[SunTzuWu]

I don't see the price jump as that big a deal. I burn about a tank a week. In my '99 Silverado that's 26 gal. per week. At $2 per gal. I spend $52 on fuel. At $3 per gal. I spend $78 a week, for a difference of $26 a week and $104 per month. If your budget is so tight that $100 per month is going to break you, then you are living WAY beyond your means. It means that ANY bump in spending will cause you harm. How the hell would you pay for a new set of tires, or a trip to the hospital, or even go on a date once a month.

In short I think that gas prices, while high, are not the disaster that most folks make it out to be. Most of their pain comes from poor financial planning.

[Pessimist]

"If your budget is so tight that $100 per month is going to break you, then you are living WAY beyond your means."

That right. But for some reason people seem inoridnately sensitive to gas prices. We've probably all known people who will drive out of their way to a station where the gas is $.05 cheaper, even though the difference will likely be less than $1 for the whole tank.

I think people who bail from their guzzler right now are probably going to take a beating on resale and then pay a preium for an econo box. So much so that the total loss will probably exceed whatever they will ever save on gas.

Go figure...

[Sofa King]

$1,200 a year is a good bit of money for people who don't earn a lot in the first place. That $100 a month may be what they were planning on using if they had a bump in their spending.

[RipSawyer]

In short I think that gas prices, while high, are not the disaster that most folks make it out to be. Most of their pain comes from poor financial planning.>>>>>>>>

You are probably right about most folks but those at the lower end of the earnings curve are already stretched to the limit, it is hard to do good financial planning when you have very low income.