What exactly can you really do to stop using gas right now?

[noahmijo]

Right now I commute to school and I live nearly a 30 mile round trip.

Okay that's not fully my choice since I live with my parents and they happen to live in the boonies and I can't afford my own place. I graduated already and am currently attending community college for technical courses so that maybe I can get a job since my 4 year degree alone has not been enough.

Okay anyways what I do is I drive for a total of about 7-10 miles per day on my motorcycle or on rainy days a prizm and I park and hop on a bus for the rest of the trip to and from school.

I should mention that I carry tons of stuff since my day starts early and ends late at night I can't exactly bicycle all this stuff even to the park and ride.

It's incredible to me how little I spend on gas and the ratio to month bus fees to how much I'd pay in gas is quite staggering (I pay $14 a month normally $28 but I have my father get the pass for me using his county employee discount)

Anyways there's little more I can think of to do in my situation. Riding a bicycle that far is just way too much.

I know people who live in the city can get away with nothing but a bike or their own feet but those of us stuck out in the middle of nowhere..well it's kinda hard...

[petronius]

1. Well, I could not eat this burrito I just heated up...

...wait, wrong question.

Where we're at, I think we've cut our direct fuel consumption about as much as we can (in CA, you don't have a lot of options in some places). One indirect thing to think about would be how much gas goes into what we buy - everything that is not produced locally must be transported, with often significant energy costs. Conserving electricity also conserves oil upstream from the plug...

[LiberalEsto]

2. I lived through the 1970s gas crisis

These are some things we did back then:

-Try not to use the air conditioning since it reduced mileage.

-Keep tires properly inflated to increase mileage.

-Don't haul unnecessary heavy stuff around because that reduces your mileage.

-Don't drive faster than 55 mph. This is the recommended speed for optimum gas mileage. Speed limits on all major US highways were lowered to 55 mph in response to the 70s crisis.

-Carpool or take public transit when possible.

-Combine errands and do one big grocery shopping a week instead of several small trips.

[Heddi]

3. I hear you loud and clear

If I still lived in SEattle, I could at least take the bus to and from school, etc.

However, I now live in eastern Washington in a city that has no bus service (it does have bus service but it is so intermittent and has such a limited schedule and route that it is PERFECTLY unusable by 90% of the people in this city. Oh and the busses don't run on Sunday, and stop running at 6pm)

We rarely drive, although I do have to drive to school (about 3 miles). Because of the way the roads are here, it would be an utter death wish to ride a bicycle out here. Honestly. I'm not a skilled-enough rider to make my way to and from without seriously getting killed. People out here don't know how to share the road with cyclists and there are frequent cyclist fatalities because of drivers who don't knwo it's illegal to run bikers off the road, etc.

We don't run the AC in the car (Even tho the temps are over 100 out here regularly).

WE don't have AC in our house, and cut off our gas heat at the end of last winter. We plan on getting oil-filled space heaters to heat our house this winter--the gas bill PLUS the electricity needed to run the furnace was WAY high--minimum $100 a month for gas, and then our power bill increased by about $100 a month as well.

Thankfully we don't have gas-run appliances like stove or hot water heater.

We run as few errands as possible, and do them all at once if we can.

We've already noticed an increase in our grocery bill over last month, even though we're buying LESS food than we did a month ago because our garden veggies are harvestable. however, we still pay more for less food.

I hear you. Living in the middle of Rural America leaves people like you and me few options. You can only cut back so much, cut back your driving so much....

Gas in my area went up .10 overnight. I expect it to be $3.00 by Monday at the latest.

---

3 years ago, we had to FORCE our tank to hold $15 worth of gas---and it would only hold that much if we were on the fumiest of fumes.

Today, $15 only got us less than 1/2 a tank. It would take around $32-$35 to fill the tank.

We have a small mazda protege. Gets around 30+ miles city (the only way we drive). I can't believe it takes $30 to fill MY fucking tank. I don't have an SUV---only SUV's can hold $30 in gas.....

[noahmijo]

4. We don't even have AC either we use a swamp cooler

but I live in southern Arizona...so Swamp Cooling is like slow torture...

Seattle eh? I'm looking to move up there for the better weather and opportunities it seems to hold (I am of the rare breed that hates blinding scorching sun on a daily basis I want rain and green surroundings 24/7 grey skies don't concern me but skin cancer does)

[Heddi]

7. Seattle is nice

I don't know if you're lookign to buy or rent---rental prices (for apartments) are around $800-$1200 depending on where you live, size of apartment or house, etc.

Buying, though---don't expect to pay LESS than $300k for anything close to the city that is habitable. A friend of ours lives in Ballard (just north of Downtown--popular "suburb") and they have a 1 bedroom house with basement. House is maayyybe 1000sf if that. House just got appraised for $365k.

The value isn't in the house--it's in the land. That's what you're paying for.

Living in Seattle for 4 years, and knowing TONS of people owning houses in Seattle proper, in the Eastside (REdmond, Kirkland) and in the country (issaquah, etc), NO ONE paid less than $350k for their house OR condo, and none of thse are (in my mind) the size of house that I would expect to pay above $200k.

BEAUTIFUL city and area though. Best views in the world. I love seeing Mt Ranier hang out above the city on clear days.

Like you, I don't mind cloudy days---sometimes, though, still having to wear sweat-shirts to see 4th of July fireworks gets old---the actual "summer" is maybe 2 months....three months if it's an Indian Summer. Otherwise, very chilly and very rainy. But I don't mind that. Wish the water was warm enough to swim in sometimes :)

What's Swamp Cooling?

[BigMcLargehuge]

5. we had one oil filled space heater, one...

and it cost us a whole lot of money in electricity. Mrs. McLarghuge asked me to post the following -

ok, let them know that by running the oil filled space heaters, their electric bill will go WAY up (like ours did last winter running just one).

[Heddi]

6. It may go up, but it can't be more than it cost to run the furnace

Our furnace is heated by gas, but it takes electricity to run the blower.

Our rental house is small, with alot of doors.

Last winter, we got a $70 DeLonghi space heater that kicked out some MAJOR fucking heat...that allowed us to use the furnace less so our electricity AND gas bill was lower when we did that.

We would set up the heater in whatever room we were in and close off alll the other doors. About an hour before bed, we'd open the bedroom vent (only one that we opened in the house) and would turn on the furnace to heat up the bedroom for an hour, then put the furnace on 55F for the rest of the night.

We've learned to live wearing sweat pants AND socks AND t-shirts AND sweatshirts AND hats AND scarves while sitting around the house.

Once we got the gas turned off at the end of the winter, and just used the space heater to heat us for the last month of winter, our electric bill went down from $175+ a month to $80 a month---AND we didn't have to pay $80-100 per month for gas.

Yeah, the electricity may go up, but not as much as the cost of gas + electricity to run the furnace.

I wish we had a fireplace here....we've got a source for free (or very very cheap) firewood and that would heat up our little house in NO time.

Thanks for the info, though. I'll definitelly keep an eye on the bill once this winter hits