Well, the oil companies are increasing oil prices again…

What are you doing to frugally fight higher gas prices?

Should we just say “There is nothing we can do” , and just be an innocent victim to the onslaught of the oil companies on our wallets and purses?

Last night while driving home, I noticed that my local gas station’s price per gallon has risen to $2.999 (which is effectively $3.00)!  Ouch!

I talked about one option in my article called: Carpooling to Save Money and Reduce Gas Prices, and this is a great way to for the consumers to lower gas prices to a great extend, at least if we all do so in mass.  One problem may exist though… China!  China is still growing like wildfire compared to the growth rate of the developed countries.  It’s not that they want oil prices to rise too, it’s just that their economy needs that resource to support their growth rate.

Another great option to consider is Telecommuting! In case you lived in a cave for the past 10 or so years, telecommuting is where you stay at home and connect to work (or do work) by connecting to work via a computer and internet connection (called a VPN – Virtual Private Network) to your place of employment.

Now granted not everybody can take advantage of the telecommuting option because of the type of work they perform, but you can talk to your boss if there isn’t a policy that your employer is using already!  Perhaps you can start a pilot program, working 1 day a week as a test to see if it work for you and your company.  In fact, the place that I work at takes an hybrid approach, where we work onsite a few days and have the option to work offsite for a few day.  It’s a great mix!  Even better would be to walk or ride a bike if possible to work and at anytime really…

My final suggestion would be to be aware of the expense of too many car trip taken during the day/week!  Running out 20 miles to this store and then later that store during a normal day can really adds up!  Know the mileage your car can achieve and calculate how much those trips cost (including the drive back home).  For instance,  I know that it cost me $15 to drive to my parents house and back (they are almost an hour away from my house)!

What I do is consolidate my non work trips into 1 per week (when possible, which is not always the case with kid sports and activities)!  What this means is during one drive, I do multiple things within that drive.  So instead of driving out for milk, then driving out to pick up driveway salt (snow, yuck)…  I’ll just make 1 trip instead of 2!

I know that we  all think of carpooling when we go to work, but perhaps it’s not a bad idea for a neighborhood carpool too?  Maybe a stay-at-home mom could do a similar action with other neighboring SAHMs?  There could even be other beneficial gains in doing such a carpooling activity such as social, safety and backup coverage in driving kids to sports!

Can you think of any other ways to combat the rising prices of gas?

–MR

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