God's Word for Today

Saturday, April 26, 2008

$67.41

We paid $67.41 to fill up my van today. Gasoline was 3.55 per gallon! I keep staring at the receipt and thinking of the really nice date that my husband and I could have gone on, or the flats of seedling I could have planted in my veggie garden, or the several meals that could have been placed on my dinner table.

The sad fact is that in less than two weeks it will have to be filled up again. I am wondering when will the price of gas become prohibitive for the mobile lifestyle that we as Americans have become use to.

When will we begin to alter our way of doing things to accommodate the projected $4.00 a gallon this summer? I have been giving this a lot of thought and I am wonder what will be the turning p0int for me. What allowance will I make to be able to get in my car and run to the store for the gallon of milk or loaf of bread? Would I be willing to walk or possibly borrow my son’s bicycle? This thought pains me to no end.

I have often thought of the times of long ago when you family meal was grow on your own property, you were responsible for your own vegetable garden, providing for your own meat. I have wonderful memories of listening to my grandmother tell of her days growing up on the family farm and how she would go out to the garden to harvest what ever crop was in season. You did not pick and choose in those days. You ate what was growing and there were times when there was not meat on the table. We as Americans have become a spoiled people. I have often thought that if I was responsible of growing and providing for the need of my family then surely we would all starve to death.

I have begun to think of exactly what will be my cut off. When will I alter the way I live, or will I simply make the adjustments and give something else up in order to increase my gasoline budget?

So what am I willing to change about the way I live? I have already begun to consolidate my trips in the car. On the Sundays that I have meetings I just drop my daughter off at UMYF and then hang out for the 90 minutes until my prayer meeting. I get caught up on my bible study or journaling and I am not wasting any unnecessary gas. I possibly would have n the past made the trip back home, but not any more. Now that I live further away it is just too wasteful to travel the extra miles only to turn right around and retrace my steps.

What are you changing in you life to accommodate the rising price of gas?

Is there something you are doing that is making a difference?

What will I give up?

What will I do?

What are you doing?

What are you willing to give up?

When I am faced with these types of questions I always think about one of my all time favorite television shows. What would Caroline Ingles do? I am sure that she had an extensive vegetable garden, a milk cow, chicken coop, she walked into town every week to sell her eggs to snooty Mrs. Olsen and she sat after supper and churned her own butter. Her bread was rising under a towel in a bowl bedside of her wood burring stove and Charles was out plowing up the back forty planting the wheat crop that would put shoes on Half Pint for the coming winter.

$67.41, WOW! I will be considering what I will be changing in the way we live and possibly how I drive from now on, or I hope that I will begin to make some small changes.

5 comments:

Skoots1moM said...

My Mom had chickens when she & Daddy retired and moved back to the kun-try! The hens were ok laying the eggs, until u went to get them out...then they got really possessive for some reason and the roosters wuz just down right MEAN! They'd attack you, talons first and then try to take out the calves of ur legs...needless to say, when this happened to one of the grandkids, Old Big Red the rooster was on the table the next weekend for Sunday dinner. My Mom still has her garden though and it definitely produces a lot; however, last year's drought made it very ugly for squash and tomatoes.
I'll have to get new tires for Channing's bike and maybe a basket for the front...won't I be cute peddling back and forth on the road...wide-load, they'll say, as they pass, hopefully w/o knocking me off into the grown up kudzu patch.
Maybe a lemonade stand's a better answer for me?!

Nancy said...

I've been thinking a lot about the high cost of living lately. I truly do think I could do better with more careful budgeting. Years ago, when the kids were little and money was extremely tight, I used to have weekly grocery budget of $65.00 per week (granted, it was the early 80's and stuff was a little cheaper than now). . . Anyway, I used to take a pocket calculator to the grocery store with me and I'd add as I put things into the cart. If I reached the end of my list and I was over budget, I decided what we coulc do without and it went back on the shelf. We made it work. Maybe I need to do that again. It tends to cause us to eat more sensibly, because the pre-packaged stuff is more expensive, so you're buying more fresh. I even used to bake my own bread! Maybe Caroline Ingalls had the right idea.

Mezzo Forte said...

There's a website that you can go to that will tell you where to go for the lowest gas price in town. The Exxon at Hurricane Shoals and Collins Hill/Northdale has it for $3.49 which is the cheapest I've seen. My DH found the site and we use it these days...cuz every little penny counts.
Georgia: http://www.georgiagasprices.com

Atlanta: http://www.atlantagasprices.com

Lawrenceville: http://www.atlantagasprices.com/Lawrenceville/index.aspxGeorgia: http://www.georgiagasprices.com

Mezzo Forte said...

Here's this one again - it got cut off.

Lawrenceville: http://www.atlantagasprices.com/
Lawrenceville/index.aspx

Cyndy said...

Well, I hope you are sitting down for this because where I live it has reached...gasp...$4.05 a gallon. Fortunately we can drive about 40 minutes away and get it for .40 to .50 cents less, which feels like a bargain!
We have made changes in the way we are living. We bought and had installed a wood burning stove this year, we plan on having a garden and last week we got four chickens. And I don't drive anywhere unless I absolutely have to.

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