We usually fill up our Town and Country at about 1/4 tank, and our fill-ups were running in the mid-$20s for a while.
I had made a mental note that gas would be “expensive” when my fill-up cost over $30.
Today I hit $29.98 with almost 15 gallons. Gas was $2.019/gallon.
People from outside the United States will probably laugh at me calling this “expensive,” since it's about half what it is in Europe. People in California will probably laugh at me, too.
You can take a small amount of gouge at the gas pump by using a gas rebate card. The Chase PerfectCardâ„¢ has been great for me for over a year now — a 3% rebate on gas and 1% on everything else. Very responsive customer service and fraud protection (I had a fraudulent charge and they took care of it immediately). At today's gas prices a 3% rebate amounts to about 6 cents/gallon, or about $1/fillup.
These high prices have been around for a while now, so it's probably not a fluke, and oil's going to get harder to come by, which doesn't do good things to the price of gas. That and summer's here. I expect to break my $30 gas-is-expensive test soon.
In Norway (one of the largest oil producing countries in the world) gas is almost 3 times as expensive as in the US. If we had to pay about $2 a gallon, it would be considered dirt cheap.
Btw, when I was in Venezuela I paid about 25 cent for a gallon. That's the way it should be in Norway too. Expensive gas makes the country expensive. Transporting goods and labour makes all products more expencive.
I belive $2 is a fair price for a gallon – but not more. It's just gas, not gold.
Travelling in the US is still cheap for me. To rent a car is cheap, to drive the car is cheap, buying food is cheap and so on…
A small menu at McDonald's cost about $8-9 in Norway…
In Norway the amout of tax on a car depends on weight, and how powerfull the engine is. The cheapest car in Norway costs about $20 000. If the same car is equipped with a more powerfull engine, it might cost $60-70 000. And it is still a "cheap" car – just faster.
In the US you can buy a Porche, for less then we pay for a medium to good equipped VW Golf….
A litre of cheap vodka cost about $25-30… (and we border to russia where it starts from $1. ( in Spain you have to pay about $5)..
Take a vaccation in Norway – any you'll learn the true meaning of the word expencive.
I lived in Spain for a while, and I had to pay about $10-12 a day to rent a small car. Being used to that price – I was shocked to find out that I had to pay about $300-350 for one day (for the cheapest car they had at the Oslo airport).
But it's not all bad…
We don't need insurance for health and dental care. It is free until a person is 18. After that we have to pay a small fee for healt care (like $70 for a $20 000 surgery). We have to pay 25% of the price the dentist wants – until the age of 25. After that – full price, but it might change..
And school/university is free. It's this way to give all an equal start in life.
Wow Espen. Thank you for the nice comment!
I'm very humbled by your response.
A true story as case in point: I unexpectedly had to rent a (mid-sized) car while on vacation last week. I was absolutely fuming mad about how much it cost: $250 per week.
In retrospect, that's still less than it cost you to rent yours for a single day.
I had absolutely no reason to complain. I'm such a spoiled American. *blush*