Oh, The Places You Won't Go

So I have my own version of Dr. Seuss' Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Oh, the places you won't go,

The things you won't see

When gas prices climb higher than three

It's time to stay home,

Find new things to do,

Projects and games and outside walks too.

What can you sort?

What can you do?

What can you read to thing one and thing two (and three and four and more)?

You'll find if you stretch how long you can go

Whizzing out and about

Why, wouldn't you know?

You'll save money and gas,

and even better than that...

You'll be content to be home,

You'll learn to like it like that

Many adventures await,

Many dollars are saved

When you say no to load up and go.

On a practical note, I fill up our minivan every two weeks when my husband gets paid. Gas prices where we live are just under $3 a gallon right now. It costs about $50 to fill up. This fill-up must last us until the next pay-day.

We really don't go many places during a week, and I honestly prefer it that way. Too many errands and appointments on the calendar for too many days in a row just stress me out. We have church on Wednesday night for AWANA, Sunday morning and Sunday night (Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University is starting up). I take my boys to a homeschool art class on Wednesday afternoons, but it's only a half-mile from our house. There is a homeschool phys ed class on Tuesday's and Thursday's, which we attended once a week in the fall, but I'm not sure we'll continue this semester. (Besides, the boys get plenty of physical activity during the day anyway!).

Maybe you prefer your family to be involved in many activities and don't mind paying for the gas it takes to drive everyone everywhere they need to be during the week. It's a personal decision, as your budget allows. I am lucky to live in the center of town, where everything I need is quite close. But if it wasn't, and if I wanted to save money (and gas is a biggie), I would take a hard look at where we're going and if those trips are really necessary.

On a tangent, since I used to work in the media, I find it so interesting how the media is choosing not to cover the rise in gas prices. The media claims to be neutral and unbiased, but that's so not true. Their bias comes through in so many ways: in the stories they choose to cover (and not to cover), and the ways in which they cover them. During the Bush presidency, for example, the media constantly reported on how high gas prices were going and what the president was, or was not, doing to address the issue. That same media coverage seems to be absent from the Obama presidency. Sometimes I wonder if the rise in gas prices, and the apparent lack of doing anything about it, is an intentional decision by the administration to drive us all toward solar-powered vehicles.

Regardless of what the government does, or doesn't do, to affect the price of gas, I can affect how much we pay for it simply by limiting the places we go.

How are you dealing with the increase in gas prices?

(Linked to Works for Me Wednesday)