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Old 03-18-2006, 08:11 AM   #1
Baqpqck
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Fuel prices

Do any of you have a plan to handle the high fuel prices? I will be full timing in about 2 years and I can see the potential for 4-5 dollars per gallon, possibly with little or no warning. Your thoughts.
 
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Old 03-18-2006, 11:21 AM   #2
prariepoodle
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I for one sure do hope that it does not get that high,We only move about 2 times a year and would have to start fuel fund.
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Old 03-18-2006, 06:26 PM   #3
patodonn
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Only two possibilities for FTers....stay longer at locations and travel shorter distances when you must go "somewhere". Organize and combine your trips in the local area more...no more individual "run to the grocery store" trips. Grocery store, cleaners, post office, trip to the Mall and dining out; all in conjunction with a trip to see the local museum, see a movie, or visit friends/family. A little planning can make a big difference

Personally, I don't see $4 - $5 fuel on the horizons....but I certainly could be wrong! Hope not!
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Old 03-18-2006, 08:53 PM   #4
Montana Sky
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I have to say I hope fuel prices do not get that high, but I guess I can only do 1 of 2 things, stay home or pay the price. I choose the 2nd.
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Old 03-19-2006, 12:48 AM   #5
richfaa
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Well in 2000 when fuel was 1.35 I did not see 2.50 3.00 fuel prices in the future..but here we are with no signs of going down. If fuel did get that high in 2 or 3 years I think we would be out of the game in terms of the traveling we had planed to do.Our retirement income will not keep up not to mention the high cost of fuel affects everything else. In our case the choice between stay home or pay the price would be stay home or at least stay near home. As we mentioned before we are just ordianary folks without unlimited sources of income.We will have a income increased only by COL increases and a budget we must stay within...Oh well..we shall see.
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Old 03-19-2006, 01:28 AM   #6
bobgay
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One thing we have already done is to slow down a bit. Traveling at 60 mph rather than 70 improved our fuel economy a lot. We are retired now and getting someplace quickly isn't usually a high priority. It also seemed to reduce the tire problems with our previous RV (Alfa), which had 15" wheels and constant tire problems. When I see these big rigs blow by me at 75 or 80 mph, I wonder what kind of mileage they are getting.
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Old 03-19-2006, 05:39 AM   #7
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I gree about slowing down a little. It makes about 2 mpg difference on my rig between 60 and 70. However it's not just the price you pay at the pump. Just look at what the prices have done in the grocery stores. My wife was showing me the other day what she paid for items 6 months ago and how much they cost now.
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Old 03-19-2006, 07:37 AM   #8
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Fuel prices affect all aspects of our economy. We already had high food prices here in the west, but the prices keep going up and the amount in the packages keeps getting smaller. Our income stays the same.

We have been paying more than our fair share of fuel prices out here, as well. Our diesel was up to $3 a week ago but is coming back "down" to $2.80. Our regular is about $2.50. We will be staying close to home this year.
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Old 03-19-2006, 11:06 AM   #9
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Just got the bill from my auto and truck insurance company. Went up $20.00. I will call them monday to inform them that no one gave me an extra $20.00 in my pension check. I do not have an extra $20.00 to send them so they will just have to learn to get by without it.Maybe they can cut the guys salary that they have wondering around on tv telling everyone what great deals we are getting.
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Old 03-19-2006, 01:28 PM   #10
houseof many dogs
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I'm afraid we have not seen the end of this - and we as a country do not have the fortitude to do what it takes...first we need to get really fed up with the fuel situation and then have the guts to do something about it.
Near term - we will pay the price, but over the longer term we will activly seek out any company that presents an alternative such as bio-diesel fuels.
Long term - the US needs to start concentrating on diesel fuel first, why - because everything in this country is moved by a diesel powered vehicle before it is consumed! The demand is usually stable over time and there are enough fleet owned distribution centers to bypass the "gas station" dealers. Diesel can be made from corn,coal,oil shale or any combination of the three. In the 1930's, Germany was making diesel from oil shale and the by-product was cement! (Popular Mechanics magazine, 1937). Then a distribution competitor needs to step up as an alternative to "big oil" - I think the only one big enough or strong enough is Wal-Mart and they could build a distribution/delivery system that would be competitive.

Finally, DO NOT depend on the government, because there is not a program they have going that works.

Yhanks for letting me vent!

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Old 03-19-2006, 05:20 PM   #11
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As fulltimers, I think we will be staying longer in one spot, maybe a month at a time. This winter we plan on being in the RGV for 5 or 6 months. That helps but we knew when we decided to travel full time that we would have to make choices as we are on a fixed income so since we have time on our side (God willing) we will just do what we want ssslloowweerr.....
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Old 03-20-2006, 12:52 AM   #12
Mudchief
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I agree diesel is where we should focus. I run bio-diesel and E85 for our cars it works great, the problem is i can only get it around where i live. However our leaders have chosen to pass a law allowing the truckers to pass on the added fuel cost to the shippers. That way they do not complain and the big oil companys are happy. Someday fuel will get high enough that we will band together and get something done.
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Old 03-20-2006, 01:27 AM   #13
richfaa
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We attended a "Bio-diesel seminar last week at a local university for the benefit of schools in regard to their school busses. As you may know bio-Diesel (B-100) has NO petroleum product in it at all. It is a processed fuel using Soy bean, flax seed, etc. There is also B-20 up to B-90 a mixture of Bio and LOW sulphur diesel fuel. Better fuel, burns cleaner, etc.The jury is still out on what the cost will be to the consumer ..There are many 'Estimated numbers" but no one really knows yet, Question,,we are not planning on full timimg but ARE planing on long timimg..perhaps 6 months out of the year..Not only does the high cost and future high cost of fuel have us concerned but how about the rising cost of CG fees//has that been a significant factor in the last year or so. Being on a fixed retirement income we have only so much to spend each month on Rv'ing and rising cost that we could not anticipate will affect us.Since we cannot increase our income we wll have to decrease our Rv'ing time...
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Old 03-20-2006, 03:45 AM   #14
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Quote:
quote:Originally posted by richfaa

Being on a fixed retirement income we have only so much to spend each month on Rv'ing and rising cost that we could not anticipate will affect us.Since we cannot increase our income we wll have to decrease our Rv'ing time...
Rich,
One of the reasons we went full timing was that the costs were less than trying to maintain our stick house, what with the insurance prices, utilities, etc. We've found that our living costs as full timers really fits in with our fixed income. The first year of full timing was full of apprehension because we continued to worry about our stick house while we were gone. We didn't even like to be gone more than a couple of weeks because we worried about whether or not someone would be breaking in, pipes freezing, etc.

Orv
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Old 03-21-2006, 09:20 AM   #15
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Fuel prices are skyhigh because big oil answers to no one except their investors and shareholders, and who are their shareholders?, well they might be your neighbors or even fellow MOC members. The more money the shareholder gets the happier they are. It's a case of mind over matter, they don't mind and we don't matter. House of many dogs has it right, no one, especially the politicians, has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to big oil. Find an oil company that has reasonable prices and boycott the rest of them.









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Old 03-21-2006, 01:17 PM   #16
rickety
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I agree, diesel fuel is ridiculous in price. I wish biodiesel was available in enough quantity to drive down the cost of #2 diesel, maybe evetually. We are into our second month of full timing and the cost is very low, compared to our stick house. We have saved in the 2 months about 3500 dollars. Needless to say it will make it much easier to travel. Phyllis retires in about 2 years and by that time I hope to have enough of a pad built up to allow for any vagaries in the fuel price theft that is curently going on.
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Old 03-21-2006, 01:33 PM   #17
Montana Sky
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Just food for thought....

Fox Entertainment had record profits of 10.7%. ExxonMobil record profit last year 9.3%. Cocoa Cola had a higher % of profit than ExxonMobil. 9.1% gross return on profit is the industrial average, which means approx. 50% of the companies are having higher than industry average profits and 50%, are having less. We never hear complaining about any other companies having higher than industrial average profits, how come?? Folks are talking about windfall taxing the oil companies; back in 1974 windfall taxes drove 15,000 small oil companies out of business. And all we hear is BIG OIL COMPANIES have too much power, if we drive any more small business out of business what do you think that is going to do to the cost of that product?? Colorado is thought to have the largest oil reserve in the world, but environmentalists won't allow drilling in the state. Could drilling there help offset the cost of oil?? They keep saying these oil companies are having record profits, if that is truly the case why has the stock prices of these companies not reflected "record profits"? What about the drug companies? Anyone looked at their profits lately? Amazing how a bottle of 90 pills can have a cost of $250, but a gallon of fuel is $2.90.

Here is something that will make one think...

A bottle of water averages .15 cents an ounce. That is figured at $1.29 for a 20oz bottle and we pay it without hesitation. Oil is averaging .02 cents an ounce, figured by $2.75 a gallon divided by 128oz. I am amazed that an oil company can drill 10 miles down into the ocean, pump the oil out, ship it around the world to an oil refinery, refine it, truck it to a fuel depot, then truck it again to a local fuel station and produce it to your truck at an average cost of .02 cents an ounce. And the bottle water if pumped out of a stream or lake, trucked to a company, purified, bottled, and then sent to the local grocery store at a cost of .15 cents per ounce. Sure makes one stop and think before we buy a bottle of water...

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Old 03-21-2006, 02:38 PM   #18
richfaa
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www.biodiesel.org A lot of folks really do not have a understanding of what biodiesel means and exactly what biodiesel is. This web site is a good place to start.
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Old 03-22-2006, 04:40 AM   #19
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But Dave, the water companies are not making 10-20 BILLION dollar profits each year. When does a reasonable profit end and greed begin? I think they should make a reasonable profit and have funds for research, development and exploration. But after all that a 10-20 BILLION dollar profit by several companies in the same industry is obscene, especially when you consider the salaries for their executives, which comes out of the overhead costs.

In the past anti-trust legislation, usury laws and unions were created to protect consumers and workers from the greedy and power hungry. Over the last couple decades there seems to have been a trend to weaken all these protections and create a free for all situation. When I was in the military in the 60’s and 70’s it was illegal for someone to lend money at exorbitant rates, now 18 to 24 percent interest is common to some credit cards and just try to find investments that pay above 6 percent. I’m not an economist but I can not for the life of me see where these increasing oil prices are going to lead us any where but down.

These prices may stimulate development and implementation of alternative energy sources as long as the oil companies don’t buy up that technology and manipulate it so the price for it stays high too. They have us where they want us and are paying the right people to keep it that way.

All I can say is God bless America, because we are going to need divine help.
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Old 03-22-2006, 03:42 PM   #20
Jim
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The problem is not supply of oil. The problem is a lack of refining capacity. There has not been a meanful committment to expanding refining capacity in the US for some time. We have enough crude oil supply globally and oil sands reserves in Canada to last for the foreseeable future. One way to get prices down is to build new refineries in strategic regions of the country to supply the finished product at low transport costs.
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