So you say gas is expensive?

[dong20]

Thanks for that! Laugh of the day.
Gasoline costs about 10.10 USD per US gallon here. My Focus takes over a 100 bucks to fill the tank. I wish we had 3 dollar gas!

When adjusted for inflation, Americans are current paying near historic highs. About the same as in the early 80's. But with wages and salaries having increased in real terms, it means the average person works fewer hours to fill the gas tank.

I had you in mind when I posted about Turkey. People have short memories and selective though processes - the price of petrol in the US today is far lower now than it was during the 80s and 90s relative to income.

 

[vince]

I'm trying to find an article about the hours the average wage earner needs to work to buy various consumer items. Such as houses, cars etc. I read a few years ago, that over time, the cost in hours worked for most things has fallen. Housing and taxes were the exceptions. If I can find something I'll post it, because it was quite interesting.

In 1994 a grocery basket of item in Washington DC cost 2.5 hrs to earn. In Brazil, for the same stuff, it was 12 hrs. In most of the rest of the world the cost was over 5 hrs.

 

[titanya]

Great post **z* **** :wink:

Oh to live somewhere where I could drink water from the tap again. I even have to use bottled water in the kettle to make tea and coffee and in the pots to cook. No way would I buy bottled water if I didn't have to :frown1:

Try moving up the hill a bit to where I live then :biggrin1:

 

[DaveyR]

Try moving up the hill a bit to where I live then :biggrin1:

No it get cold up there at night. I like the constant temperatures on the coast :biggrin1:

 

[Jason]

UK costs are astronomic compared with US.

Looks like this thread has done petrol/gas prices.

So how about House prices/real estate prices. Saw a Miami Beach real estate brochure recently and tried to compare with more or less equivalent properties in Brighton UK. I reckon like-for-like Miami Beach is about 40% of the Brighton prices. Unbelievably cheap. No wonder us Brits are busy buying up bargain-priced Florida real estate.

In Britain we've got problems of having run out of space (there's very little land on which to build homes and more and more migrants). We've got high levels of tax (eg tax on fuel) because we have "Big Government" - high taxes for high provision of social services, at least that's the theory.

We also have different attitudes to expenditure. US friends make shopping a hobby, spent crazy sums (in my view) on cars, consumer goods. Okay some Brits do, but most don't.

Many Brits have built up a retirement nest-egg, and the unbelievably cheap real estate prices of Florida and New York city are a big draw, as they offer an investment our high-taxing government can't get its mits on.

 

[D_Ivana Dickenside]

I think gas is expensive, and life sucks with the housing crisis... but I was just looking on CNN, and everyone was blaming companies, the President, foreigners, Jesus, the Muppets... everybody but themselves.

I'm no Republican, I'm no Christian, I hate Jim Henson, and I hate Big Oil... but come on now, people. Pull your heads out of your asses for a second. Do you really need that /second/ 42" HD TV? Do you need your new Saab? Can we all step back and have a little bit of personal responsibility for a moment? What the fuck are people doing with $20,000 in credit card debt? WTF are people doing owning 3 SUVs??? Can we think like normal people for a few years, live within our means and stop all trying to be the Hilton family, or are we just going to cram our arteries full of of this fattening crap and die from an awful fiscal heart attack?

People are complaining about not being able to buy enough fast food/Pizza Hut/Applebees to feed their kids each night because gas costs too much. I have a three step solution to this problem.

1. Pick up your frying pan.

2. Open your refrigerator.

3. Beat yourself on the head with the frying pan until you pass out and stop wasting your money. Why not actually cook something healthy for your kids? I bet it costs less...

And I'm not a hypocrite on this, btw. Other than my XBOX360, I haven't bought a thing for myself over one hundred dollars for the past 6 months... but that's how I roll.

If you do feel you need to have toys, which I don't think there's anything wrong with, please don't go crazy and then blame it on the government or something when you know you're just an idiot with money and shouldn't be let out of your play pen (other than for the frying pan thing listed above).

(Please note, that this category is for rants. Don't take it personally if it sounds like I'm writing about you -- I'm just sick of people's shit (read spoiled Americans) on this issue and an obvious inability to take personal responsibility.)

i agree with every word you said MCA! pardon my novel, but i have a lot to say about this. like you, i also hate these individuals who make poor choices blame their poor spending on the president and the goverment because they're too ignorant to realize their own stupidity. especially since i grew up in LA and i still live here, i can tell you it's a place full of very stupid and very impractical people. i come across them every day and i just want to smack each and every single person who falls into this category.

the people who blame shit on others are blinded by ignorance. they do not have, nor understand, the concept of self control. nobody tells a person to buy this or that. a person does it because it's their choice!!! sure there are cases where there are forces at work that we can't control, like the economy, but that is a different argument.

now it's my turn to rant about the ignorant choices and people that piss me off:

1.) the morons who complain that they have no money because they work shitty hours and receive shitty pay. yet they still go on a two week vacation with fifty of their friends to some private island resort. wake up! you wouldn't be broke if you understood that you couldn't afford a fucking vacation!!!!!!

2.) that guy who buys the 50 inch wide LCD plasma HDTV blue ray high definition flat screen television that hangs on the wall and has flawless speakers. hell, if it costs a fortune it'd better capable of sucking your cock too.

3.) the number of people who eat out every fucking night of the week. i can't forget to mention the junkies who need their starbucks fix 3 times a day too. will you fucking come to your senses?! that's A LOT of money! if you make your own coffee and go grocery shopping and learn to cook an actual meal, you would save enough money to go on vacation!!! and no, sticking frozen foods in the microwave does not count!

4.) there also wouldn't be so much debt accumulated into bank accounts and credit cards if people tracked their spending and only bought necessities. don't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe on melrose avenue, charge it onto your high interest credit card, then not even wear the damn clothes! this is one of my absolute pet peeves!!!

5.) the morons who down five energy drinks in a row and just toss the cans. think about it: for every drink you have, you can recylce it and get money back! then you can buy more drinks and help the environment at the same time! this also goes for the starbucks junkie. if you made your own coffee instead of spending $4.00 for every cup you bought, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you would save $1,460!!!

6.) oh, and i cannot even begin to explain how many SUV driving fucktards i see every day, with their multiple tv screens, play stations, and 20 inch chrome rims installed into their rides. you're just asking to have your car broken into, ya fucking idiot. it's not the government's fault or some kind of conspiracy that people want to take your shit. listen to me and stop obsessing with pop culture. buy yourself a practical vehicle that helps you save hundreds of dollars on gas.

whew! feels good to get that off my chest.

especially since i've been in LA all my life, i'm amazed that i haven't conformed to the wave of ignorant choices and idiots who spend money they don't have. for instance, i recylce my boxes, cans, paper, plastic, and green waste. i don't buy useless shit and then toss it out the next day or never use it. i don't have an iPod nor would it control my life. i eat at home, cook my own meals, and do take out a few times a month at the most. i manage my money and pay my bills on time. i don't splurge on material items i can't afford. when i go grocery shopping i even bring my own reusable bag so i don't have to take home more plastic bags. i don't have a flashy car (nor do i want one) and i drive only if it's necessary, like to work or to school. i don't even go to the movies anymore and renting is ten times cheaper. those are just a few things to name off.

however, my upbringing has a lot to do with the way that i am. but it's also just common sense not to do things you can't afford and blame someone else when your world comes crumbling down. and for the last time, the choices a person makes is not defined by a conspiracy or the government!!! i wish more people would get it through their thick heads and grasp this concept!

 

[Principessa]

It never ceases to amaze me that people can pay an average of $2.75 for a one ounce shot of espresso, but balk at paying more than $2 for a whole GALLON of gas. Utility of an ounce of espresso vs. the utility of a gallon of gas...

Comparatively speaking, if you were to buy a gallon of espresso it would cost nearly $352. Multiply that by the average 15 gallon gas tank in American cars, and you’re now looking at $5,280 dollars to fill your car with espresso.

Then it's a good thing we use gasoline and not espresso to fuel our vehicles isn't it. :tongue::wink:

 

[B_Marius567]

I just will keep my small 02 nissan frontier to it falls apart !!!!
no 380.00 a month car payments for me

I can get out more and have money for gas

 

[JustAsking]

Stop drinking your fucking bottled water. It's not a fucking status symbol. It's water. In many cases, it's tap water run through a purifier or filer. You want purified water? Buy a Brita or a Pur filter, or if you're really anal, buy a whole house purifier. However, these things aren't necessary. Your municipal water is fine. In fact, it may be cleaner than that $4 a bottle exclusive spring water you're drinking. If you don't like the taste of your tap water, again, get the Brita. Want portable water? Buy a fucking reusable water bottle. Nalgene makes nice polycarbonate ones for camping. Let me reiterate: YOUR TAP WATER IS FINE.

You can bitch and moan all about energy and global warming all you want, but if you're drinking one of those obnoxious bottles of water that people did fine without for centuries, shut the fuck up. It takes a lot of energy and resources to make those water bottles and it costs a lot more money to ship the water around the county, state, region, country, or world. Water is heavy. Go get a gallon of water and lift it. Imagine thousands of those in trucks all over the world and think about how much gas that's wasting.

You like Fiji water? Does it sound sweet, exotic, and tasty to you? A good many people in Fiji don't have access to potable water but you can spend $3 to get water from Fiji that is... guess what? no different from the stuff coming out of your fucking sink.

In conclusion, put your fucking money back in your pocket. turn on your sink, and drink a fucking glass of water, and shut up. Be glad you have nearly-free access to the cleanest water in the world.

Jawohl, mein wasser fuhrer!

Actually, that was an excellent rant.

 

[deleted213967]

...and don't forget to turn off your computer monitors at work and at home when unused...It saves energy and it takes only nanoseconds to switch back on. There is no need to reboot.

 

[Viking_UK]

Good on you, Stacy! Shame there aren't more sensible people like you out there. We're actively encouraged to spend beyond our means just now because that is better for the economy. Allegedly. I suppose that's true because of the import duties companies pay when they bring in stuff made by kids in the Third World who are going blind in sweatshops to make sure we can buy expensive sports shoes and designer gear with a 500% mark-up, not to mention the companies profits on the sales and the credit card companies' profits from our spending beyond our means.

Off on a slight tangent, I head last week that the US is selling cut-price fuel to Nigeria while inflating the price for the domestic market. What's that about?

I drive an SUV (cos I need a big car - low mileage but I need the kerbweight for towing) but it's converted to run on LPG. That used to be really cheap over here, less than half the price of petrol. Now that it's becoming more popular, they're bumping up the price of that too.

I remember a while back going across to Calais. Most of the cars in the supermarket car parks there were from the UK. For many people in the southeast of England, it's cheaper to go across to France once a month to do the major shopping, fill up on cheap fuel and have a day out too. When I was a smoker, I used to buy a case of duty-paid cigarettes in the Netherlands (5,000-odd cigarettes). It was expensive, but only three fifths of what they'd have cost in the UK at the time. The savings paid for the grocery shopping in Calais and a tankful of fuel.

 

[whatireallywant]

i agree with every word you said MCA! pardon my novel, but i have a lot to say about this. like you, i also hate these individuals who make poor choices blame their poor spending on the president and the goverment because they're too ignorant to realize their own stupidity. especially since i grew up in LA and i still live here, i can tell you it's a place full of very stupid and very impractical people. i come across them every day and i just want to smack each and every single person who falls into this category.

the people who blame shit on others are blinded by ignorance. they do not have, nor understand, the concept of self control. nobody tells a person to buy this or that. a person does it because it's their choice!!! sure there are cases where there are forces at work that we can't control, like the economy, but that is a different argument.

now it's my turn to rant about the ignorant choices and people that piss me off:

1.) the morons who complain that they have no money because they work shitty hours and receive shitty pay. yet they still go on a two week vacation with fifty of their friends to some private island resort. wake up! you wouldn't be broke if you understood that you couldn't afford a fucking vacation!!!!!!

2.) that guy who buys the 50 inch wide LCD plasma HDTV blue ray high definition flat screen television that hangs on the wall and has flawless speakers. hell, if it costs a fortune it'd better capable of sucking your cock too.

3.) the number of people who eat out every fucking night of the week. i can't forget to mention the junkies who need their starbucks fix 3 times a day too. will you fucking come to your senses?! that's A LOT of money! if you make your own coffee and go grocery shopping and learn to cook an actual meal, you would save enough money to go on vacation!!! and no, sticking frozen foods in the microwave does not count!

4.) there also wouldn't be so much debt accumulated into bank accounts and credit cards if people tracked their spending and only bought necessities. don't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe on melrose avenue, charge it onto your high interest credit card, then not even wear the damn clothes! this is one of my absolute pet peeves!!!

5.) the morons who down five energy drinks in a row and just toss the cans. think about it: for every drink you have, you can recylce it and get money back! then you can buy more drinks and help the environment at the same time! this also goes for the starbucks junkie. if you made your own coffee instead of spending $4.00 for every cup you bought, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you would save $1,460!!!

6.) oh, and i cannot even begin to explain how many SUV driving fucktards i see every day, with their multiple tv screens, play stations, and 20 inch chrome rims installed into their rides. you're just asking to have your car broken into, ya fucking idiot. it's not the government's fault or some kind of conspiracy that people want to take your shit. listen to me and stop obsessing with pop culture. buy yourself a practical vehicle that helps you save hundreds of dollars on gas.

whew! feels good to get that off my chest.

especially since i've been in LA all my life, i'm amazed that i haven't conformed to the wave of ignorant choices and idiots who spend money they don't have. for instance, i recylce my boxes, cans, paper, plastic, and green waste. i don't buy useless shit and then toss it out the next day or never use it. i don't have an iPod nor would it control my life. i eat at home, cook my own meals, and do take out a few times a month at the most. i manage my money and pay my bills on time. i don't splurge on material items i can't afford. when i go grocery shopping i even bring my own reusable bag so i don't have to take home more plastic bags. i don't have a flashy car (nor do i want one) and i drive only if it's necessary, like to work or to school. i don't even go to the movies anymore and renting is ten times cheaper. those are just a few things to name off.

however, my upbringing has a lot to do with the way that i am. but it's also just common sense not to do things you can't afford and blame someone else when your world comes crumbling down. and for the last time, the choices a person makes is not defined by a conspiracy or the government!!! i wish more people would get it through their thick heads and grasp this concept!

The only one of these things I do is eat out most nights of the week. The reason for that is that I absolutely HATE to cook, and would probably starve to death if I didn't eat out! :biggrin1: (And when I eat at home, it's mainly frozen dinners I pop in the microwave). Actually, I've found that it's actually cheaper for me to do it this way than to cook a full meal from scratch (which is extremely labor-intensive when you live alone, plus the fact that I despise cooking and it takes me about 5 times as long to cook anything as it does most people - those "30-minute meals" take me 2 hours or so to fix. Prep time is very slow for me.

I do have a lot of credit card debt, but most of that is moving expenses, car repairs and dental bills. I also went suddenly from $50,000 a year to $9 an hour with very little warning (and when I did get that little bit of warning, I saved money like crazy). I don't do any other "luxury" things rather than eat out. I'd love to buy a lot of new clothes though! I've bought a few clothes, but I buy them at places like Target and Old Navy, mainly. I live in a 1-bedroom apartment with about 550 square feet. I drive an economy car that is paid off. I haven't had a vacation since 2005, and those were mostly 3-day deals. I haven't had a major vacation since 1997. I did buy a TV in 2006 but it was a $300 TV. (My old TV that I'd had since 1990 finally died and I got a new one to replace it.)

I still manage to pay my credit card bills each month. I was only late paying them one month because my unemployment benefits hadn't gone through yet.

Oh, and I save my aluminum cans too, and when I get enough of them, I take them to a scrap metal place and sell them.

 

[losangelestim]

i thought someone was saying that "ass" was expensive. sheesh.