Gas/Fuel Prices---Yuck!

Let’s face it, we all have one thing in common; no matter whom you are or what you do. This one thing would be buying gas/fuel. Everyone has a vehicle, whether it’s a gas hog or a mile getter! I drive a 2006 Chevy Silverado, and I get 19 miles to the gallon…sometimes more, just depends if I am driving in town or out on the highways. When I started driving, which was really, when I started college, gas was $2.30, and that was this past fall. Now, I am currently paying $3.85!! It is hard for me to listen to my dad tell me,” when I was your age, it was just barely over a dollar, and when your grandpa Bates was a kid, it was $ .25.” Wish it was still like it was back in the old days, when we are talking gas/fuel!! My boyfriend drives a Dodge…and oh boy, it cost him over $120.00 to fill up last week… I have not asked him about it this week. So, why are prices raising so much, and why do we have to stretch our pocketbooks in order to pay for something everyone has to have? Good question, huh! Don’t you wish I had the answers? I know I do!

Well, everyone has been saying it is because of the MiddleEast and northern Africa, but really, there has been NO huge change that would knock our fuel prices up so much! Ever heard of the Dodd-Frank Act…me either, it passed last year and it is supposed to stop the large swing in prices, but it hasn’t really changed anything, in my opinion. I don’t know if it is because gas goes up little by little or what, but just from the time I started seriously started to drive prices have went up $1.55 per gallon! To me, that is a large sum, and for those of you who remember back then, I know it is way more!

What else is also a little fuzzy for me are holidays. Does anyone agree with me? If we are receiving our fuel out of the Middle East, and here in America we are celebrating, say Easter, then why all of a sudden do prices at the pump go up? Does the Middle East celebrate Easter, or is it the gas stations pocketing some easy money because everyone knows families will be traveling during the holidays and, they can do what they want with the prices? Some of it is because of the high demand during the holidays, but if you watch, about two weeks before a holiday, prices start to rise slowly! Crazzzy, I tell ya! I know if a price of a barrel goes up, then the prices for us are going to rise, but when a gas station fills up its tank once a week, and Friday is more expensive, and the station won’t have another fill-up till Monday, isn’t that not wrong?

Natural disasters also cause the prices to rise, but sometimes that is just a scare and it only goes up because the United States people freak out and here comes the high demands, and therefore that causes higher prices… I don’t quite agree with gas prices, but I also can’t ride a bike to class…I live way too far away!