Tuesday, April 22, 2008

We Interrupt This Primary...

To kvetch about gas prices...

Its official. The weekly cost of gasoline for my family exceeded 100$ this week. That makes it the highest weekly expense right behind food. If current trends continue it'll become the absolute highest weekly expense in about three months. In order to combat this ever growing expense I'm going to see if I can't get my schedule changed so that I go to work two hours earlier so my tiny wife and I can carpool. Additionally she is interviewing to teach at a school closer to home and either I'll be interviewing with an ISP nearby or we'll be buying a car that gets 30 MPG to help offset the cost of me commuting (additionally both of our vehicles are 10+ years old so having a new car has additional benefits.)

Of course it occurs to me now that this would be the prefect time to make an argument for getting a motorcycle. After all they do get better gas mileage than most cars and as long as you aren't insisting on a Harley they cost less than a small car.

Seriously though if we, as a text book middle class family, are looking at making major changes to our lives due to the cost of gas how is this affecting people of similiar means who live in states where the cost of gas is even higher than Texas? Let alone those with lower means and older cars?