Author |
Message |
Hukdonreality
Member
09-29-2003
| Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 8:20 am
Yay for you Red Sox fans! After my Jim Kelly retired from the Buffalo Bills, I lost all my interest in professional sports. That man could do no wrong in my eyes!
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 9:33 pm
I'd be very interested in comparing how many miles the average American drives vs. the average Brit. Even more interesting would be what percentage of salaries go toward gas expenses in both places. Maybe it will be Europeans who will figure out a way to build a car that actually has good gas mileage (over 35 MPG) or runs on alternative fuel!
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 9:55 pm
Teach, I lived in a small town in the UK. Actually more like on a road between two towns. The area I considered when looking for work was the three big towns around me. One was about three miles away, one about five and one seven. I would not have liked to have worked in the seven mile one. The other option would be to take the train, and I have many friends who commute by train from there to another batch of towns about 22/30 miles away, and some who commute to London, which takes about 1hr 20m each way on the train. So the short answer, from my experience, would be most people would travel less than ten miles each way if they were commuting by car, they'd consider other means if they had to travel further. And a five mile each way trip would be 10 miles away and cost me about £2 (at £6 per (UK) gallon and a car that does about 30mpg). And I guess per year that would be about 1.5% of my salary in a year. And I just worked it out for my dh (in the US), and I get 1.5% for him too! Well I never. But he does earn more than I ever did or would.
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Christy358
Member
07-10-2007
| Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 10:46 pm
Interesting to me that 7 miles away seems far. I drive 15. And I live "close". Used to drive 52 miles.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 3:10 pm
My DH used to work 35 miles away, and we were spending closer to 5% of his salary on gas - and that was BEFORE it was $3 a gallon! We may have to conduct our own TVCH survey to see if the percentages average out. (Ahhh, the dangers of an idle mind!)
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Costacat
Member
07-15-2000
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 4:09 pm
I work zero miles away so I spend 0% of my salary on gas! I just filled up at at 76 station for $3.59. I'm sure I could've found something a few cents cheaper, but my time would've cost more than the dollar I'd have saved.
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Costacat
Member
07-15-2000
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 4:10 pm
BTW, the number of miles driven is directly proportionate to where you live. And if you think those are long miles. Here, 30 miles is nothing. In the Bay Area, people in my office whine about having to drive 15 miles. Go figure.
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Merrysea
Moderator
08-13-2004
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 4:38 pm
I filled up at Costco today for $3.299.
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Alwayzmovin
Member
11-06-2003
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 4:47 pm
$2.79 today!
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Couchtomato
Member
09-09-2008
| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 5:42 pm
$3.89 at 11am - $3.65 by 12:30pm. Best part is that all stations I passed had gas. Oh, and diesel was $4.09.
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Beachcomber
Member
08-26-2003
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:07 pm
Couch, it really has dropped alot since Monday hasn't it? I am going to wait until Saturday to fill up in hopes that it will drop some more 
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:48 pm
$3.65 here yesterday. BTW, the number of miles driven is directly proportionate to where you live. And if you think those are long miles. Here, 30 miles is nothing. In the Bay Area, people in my office whine about having to drive 15 miles. Go figure. I think it has something to do with the type of roads you have to drive on. In the bay area you can't go more than 15mph before 9am, so a short(!) distance of 15 miles still takes 40 minutes.
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Costacat
Member
07-15-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 1:38 pm
Nope. Not what I meant at all. Here people who live in north county and work in downtown know that they live over 30 miles away and that it'll take over an hour to get to work during rush hour. It's the same as in the Bay Area. My point is that people here don't think of 30 miles as long, even without rush hour traffic while people in the Bay Area think 30 miles as forever long even without rush hour traffic.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 1:40 pm
I could never do that! As I said before, for me, five miles is long!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 2:55 pm
Last night I saw $3.35 and $3.37. And of course Costa is right, I wouldn't drive far to get cheaper gas, but I'm lucky that there are two of the usually cheapest stations up on the corner and another I can swing by on the way home from a couple of places. And when I go to get a haircut every 8 weeks I definitely watch out because sometimes a couple of stations on the way home are even less than mine and then I fill up.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 6:04 pm
$3.07 today at Costco! I heard somebody in the checkout line saying they got gas at Costco yesterday and it was $3.17. At this rate, we will be below $3 any day now.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 7:08 pm
30 - 60 miles is considered an "average" commute in our area, but it hurts a LOT more now to drive those miles than it did. Like I said, DH and I are both happy we drive 1-3 miles to work. We only go to the grocery story once a week (30 mile drive), and when gas was way over $4 we only went every two weeks.
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Christy358
Member
07-10-2007
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 8:34 pm
LOL, I stop at the grocery store on the way to and from work some days....cant imagine once every two weeks. (It is on my way...so no extra gas really)
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Csnog
Member
07-18-2002
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 10:34 pm
About to drive 1250 miles. Gas is cheaper in all the states I drive through. Michigan is about the same as Florida. When they develope the plug in car, where am I going to plug my car in and how long would that take and cost. Batteries are known to blow up and will need a lot more development before I would park one in my garge. The US is a large country unlike Europe and has a much better transit system. If I was allowed, I would put a little windmill on top of my house or solar panels but again they have to pass laws allowing such in most communities, Gas has not gone down in price as fast as it went up. I found gas today for $3.16 cash and bought enough to get me to Ohio where it's about .20 a gallon cheaper.
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Babyruth
Member
07-19-2001
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 10:41 pm
$2.93 tonite in SE Michigan...
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Supergranny
Member
02-03-2005
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 10:43 pm
Costco in Olympia, WA has plug ins for your car. There were several I noticed and I also noticed it was gas cars using the parking spaces!
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Csnog
Member
07-18-2002
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 11:16 pm
It's known that the west coast has some infrastruction but still not enough for plug ins, but if you go anywhere else in the US it's not there yet and will take years to acquire.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 11:19 pm
Our local library has some, but I've never seen them used.
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Christy358
Member
07-10-2007
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 11:22 pm
Our library has them too....now that I think about it. I think the truth is, we need to work on mass transit....
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Csnog
Member
07-18-2002
| Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 11:28 pm
Mass transit in Kansas, North Dakota, Kentucky, Michigan? Try going across the country even on a train. It takes days. There is a lot of open space between the East coast and the West coast, There is just not an easy answer. I do however want wind and solar explored for energy.
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