Why your going to make it............

What to do about fuel prices and your life:

1. Add up your real costs of eating expensive pastries, cookies, lattes and espressos, cigarettes, alcohol, pop and potato chip type stuff. Got an amount? OK, on to next.

2. Go to your refrigerator, you were going to clean it out today anyway -right? Now throw away anything that is not fit for human consumption. It got old because you keep eating all that junk food above. Add up the costs of your wasted items.
Side note here; real food cost more money than junk food, however, if you eat real food you'll become healthier, and feel better, and probably spend less on meds, quack diets, quack remedies; quack exercise equipment, quack doctors. Overall there is a net savings.

3. Add up the cost of your toys. Adults are just like kids; the difference is, adults don't have anyone to say "no". I just bought a GPS, I seldom use it. I could've gotten by without it. Take an honest look at your toys, if you haven't used it is several months, or it's just a more expensive one than you actually need, figure the difference and come up with a real figure.

4. Hair, nails, clothes; sorry girls, your much more guilty of this than us guys, who're generally slobs. Develop inner beauty, which is much better anyway, and more enduring than outer beauty; this'll save you lots of money. Both sexes can save money with deleting appointments for massage, tattoos, piercings, salons and barbers, gyms. Add the savings in your column.

5. Finally, a reality check. When I started driving, gas was 25cents a gallon (yes, I'm old). Before taxes I made $1.25 and hours. My wages were then five times what a gallon of gas cost! For the moment, fuel is at $5.00 a gallon. Five times $5.00 is $25.00. I still make more money than that, so I figure I'm ahead. This formula works for all dispensations.

We really shouldn't complain about fuel prices, except for Venezuela and a few Arab and Persian countries, ours are still lower than most. With a lot of Americans, the real complaint is this is changing our luxurious life style. Most are only having to sacrifice toys and non-essentials; but the reality, this isn't a sacrifice. I don't think the word actually applies.

I should say, there are many who are deeply affected by rising fuel costs. For instance, people who have no other option for their commute. There are many of these.

OK, got all your figures in the column added up? Apply those saving to your fuel budget, see, you can now afford to make it to the reunion!

One last note: On average, I get 18mpg. Let's say last years fuel cost me $2.50 per gallon. If I had to drive 1200 miles to the reunion round trip, last years cost would have been $170. Now it's doubled. So, that $340 for fuel. $170, I spend more on donuts than that! I gotta tell you, your more important to me than donuts.