishingly rare.  It has buy-in from a number of Japanese manufacturers, but many of them (Subaru, Toyota) really don't make many/any fully plug-in vehicles.  Nissan is the only real international champion, and Tesla's Supercharger protocol has been leapfrogging it now because Tesla has invested a massive amount of capital in building out the Supercharger network.  Nissan never made any similar commitment to fast-charging infrastructure.  So now the Tesla protocol is both more widespread, more powerful, and free (whereas CHAdeMO chargers frequently charge to charge).

 

There is also no standard form of battery pack itself.  There will very likely develop industry standards on that front in another decade or so--maybe not a single one, but perhaps 3-5 standard shapes of batteries for various functions that will allow those batteries to become commoditized (and thus much cheaper).

 

Anyway, probably should have gone into that more on the electric car thread than this one, but the bottom line is that buying a new electric car now is a dicey proposition, with the possible exception of the new Teslas.  And even then, the 2013 Tesla models are still selling at a reasonable discount (of course, the numbers are still very high in absolute terms).  The dynamics may be different, though.  Many people on the Tesla boards are actually selling their older models in order to buy new Teslas, because Tesla simply caters to a very different demographic; the cost savings of the electric drivetrain are secondary concerns to most Tesla owners (who quite often own other high-performance gasoline cars in addition).

 

CHAdeMO

 

 

Anyone know why gas has gone up .50 cents the past week? $2.29 now

A contributing factor...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-fall-ahead-of-u-s-jobs-report-oil-data-1457087782

 

We are closing in on $5/gallon.

I spent nearly $200 on gas last month.  I did nothing out of the ordinary, just normal driving to/from work, shopping and errands.  At least I am getting a 5% cashback bonus on gas purchases with my credit card.