around the gas price crunch?? Its really killing my budget and while its not a big problem yet....I'm thinking its going to be more painful in a few months.

For me I'm going to have to be much more diligent about other areas to make up for this one.

I'm totally clueless here on this one. I did the math this morning and based on our current gas mileage and the cost of gas, it cost me $1.72 to take my dh to work this morning. It's likely going to cost me another $3.00 or so to run my errands today and then another $1.72 to pick him up from work. When you look at from a cost per mile perspective, it's really painful:( I think we're going to stay home a lot more.

We just averaged it for a couple of weeks and use that in our budget. Luckily I work a weird 12 hour schedule so I don't drive to work as much as the regular 9-5'ers, so that helps a little.

We really can't do any more cutting back here, hubby has to drive to work daily, 2 hour round trip. I only go to town once a week and do all errands, it's not a far drive and I probably average 10-12 miles total so a fill up lasts me a few months in my truck.

Now for the farm and fuel (ugh, don't even ask how much the farmers here have to use) we've gotten lucky, we're leasing out a good chunk of the fields to a friend to use for silage so hubby won't have to do upkeep on that land and the lease money will help with the yearly taxes.

kj

Well, today I am going to sit down with the budget, and do some MAJOR tweaking. We can do a lot of cutbacks, so I guess that's good. I am going to cancel a few things, like long distance, and movie packages on our tv. Just gonna be EXTRA frugal, and try to make it through the storm.

Lot more making do happening here. Jack needs to drive to work & 1 day a month is going to be shopping, dr, etc day. Other than that, home we will stay.

After having looked at the numbers and our recent habits, DH will soon be in charge of half of the shopping. The kids and I will be going back to our once-every-two-weeks outings on paydays, and that will be the end of it. DH's job is 56 miles away, one way, so our gas will have to go to him getting there and back. Weeks without a payday will mean that he has to pick up the milk and fresh fruits/veggies that week on his way home.

I also used to treat the kids to a cheap lunch on our days out, but now they'll have to take it out of their allowances if they want it because half of my allowance will have to be used for taking up the slack in the grocery/pantry budget. To be fair, DH is also giving up half of his allowance to the gas budget, so no one is being put upon unfairly.

Driving less/walking more - this will be easier as the weather gets warmer, we have a lot of things within walking distance...the library, farmer's market, the park/public pool, etc. Also consolidating errand running as much as possible. I only shop once a month anyway.

I have to drive less. Gas is outrageous. & walking won't hurt us one bit. I also need to use the stuff in my pantry, before I get more stuff. Another thing that will help is running errand together, this will save time & gas. So today, we're walking to & from school, making a quick stop at the grocery store for free yougurt, it's across the street from the school. We need to stop eating out.

well, my misc. fund is going to take a hit and we'll just be driving less

I am doing pantry stockup before the prices go up because of gasoline prices! That way it will be a long time before I HAVE to buy much. I will also use the garden and the farmers market for fresh items. A stocked pantry is a very good hedge against inflation and higher prices.

We are eating out less, and because we now have secondary health insurance, my Rx's only cost $10/month now instead of $40-70/month so that will go towards gas.

I just heard on the news that they are speculating gas to be 5 dollars a gallon by July? OMG! This is insane!

Gas prices here are $3.03 per gallon, as of today.

We need gas for the car & the truck so I am looking on the internet to see how much cheaper Pa. prices are. Most of the time it is worth the trip to Pa., we usually save at least 12 to 15 cents a gallon.

I will let you know what happens.

It is hitting our budget hard, I have been having to go to another town 90 minutes away for medical reasons, now while I am there I am stocking up on sales at the stores in Wichita, Last time the saving I did acturally covered the gas up there. So I am going to see if that helps, but in the last few months our budget has taken some major hits, my meds went from about $15 a month to $100 a month, our morgage has a varyable rate and it just jumped up and now the gas prices going up it is another hit, so I don't know what we are going to do, I have cut my running errands as much as possiable luckly the post office and my bank are with in walking distance so is the pet store, there is a dollar general with in walking distance so I might see how much i can buy there to save a trip. but most of the stores I shop at walmart, sam's target, aldi's and dillions are all on the far south end of town and live on the far north end. I am expecting other prices to start to climb since gas prices are it will be just another hit to the budget. so guess i will be reworking the budget alot in the next few months..

The only thing we really can do is trade cars. (DH and me, I mean.) We've already done that. DH is now driving my Honda Civic to work, and I'm driving his CRV. Both are pretty fuel efficient, but the Civic is a little more so than the CRV.

I already do my best to combine errands and route them so that I'm not backtracking or anything. I don't go out much, so my driving is fairly minimal.