With gas prices on the RISE, what are you cutting out to save money?
By peedielyn
@peedielyn (1207)
United States
May 4, 2011 7:36am CST
GOOD MORNING MYLOTTERS!!! I haven't been on here in a while, but thought I needed to check things out. Right now, where I live, Gas has gone up and down from $4.29 to $4.02. This has me in fits. I now cannot afford to go to work. I never heard those words until I spoke them myself. After running the kids to school, going to work and then picking the kids up, I am using a half a take a day. I have a 12 gallon tank. This is getting rediculous!
I sat down with my beau and we decided that we could keep the little one out of daycare which would save us $100 a week and on the nice days, the kids can walk to and from school. That saves around about another $100 in gas a week. This also means that i don't go to work anymore. He decided that I needed to find an at home work project to do and I am still searching for the right thing to do. We also have started our garden. I plan to sell what I grow at the local farmer's market this summer as well as can to save on groceries as well. We also disconnected the cable, and sold 2 t.v's and decided that we could use candle light. No I am not kidding. We have 8 kids between us and life is really tight financially.
Do you have anymore idea's to save money right now? Are you cutting back to save for gas money? I would love to hear your answers!
1 person likes this
8 responses
@GardenGerty (160883)
• United States
5 May 11
I am not working, but I think I am coming to the end of my unemployment. We cannot find jobs. I have thought about applying for an out of town jobs, but gas is a big consideration. I have some ideas for online, some locations where I can write, but I think I am just lazy. It has always been the case that moms should look into the cost of holding a job. Daycare, eating out, transportation all cut into the profit of having the mom work. I am making it a point to do several things at one time when I leave in the car. My husband is getting a bike fixed up for me, as well. I am staying out of the store, and planning to eat more cheap meals. I am working on a garden.
1 person likes this
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
25 May 11
The cost of gas impacts alot of our everyday lives.
You are on the head that is why I was at home for 5 yrs because I didn't think I could hold down a job let alone one that would be willing to work around hubby's difficult schedule. As many jobs want you to work around their hours not when you can work no matter how much of an asset you could be to their company.
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
25 May 11
I forgot what it's called but you can call your insurance carrier as there's a type of policy that you can have that is a bit cheaper if you don't use a vehicle for a daily commute is another idea.
@cutepenguin (6431)
• Canada
4 Jun 11
We are about to start using a car again, because I need it to work, but we are afraid of what gas is going to be like.
We are going to continue walking places as often as possible - even when we have a car, my husband will walk or bike to work because he likes it (it's a very short distance).
We are cutting down our electricity usage - hanging to dry all of our clothes, only having the computer on for a couple of hours a day, etc.
We are being careful with food and with clothes.
It's hard to find more ways to cut back when it feels like we'd already cut almost everything out - we don't have cable tv, netflix, etc. We turn off lights as much as possible. We avoid eating out. I am starting to wonder if there is much more we can cut out.
@oscar6 (1938)
• United States
13 Jun 11
In order to put gas in my car I have started to cut back. I shop at the dollar stores even more than I did before. I also use coupons on everything that I possibly can. I also try not to eat out as much since this is where most of my money is going. I also buy my groceries at schnucks which gives you a discount on gas if you spend so much on groceries at their store.
@mensab (4200)
• Philippines
4 May 11
with oil prices rising, and so the prices of goods and services. how can we afford these? how to maintain our lifestyles without compromising our needs and interests? in my case, i decided to take public transportation. i just moved to a place where there is a train station, supermarkets, shops, and close to workplace. it costs me more, but the returns and savings in the long run are more important than the immediate expenses. i wish you the best. we are in challenging times.
@peedielyn (1207)
• United States
4 May 11
Challenging they are! I could just add baskets to my bike I just got and make the grocery trips easier. This is sad when I can't even afford to leave the house. Just to make matters worse, last year my beau had an accident leaving him only enough money from the insurance company to cover the necessities. They didn't take out child support ($500/month) and so we got behind by 7 weeks. This wasn't too bad until they decided to take $620 a month instead to cover what was behind. I jsut got a letter in the mail saying we over paid and they were sending us a check. But, they also stated that they were going to continue to take out the $620 a month. That's cutting it really thin because of the bills and stuff we have here. We have a very tight budget and that included the child support and gas for the cars. We were actually saving $58 a month until the rise happened. Good luck to you too. We all need it right now. THanks for posting!
1 person likes this
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
13 Jun 11
I'm actually thankful that the price of gas has dropped about fifty cents per gallon in the last several weeks because of the fact that the price of gas was slowly killing our family when that was taken into consideration with the medical bills that we have right now because of my husband's cancer treatment. One of the things that we've done to cut down this expense is that my husband is using his moped more often than before. It gets about 100 mpg compared to the 35 mpg that we get in our car (his place of employment is only about 3 miles away from our home). In addition to that, I'm staying at home more and working on writing articles and other online work to earn a little bit more money for our family.
@cher913 (25782)
• Canada
16 May 11
hey good for you. we do not buy books or rent movies, we visit the library! its free and you can get out anything that interests you (our library even has blu ray and video games too.) we stay at home more plus if we need clothes, we visit thrift stores (since we live in a fairly large city, there are several to choose from) like you, we will start our own garden soon too.
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
25 May 11
If we could go by candle light I would too! However, since my kids are small and can't keep their hands to themselves, it's best we avoid them. There are tons of ways to save money, only problem for me is that we don't have much more we can cut outside of getting rid of the internet, netflix, and our land line. We consider the net and netflix our luruxy and entertainment because as you know going to the movies is expensive and frankly about everything else is as well.
I was planning on walking the girls to summer school but since the school jagged that up for me and they are going to 2 different schools instead of their usual. Plus it would teach them some appreciation for being driven or riding the bus to school.
For snacks we buy 12# bags of pop corn kernels and that lasts us a good amount of time and costs us pennies compared to other snacks.
