I am as affected by the hike in gas prices as anyone else. As a private citizen and owner of a home-based business, I now think twice and three times about where I need to go, how badly I need to go there, and if there's any way to avoid spending gas money to get there. Since public transport is not an option for me (to be explained in another post, but 'urban sprawl' and a 6-month-old baby is part of it) I am very car-dependent. I now try to avoid unnecessary car usage, and it's amazing how much car usage I now consider frivolous.
As angry and as cheated as I feel by Big Oil, for both overcharging me for gas AND for probably paying less in taxes to the government than I do, there are entire groups of influential commercial interests and associations that should be righteously pissed at Big Oil and the Colluding Government but who are strangely mute about the entire topic. They are not in the media, they are not in the faces of their elected leaders; they are largely silent when they should be using the Power of Many to kick and scream and shout.
I say that because not only am I cutting back on frivolous outings using the car, but I'm also finding it necessary to cut back on spending in my life just to be able to afford the gas for the necessary car travel.Here are a few examples of what I am cutting back on because of the price of gas, and how it will affect other businesses and industries who should be taking notes:
Garden Centres
Flowers are completely out this year. I love my hanging, flowering baskets and colorful planters as much as anyone else, but the flowers have become a luxury item I have to give up partly because of gas prices. I can't afford the gas it takes to drive to and from the garden center, and I can't afford to buy the flowers themselves. My almost complete lack of green thumb and my lifestyle do not allow me to try to grow the flowers from seeds, so I will go without. My home is the place house plants come to die - I have no idea how the few that survive manage to do so - therefore I am not about to grow flowers from seeds. Instead of growing weeds and flowers in the rock garden this summer, I'll stick to the free (and more successful - in my garden anyway) weeds only. The flower/garden industry takes a back seat to Big Oil.
Tourism (Hotels, Restaurants and Seasonal Stuff)
I know I'm not the only one staying home this year. Our annual tradition of driving Montreal-to-Florida is being scrapped this year, so no money spent in the motels and restaurants we use along the way, no shopping spree at the outlet mall, no gas being purchased at all. There's always the parents' cottage, but we'll only make the drive if the weather is guaranteed to be 100% gorgeous, and if this Spring is any indication (thanks, La Nina), the weather will be crappy this summer as well and we'll stay put. We used to go even if the weather was iffy, just for a change of pace and of scenery and to be with family, but not this year. And no spending in mom-n-pop greasy spoons for a hot dog and fries on the way, no attending special events in the village, no nice dinners by the lake. Along with no renting boats, no playing mini-golf, and no paying to spend the day at the municipal beach. And you can forget attending outdoor concerts, festivals and other events as well. There will be no Jazz Fest and no Just for Laughs for us this year. Big Oil wins over the entire tourism industry. Why aren't the major players in the tourism industry not losing their minds over this?
And while am at it... Hey, ski-doo industry: you got pissed off and tried to vilify the farmers who were entirely within their rights to refuse your noisy and polluting members passage on their land last winter. Oh woe, you cried, this is a tragedy as we help drive tourism industry and the economy! The mean farmers aren't allowed to 'hold you hostage' in order to fight for their rights. And yet you don't say a word about the (surely) thousands of people who didn't come out to ski-doo over our pristine landscapes because they couldn't afford to pay for the gas to get there, nor the gas to put into the ski-doo itself. Really, ski-doo industry? Really?
Entertainment
We've drastically cut down on restaurant eats. Going out to eat is rare, and I miss it.
Movies? No way I'm spending on going out to a movie, and I'm not renting them anymore either (much less buying them). They end up online or on the movie channel for free, so why pay to see them, why burn gas to go out to see or rent them? Hollywood, are you listening? Oh and you people over in the music industry can stop snickering, because I'm not buying music either, not on CD and not through iTunes.
And speaking of gadgets...
No new Blackberry, no new and nifty iAnything, no new digital camera, no new anything-than-doesn't-absolutely-need-to-be-replaced. Why aren't Gates and Jobs and Balsillie not saying anything about this? (Maybe because Steve Jobs still made bajillions with the iPad, but he could have made tens of bajillions, dammit!)
New clothes? Spa?
I'll be wearing last year's stuff, thanks. I already chaff at the 200%+ mark-ups in the rag industry, and now that I need to save my gas money, it gives me extra incentive to stay home and away from the mall. And driving around for spa treatments? Uh, no.
Long Live DIY
We will be opening and maintaining the pool ourselves this year, like we've been doing for the past few years. If it were an above-ground pool, we'd have taken it down already and gone without. But the in-ground costs more to take out than to just start up and keep from going green, so we spend the minimum we can on it and cross our fingers that the weather will allow us to use it (we definitely don't heat it anymore). We cut our own grass with a manual (not gas) mower. We clean our own windows, clean our own gutters, and start up our own sprinkler system. And I don't say this because I want pity for taking care of my own damn property my own damn self, I mention this because North America doesn't manufacture things anymore, we are a society that is service-based. So if people stop buying services from gardeners, window-washers and pool maintainers, where does that leave our recovering economy?
Out of the recession?
Harper likes to brag about how Canada is now out of the recession and one of the strongest G-Whatever economies. How nice for him, but it's costing us at least $1000 to $1500 more in gas money this year, so our personal recession is far from over and honestly, it's beginning to feel like a personal depression, not a recovery. And if others are cutting back on tourism, travel and luxury spending like flowers, I'm not convinced that businesses outside Big Oil feel that the recession is over.
It cost us $94 to fill the tank yesterday with the cheapest gas at the cheapest station we could find in our area. It will last us about a week, maybe less, depending on how many business outings we have to make. But ask Big Oil to pay $94 in taxes, and they'll weep you a river of crude (which they will then refuse to clean up or take responsibility for, go on a year later to announce that they made 6 pantillion dollars of profit that year). And all that has Harper's stamp of approval in it.
(On a side note, the environmentally-sensitive woman in me is not unhappy about the change in lifestyle that gas prices have imposed on our family. Some of the changes would be permanent even if the price of gas were to decrease, just because the changes are the right thing to do. But other things? Yeah, I'd like to have flowers in my planters, and cleaning the gutters with my klutzy and accident-prone husband up a ladder is something I'd like to avoid, and something that I'd pay for which has little impact on the ecosystem...)
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