With all this concern about gas prices going up I've got my own opinions.
Thanks, Sloth CreeperOn Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:20:50 -0400, "C. E. White" I wish more of these doddering old fools WOULD remember it. Unfortuately, they all seem to get "Alzheimer's" when it comes time to hang...
I'm 35 and when I was a teenager I was making about $3.35 an hour at Winn Dixie. Wow, I felt really blessed to know they started me at a nickel above minimum wage.
Seems like gasoline was between .80 and $1.00 per gallon. I drove a 1981 Honda Prelude that got around 27 mpg. I was paying $1300 a year for insurance. However this was just for collision on an old 76 Chevy pickup truck. I was principle driver of it since it was the oldest vehicle we had. Dad paid the insurance on my Honda (about $200 a year) because it would have been outrageous if I were the principle driver of it.
If I'd paid the insurance on it, two premiums would have covered the book value of the car! I had filed no claims but still continued to pay $1300 a year for insurance until I turned 21. Occasionlly getting minimal discounts for keeping a B average.
When I was 18-21 I commuted 50 miles a day to a community college still driving the Prelude. Gas may have been around $1.10 per gallon. By that time I was making around $4.50 an hour. WOW!
Now I'm 35. I'm making $22.00 an hour. I'm paying about $850 a year for full coverage on a 2003 Subaru. I commute 16 miles a day from my job. I fill my car up about once every three weeks. Gas is now around $2.20 a gallon.
So if I was making $3.35 an hour paying .80 to $1.00 for a gallon of gasoline but today I'm making $22.00 an hour but gas costs $2.20 a gallon, it's clear that the cost of driving was much higher for me back in the 1980s.
Due to my wages and how expensive it was to drive, I barely had two nickels to rub together to take a girlfriend out to a nice resturant. A meal at a nice resturant would cost about $25 for both of us. When your making about $100 a week that's a big chunk.
Now I can afford to eat out more often because I'm making more money and I don't have to spend as much to drive as I did when I was a teenager and young adult.
I realize that when gasoline and diesel fuel goes up, everybody raises their prices, but the cost of spending an additional $15-$25 a month on gasoline has not caused me any major hardships.
I just wonder if anybody looks at this the same way I do.
