Posted by I can no longer afford fuel to drive my two vehicles. This week the average price of regular unleaded gas is over $4 per gallon. This feels worse than when we were in the middle of the pandemic. People were anticipating that they would be able to travel after the pandemic started to fade. Now, there is no way that the average person will be able to afford to go anywhere. This will cause inflation to go completely out of control. It won’t be long before companies start adding fuel surcharges. The price of anything that needs to be shipped will go up. I had to stop driving to make sure I have enough money to pay for food and utilities. I go out to the garage and start the cars to keep the batteries charged. I plan on buying a battery maintainer soon so that I won’t have to do that. There is less than a half a tank of fuel in each vehicle and the price of gas has been increasing daily.
Not everyone can stop driving. But if enough of us can, it will help lower the demand for gas. Unfortunately, gas isn’t the only thing impacted when the price of oil goes up. There are thousands of other things made from oil and they will all be increasing in price. This will be far worse than the financial impact of the pandemic. I don’t see any way that the US government can stimulus check us out of this one. They haven’t recovered from the pandemic’s financial disruption. The US needs to become energy independent. You would think that electric vehicle companies like Tesla and Proterra would see a surge in sales when the price of oil increases. But instead, Tesla stock is down over 10 percent in the last month. We need to use this situation as a catalyst to move our country rapidly away from being dependent on foreign energy. The people who can afford to buy a new electric vehicle will be trying to do that. Unfortunately, I will be trying to save money for basic living expenses. This will most likely be yet another year of being stuck at home without being able to travel.