What gas costs you....

[suspectnumber961]

[redpoint5]

At this rate alternative energy sources will appear sooner rather than later. Another decade perhaps?

[sid]

Since 2000, my cost has been approximately steady at less than 5% of my income, mostly because my gas use has dropped at about the same rate as the price increases. This drop in gas use is due to better driving habits, less miles driven, a more efficient vehicle, and vehicle mods.

The same has been true for electricity costs: I'm paying much less for electricity now than in 1980, when I bought my house, due my energy savings improvements far exceeding the increase in electricity costs. And with regards to both driving and home comfort, I am just as happy with my life now, maybe more so, than at the start of these time periods. So improved energy use does not mean extreme sacrifice or hardship. Most of the energy most of us use is just purely wasted and contributes little to improving our lives.

[jamesqf]

Bad title. It's not what gas cost me, but what gas costs the average American. Between having bought an Insight in '03 and moving to full-time telecommuting (and, it must be admitted, a somewhat higher than average income), I spend well under 1% of my income on gas.

Like Sid, much the same is true of my electric & heating costs: efficiency improvements have outweighed price increases. When I bought this place in '98, my electric bills were $50-60/month. Last month I saw my first sub-$40 bill (though alas, it's back up to $43 this month). And a good bit of my gas bill goes to hauling firewood for the wood stove, but it's still way better than burning 500 gallons or so of $4/gal heating oil.

[Arragonis]

Its an interesting statistic but I always wonder how these costs are calculated - what is the source ?

In this case it is a "census", so taken where ?

At a shopping centre / mall ?

At a workplace ?

In a city vs in the country ?

Also (assuming this is USA) which part ? - there are a lot of travel demographics in different parts of the colonies as I understand it from visiting there.

Just wondering.

[Old Tele man]

...here, I thought you were going to show a picture of a one-legged man, with no arms (wink,wink)!

[Frank Lee]

...and yet the Murricans still run out in droves to buy up SUVs and pickups every time gas prices (temporarily) drop.

[redyaris]

Although the graph is very pritty, it is ambiguos about what is changing. Is it income, the amount of fuel purchased or the price of fuel? It could be all three variables changing with respect to time. I love statistics but without the full study one can not tell what is being said/demonstrated...

[Ladogaboy]

Also, I seem to remember that, at the point at which the chart begins, gas in the U.S. was at a very low point < $1/gal. Seeing as there has been nearly a 400% inflation in the price of gas, the increase doesn't seem so bad.

[jakobnev]

Having your balls groped and you water thrown away at airports.