Lamplight

I was in the same situation as you, and I just kept searching until I finally got a job 3 miles from home. It was the best move I ever made, no question.

Bruce_B

Why not move to the suburb where your office is?

slowjoe66

Ummm, it's the other way around. High oil prices are reflected in higher gas prices; not vice versa.

Platy

Right now I'm thinking actual oil/gas shortages won't occur in the near future. It's looking to me like the economy will cool down enough to significantly reduce the demand for oil. The price of gas could go down next year, but fewer people might be needing to buy it.

When a family is affected by a recession, their first reaction in the past has been to try to cut back on grocery expenses. If a new recession is in the cards, I think it would be more effective to cut back on driving as a first strategy. Going car light doesn't eliminate the insurance overhead, but it immediately reduces out of pocket expenses for fuel, maintenance and repair.

People can't often do much to prepare for a recession, but if that's a concern it wouldn't hurt right now to tune up the family bikes, plan routes and strategies for car light living, and learn how to use whatever public transit resources might be available.

linux_author

- having worked in oil and chemical spill response, just be grateful it was an oil spill... people don't understand that while no spill is good, everyone gets riled up over an oil spill because it looks messy, stinks, and does hurt wildlife... but certainly not to the extent that polychlorinated biphenyls injure the environment (it's a persistent organic), or other nasties such as dioxins, which have a half-life of over 50 years (compared to evaporative losses of oil discharges and breakdown measured in weeks, months, or a year or so)...

- definitely a shame about this spill though... i imagine everyone's freaking out over the tarballs washing up on the shorelines (bunker is nasty stuff)...

mgmoore7

I used to move as my jobs changed. I decided about 5 years ago that jobs change more often than other things such as the church we go to and the "roots" we set. Therefore, we choose an area we wanted to live with a church we liked and decided to stay.

In addition to all of that, my monthly payment would probably close to double as I got my house about 4.5 years ago and the prices are just nuts now. I would make some cash on my current house but not enough to offset the increase in cost of housing, insurance and taxes that would occur if we move.

In addition to that, we just don't like the area that my office is at.

So, for now I just stick it out as I have a good job but the drive sucks.

wahoonc

Been there done that, maybe you will end up with the job moving closer to you...I have seen it go both ways

Aaron

heywood

Yea, good point but I was really tired when I posted..

I remember in the '70's moped became really popular alot of bicycles retrofitted with small gas engines..althought the stuff comming out of the tailpipe was just as bad as a lawnmower..We're probably going to see a contraction of cities to cut out distences to & from work kind of like European cities..

Newspaperguy

Our mayor gets aroud town on a small motorized scooter. He loves to "complain" about spending $4.75 to fill the tank. I get around by bicycle so I usually don't pay too much attention to fuel prices.

This year, I've been noticing more and more electric bikes and small scooters on the roads. As fuel costs continue to climb, I think we'll see more and more people going to these devices.