Don’t waste gas just because it’s cheaper

There is a silver lining to the recession:  gas is about half as expensive as it was just a year ago.  (It's just north of $2 per gallon around here.)

It didn't seem to get high enough for people to change their driving habits drastically — people were still sitting in the parking lot idling when it was over $3 per gallon — but it did get our attention.

A few days ago I drove to work with the window down to cool off the car instead of turning on the AC.  As I drove past the gas stations it got me thinking:  This recession is probably going to be the last hurrah for cheap gas. Oil prices, and gas prices, have nowhere to go but up:

• We'll have a recovery (eventually). This will be a long, and hard, recession, but we'll get out of it.  Once demand for “stuff” picks up again, we'll need energy (oil) to get that stuff from one place to another.  That will drive its price up.
• We'll have rising prices due to inflation. (Rising prices and inflation are not the same thing.)  All of that money that's flooded into the banks over the past nine months will eventually be lent.  More dollars chasing the same amount of goods means prices rise.
• We'll have rising prices due to dwindling supply. It's not quite true that we'll have more dollars chasing the same amount of goods.  They'll be chasing fewer goods, specifically oil.  In the long run, $4 gas will appear cheap.  $2 gas will have been ridiculously cheap.

Continue to minimize your gas expenses. There's likely not much that can be done to slow the eventual end of plentiful oil, as one person conserving enables another to guzzle.  The best that can be hoped for is to minimize your expenses to improve your bottom line.  Heck, pretend gas is $15 and sock away the $13/gallon.

Or roll down the window on a beautiful day instead of turning your car into a meat locker with the AC.