Friday, September 12, 2008

$225.12

That's how much I spent on gas last night.

Why? (you ask)

Because several customers at the restaurant last night were telling me they had heard there was a price increase suspected tomorrow. (which is now today) A BIG increase. In fact 12 cents/litre was the number being tossed about. :O
Then one of our servers got a message from her cousin (who happens to also work for us). She had been given a head's up from a friend that owns a gas station. Same info. :(

** side note: That made me curious. I worked at a gas station for 5 years. We were never given that kind of head's up, not even the owner. We would just get "the call" from our fuel supplier and be told what price we were to have our pumps at NOW. **

I didn't really believe it would go up that much all at once. The biggest one day increase we've seen was 7 cents/litre and that was considered extreme. But I also didn't want to risk being caught with low tanks and the price going up. Besides I knew my vehicles needed to be filled anyway, and Pie's truck was at a half a tank.
So on my way home from work I stopped and filled up Pie's truck, a Chevy 1/2 ton. $69.00
When I got home I let the dogs out to "do their business", changed out of my work clothes, let the dogs back in and told them I'd be home soon.
First I filled up my Chevy, an Equinox. The fuel gage was just above the red line, I had been planning to fill it in the morning. (I normally fill when its at 1/4 tank) $61.55
Then I went home and switched trucks, taking my TRUCK truck (an F250 4X4) to be filled. It was at 1/4 tank. $94.57

Now the good news is that Pie's truck is technically owned by our restaurant. So that receipt I'll take to work to be claimed and I get my money back. (too bad that wasn't the $94 one!)

Soooo, now you all want to know. DID fuel go up today? Or was all that running around for nothing?

I had an appointment at 10am today (yikes, that's very early for me! But at least I got to hear John Gormley as he was on the air instead of the later re-broadcast. :) )

When I passed a gas station I looked and saw that gas was still at $1.349. Yay!

Of course, it was possible they hadn't got "the call" yet...

I was still hopeful.

Then on my way home an hour later:



Yes folks it did happen! A price jump of 11 cents/litre!
(insert foul language of your choosing here.)

Why?

Well supposedly because of Hurricane Ike. Which hasn't yet caused damage to fuel production.

Not to mention the whole "price of oil" argument... that one ticks me right off!
Oil prices go up, fuel goes up. Immediately.
Oil prices go down, fuel stays up. (wtf?) "Because it was bought at the higher price."
Oh WHATEVER. The fuel that was in the ground when oil went up had been bought at the lower price!

Okay, I need to stop now. I'm getting all worked up about this.

Oh, BTW I did the math. If I had waited until today and filled up at the higher price it would have cost:
Chevy 1/2 ton: $74.62
Equinox: $66.57
Ford F250: $102.28

For a grand total of: $243.47 A savings of just over $18.

7 comments:

  1. LOL you sound just like me. Gas prices make me irrate!!! Imagine going to the grocery store to buy bread and have the price change day by day. Crops have good years and bad, why not right? Or the delivery truck cost more to fill. If it is costing waitresses extra money to drive to work, then I guess they should get a raise and that hamburger should cost us more too! Rrrrr....I could go on and on.

    Good job on saving some $$! Stick'em where it hurts! lol

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  2. Gas prices, food prices, clothing prices, hay prices...does it ever end??? We used to do just fine with the four of us living on my hubby's income, but now, we are stretched tight. AWFUL!!!!

    I wanted to tell you that you are better than you think, in regards to school/studying, if you are learning a foreign language(which one is it by the way?), because as adults, we have either lost, or almost lost, our language aquisition device, which is a part of our brain that aids in learning new languages, or sounds.

    So...kudos to you, my friend! Oh, and I am studying social work and psychology :)

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  3. Ouch!!!! Those prices are pretty painful.. Good thing you filled up before the big increase.

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  4. Gas here in Ohio is now about $4.19 at the highest that I've seen so far. It was $3.69 on Thursday, friday went to $3.79, Sat went to $3.99 and now up to $4.19 yesterday. They can say the price of oil all they want, all over the internet it is saying price per barrel is dropping like the temp in Alaska. It's down to like $90 or so a barrel. I got gas saturday at $3.79 and in my suburban, it took $115 to almost, but not quite, fill up (42 gal tank, but I put in 30 since I still had 1/4 tank, don't let it go below. EVER). I didn't even bother to fill up the truck. It's bad on gas so we'll just use the sub until prices come back down. I put $25 in the truck. If I lived closer and didn't have to take kids all over town to sitters and school, I would definitely walk. Or ride my horse ;) I work downtown, that would be amusing. But I did see a guy riding his horse through downtown, right on the main street about a year or so ago. I was in awe. Horse was perfectly calm, looked wellfed and happy. I was just astonished.

    Anyhow, yeah. lol How much will all that gas last you?

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  5. Pie's 1/2 ton and my Equinox get the most driving. The Ford sits if we can let it, but it does pull the horse trailer. Equinox is between 1/2 and 3/4 tank as of yesterday.

    EZRA - I can never remember how to convert the prices so that our $/litre is equated to your $/gallon. As I remember it is quite complex, made more difficult because our gallon isn't the same as yours!

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  6. The closest I can figure it is that with our gas at $1.459/litre, converting currency and the fuel volume it would be $5.15/US gallon.

    OUCH!

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  7. Yipes!! I know we think $4 a gallon is bad (I have no clue on conversion either, lol) but my sister in North Carolina said theirs was up to $5/gallon and they were running out all over the place. Thankfully even with katrina we've never run out places, but it's still nuts, this economy.

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Wordless Wednesday ~ new trailer!