It's time to get back to the regular business, I guess. The business of trying to live within a budget, cutting costs, and making the best of what we have.
Around the country, gasoline prices are on the rise. A couple of days ago, I spent $35 for gas and didn't even fill my tank. Gas prices here are around $3.25 a gallon, and it's predicted to rise even more. What's a person to do?
Once a month, I take a 4 day trip to my Mom's, which is around 85 miles away. She is 88 years old, and will be 89 this week. That's not a trip I'm likely to cut out due to high gas prices. This just means I'll need to cut back further in other areas.
One thing I'm going to do is ask my supervisor if I can work 4 days a week, for 9 or 10 hours on those days. That reduces my driving miles per week by about 30. It's not much, but it's a little and could help for now.
As always, I combine trips. Days that I work, I also may run needful errands in town, since I'm already there. Days I'm off, I stay home. Most things can wait until I have to be at work again, anyway, because I make sure to stay pretty well stocked up here.
I also pay bills online as often as possible. In reality, since I'm already paying for Internet, I might as well make use of that function. I don't have many bills, and most can be paid online. Only my rent can't be, but it can be collected while I'm at work, saving my son-in-law the drive out here and saving me an extra trip to another town to pay it.
While I'm at it, I keep my electric bill as low as possible and am looking at supplementing my power with solar and wind energy options. I would like to be completely off-grid, but that's still in the future.
