My family and I just drove from El Paso to Albuquerque this past Saturday, a total of 530 miles round-trip. It cost $98.00 in gas. That averages out to fifty-four cents per mile. When I go to work each day it’s twenty miles each way. I am spending about eight dollars a day just to go to work.
Because of the price of gas, everything is going up. If a truck brings it, the price is higher. Diesel is over four dollars a gallon. Anything you buy at the grocery store is up in price, from milk to corn.
Anyone who got a raise in pay for 2008 has seen that raise disappear in the inflation avalanche that has hit all of us. That doesn’t take into account all of the people who have lost their homes due to those adjustable mortgage rates. In some towns one out of a hundred families have lost their houses.
I’m happy to have a decent job but these days you need to earn more just to stay even. It has never been this bad in my lifetime but the government says it will be fine. I do believe that they are wrong. The country is in for a lifestyle change like never before.
Now that I’m old enough and smart enough to pay attention to things like property taxes and retirement funds and my 401K I see how little I’m going to have when I retire in, hopefully, eleven years. Like most folks, I didn’t really start studying all this until I hit fifty. Now I’m all ears. Not much money, but all ears.
How bad has it become? I just read an article that says the price of having a barbecue has gone up seven percent. Is nothing sacred? That’s for your typical hot dogs, hamburgers and side dishes barbecue. Ketchup is up over eight percent. I like a charcoal barbecue so I’m thankful for that. Anyone check the price of propane lately?
I’m not going to go all old-codger and start reminiscing about when gas was twenty cents a gallon and a movie was a dollar. That was when I was making minimum wage, and at the time (1969) that was $1.10 an hour.
It’s simply when you get a little older and you’re staring at what your income will be for the rest of your life that you realize what you’re getting, or not, for your money. Unfortunately, these days that’s not much.
So long, and save up.
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About Me
- Bob Cordell
- El Paso, Texas, United States
- I live in El Paso, Tx and have for most of my life. My wife and I will celebrate our 20th Anniversary this year. We have two kids, a son who lives outside Dallas with his wife, and a daughter who just finished her Freshman year of college. My occupation for the past 28 years has been video production, mainly sports. I find growing older an interesting ride and want to share my experiences with others. Am I any wiser? That's up to you.
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1 comment:
What makes me laugh those is instead of trying to raise the value of the dollar to bring the prices down, our intelligent government wants to sue OPEC...wow doesn't take a genius to see that they are producing the same if not more gas that they have been. It's the fact that the dollar has been loosing value for many years now, not then supposedly cutting us off or raising just our prices. I don't see the UK or Europe wanting to sue them. I agree with you it is getting to the point where you are going to need more then just one "decent" job to be able to pay for a comfortable life style. So sad but so true.
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