fuel

Rural living in a world with expensive fuel

Posted 5 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer

Frugal Living, Lifestyle, Cars and Transportation

Rising fuel costs are hard on everybody, but one group gets hit especially hard: Rural folks--especially rural folks who work in town. On my previous posts on expensive fuel, commenters have said that, even after doing all the stuff I talked about, they still can't make ends meet. They've got a point.

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What if energy costs keep rising?

Posted 8 weeks 4 days ago by Philip Brewer

Budgeting, Cars and Transportation

I don't know if energy costs will keep rising. Nobody does. Even with recent growth in China, India, and elsewhere, the US still consumes 25% of the oil produced world-wide, so a severe recession in the US could easily cut total demand enough to bring the price down. Recession or not, I think the medium-term trend in energy costs is up. Just in case I'm right, you ought to have plan for that.

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What will you do when gas hits $4 per gallon?

Posted 13 weeks 2 days ago by Paul Michael

Cars and Transportation

The image you're looking at is a classic VW ad from 1979, a response to the gas crisis at that time. I just filled up my tank, and 16 gallons of Plus Unleaded cost me over $52 here in Colorado. If you're in California, you're paying more. Use diesel? I already feel for you. So the big question is, what are you going to do when regular gas hits $4/gallon this summer?

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As the Wood Burns: The Top 3 BioMass Heating Sources Revealed

Posted 29 weeks 3 days ago by Linsey Knerl

Frugal Living, Green Living

CNN predicted a 22% increase in the cost of heating oil this year. Boston was named by Forbes.com as this year’s “Most Expensive Place to Heat a Home.” Everywhere you look, there’s just more bad news on how expensive it will be to heat your home, and frustrated homeowners are turning to alternative heating fuels to help ease the burden of their heating bills.

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Why is bread so expensive?

Posted 34 weeks 6 days ago by Philip Brewer

Food and Drink

Having given us some good tips on dealing with the rising cost of bread, Myscha asked me to provide a bit of analysis on why bread has become so expensive. Oddly, the reasons behind the rise in the price of bread are almost the opposite of the reasons behind the rise in the price of nonfat dry milk that we talked about a couple of days ago.

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Fix energy in tangible form

Posted 46 weeks 1 day ago by Philip Brewer

Frugal Living

They key problem with energy is that it's really hard to store--it's tough to buy energy now and use it later, and most energy storage techniques lose a large fraction of the energy they start with. The only really efficient way to store energy is to go ahead and use it to create something of lasting value: invest in things that embody stored energy.

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Rolling Stone article on ethanol

Posted 48 weeks ago by Philip Brewer

Filed Under: Extra Commentary

Corn truck

In my recent post Plan for expensive fuel, I mentioned sustainable fuels in a somewhat dismissive fashion. I'll have more to say about that eventually, but in the meantime, I wanted to link to Rolling Stone magazine's excellent article on the limitations of ethanol as a replacement for fossile fuels:

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Plan for expensive fuel

Posted 49 weeks ago by Philip Brewer

Filed Under: Budgeting, Cars and Transportation

Gas station sign

Does your budget include a contingency for fuel to get much more expensive? Because it ought to.

I learned about the need for contingencies early. My first attempt at setting up housekeeping took place in 1980-1981, right at the peak of an inflationary spurt that saw the consumer price index grow at 14%. My budget was completely destroyed by prices that went up by more than 1% per month.

So what's your contingency for a spike in fuel prices?

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