It will make me very glad I don't own a car!

I'm thinking about buying a scooter, actually.

Right now, it won't affect me much, as I live less than 3 miles from work and can walk or bike (and do for the most part).

On the other hand, it will majorly suck for my wife as she currently drives 50 miles each way to work right now (fortunately only until May).

ditto TPS.

Quick calculations - 1 gallon = 3.79 litres. Gas is £1 per litre here, so £3.79/gallon, which in dollars is about $7.50.

So we already have it. It's not as cataclysmic as all that, but then we have smaller distances to travel here in the UK. In my household we have one car between two of us; he drives to work, and I work from home and walk, take the train or bus or borrow the car when I need to go anywhere. The cost of running a car was not really a factor in that decision - it was more that we live in a city centre, near a mainline station with direct trains to the two biggest cities in the UK.

We own one car. I walk or bike to work. Wife drives around just a bit in her job, but she gets milage, that will likely rise with gas prices.

So, not terribly a lot. I have a Costco card, almost totally for the gas.

I bought a bicycle in January--as soon as the temperature is consistently above freezing (here in NJ), I'm going to try to commute to work by bike as often as I can.

I expect that food prices will soon include the rising cost of the gas that it takes to get the food to the place where I buy it. At my local Whole Foods (and, yes, this is what I get for shopping at Whole Foods, but still) produce seems to be generally more dear than meat--eight dollars for a box of clementines; four dollars for a bundle of six salad onions, etc. That will probably get worse.

It will royally suck for me (while I have a short ass commute and a gas-efficient car, it's already a bit of a pinch for me to buy gas at the current $3/gallon prices.)

My folks will be bothered too, but my mother is retiring in a month and my dad will probably just limit his volleyball trips (which he's doing anyways, but even moreso if gas prices continue to rise.)

Gas in California is already $3.50, I suspect the question here will be how does $4.50-$5.00 gas effect you. I live about two miles from work, so not bad there. The worst thing I can see happening is housing costs in the more central area going up as long commutes become less and less desirable.

What Prospero said about the food prices. Other deliverable goods may actually go down in price because demand for clothes, say, may go down because of tightening wallets. Otherwise, well, I'll pay more for gas. I'll have a little less money for other things. It's totally due/time to Pay the Piper, so I can deal. I imagine Airline Fares will go up, but I could be ignorant about jet fuel prices in relation to oil prices, etc. So vacation - while always a sort of long shot - becomes more so. I want to do a trip for the Milestone Birthday this year, but. . .well, we'll see.

If only it were so cheap!

I filled up my Ford Escort today (the gauge was on 1/4 tank, so it was only 3/4 of a tank I needed) and it cost me £40. Yes, 80 bucks to fill up a Ford Escort.

I worked out that at £1.10 a litre, and 1 US gallon liquid = 3.785 litres that equates to $8.28 per US gallon at the market exchange rate of $1.98866 to the £.

I walk to the station these days and only use the car for the supermarket, the gym and at weekends.

as soon as the temperature is consistently above freezing (here in NJ), I'm going to try to commute to work by bike as often as I can.

Why the arbitrary number? Get the right gear and just do it anyway. It's actually easier to overdress in cold weather than not, and you wouldn't believe how a few simple, relatively inexpensive items (waterproof, fleece lined shoe covers, $15, cheap rain jacket, $20) will make a huge difference in your comfort level.

There's very little difference between 35 degrees and 25, take it from someone who bike commutes 24/7/365. If freezing temps means dealing with slush and ice, then get studded tyres for your commuter. It was 28 degrees when I left this morning and the roads were dry. I know it's wetter in NJ but there are plenty more reasons to start than to keep putting it off.

I did the math, and at $3 a gallon, between gas, insurance, car payment and associated maintenance, not owning a car saved me $779/month. Granted that was for a late model lease, but still, the cost mounts up, especially for gas. And I didn't even drive that much; even if I had commuted the U.S. average of ~12 miles r/t 5 days a week, it would have been more like $850/month.

I just filled up the tank in my Scion for the first time this month. It cost me $.89 a gallon because I had a $2.30 discount through my Giant Eagle (a local supermarket) card. You get a discount for every so many dollars in food you buy and since I drive so little, it makes gas almost free. I walk to work, my son walks to college and my wife takes the bus, I start up the car only two or three times a week.

Thank you for the perspective Jan. Being an American means, often, having severe myopia. I would like to blame it all on the current president, but it goes beyond that.

I'm far less concerned about the direct expense than the indirect ones. Checking my debit card transactions for this month, I appear to have bought only one tank of gas in February. Now, I didn't take any trips in my own car this month, but still, I obviously don't drive much. I take the bus to work, mainly because parking downtown is so expensive, and I live only a mile away. I'm not looking forward to more expensive consumer goods and air travel though. In Portland, the poor live out in the suburbs, where housing prices are lower. I already pay a premium for a relatively car-free lifestyle. I may just have to pay a little more as demand increases for housing where I live.

In some places, it has been suggested that the high cost for fuel may be beneficial in the net. Fuel costs will ultimately have no positive environmental benefits.

Americans will get used to it.

I'm more concerned about the idea of general price inflation, coupled with an economic slow down and falling interest rates.

I only drive a substantial distance one day a week, so for awhile the effect will mainly be the indirect expense, as others have mentioned. My partner works in shipping and my best friend is a truck driver, so I worry a little bit about how it'll affect their livelihoods.

lonefrontranger: Thanks for the advice. In particular, the nifty shoe covers are something I would have already bought if I'd known they existed.

I'm more interested in how this will effect things in the long term. What happens to suburbs thirty-forty miles from the core city? The suburban sprawl of the last twenty years or so has been fueled (pun intended) by cheap gas, what happens when that goes away? This should be interesting at least.

octothorpe: welcome to the new ghetto, eh? I mean, we've already got problems with meth labs in older, run-down suburbs here in this region. Think of what's going to become of all the 'foreclosure neighbourhoods' in the next ten-fifteen years.

Prospero: I have that exact set of shoe covers, and because we rarely have wet conditions in Colorado, I only wear them in sub-20°F weather but then my feet don't get that cold (wool socks are a must tho).

For conditions between 20-50°F, I use these midweight windproof covers ($10) - hell you could easily make a set for yourself for cheap/free out of an old pair of too-large wool / heavyweight socks, actually.

There's an art to layering for cold weather riding. Despite my massive amount of technical riding gear, anytime we have "hypothermia weather" (i.e. ~35° and rain), I wear a thin baselayer, thermal fleece midlayer, then throw one of those cheap plastic rain slickers on top. I wear knickers/capris/'shants' with Smartwool ski sox about 99% of the time; those last 2 links happen to be what I'm wearing today. It's amazing how warm thin layers keep you, so long as you are on the bike and moving. Much more so than bulky overcoat type things that just soak thru and weigh you down. If you wear cotton jeans or chinos at work, pack them in your day bag, don't wear them on the bike.

What happens to suburbs thirty-forty miles from the core city? The suburban sprawl of the last twenty years or so has been fueled (pun intended) by cheap gas, what happens when that goes away? This should be interesting at least.

octothorpe, I linked an article about this (not specifically tied to gas prices, though) a few days ago.

I've started cycle-commuting recently because I am now closer to home (7.5 miles) than I was, and I wanted the exercise. Saving gas money is just a bonus on that.

Beyond the suburbs are the feeder communities...small towns and cities that now depend on the nearby major city for income and economic health...and the 50-60-mile one-way commutes so many people make each day. Obviously, one has to go where one can get work, but this will make the economics even more iffy, since many of those jobs people are commuting to are not exactly high-paying in the first place.

I've long been a proponent of European gas prices for the US. Very painful in the short term, but greener and more sustainable in the long term. A better use of federal funds would follow. The thing is, we need to amp up the support for lower-income workers in ring cities and near suburbs in the meantime. They are the ones with no margin to sustain an increase, and no disposable income to shift toward fuel consumption.

Public transport: it'll be a good investment over the next few years. Also, my tip: look at companies providing and developing water transport, where applicable. I have seen it exponentially explode in NJ for the NYC commuter market. When the roads are congested and the 1800s train lines inconvenient, the appeal of shoreside real estate + need to commute = high-end yet fuel-efficient waterborne transport. It'll be expanding in LI and CT and RI in the next few years.