by Tammy Sluss

Created on: May 23, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

With rising gas prices, my husband and I have had to cut back on everything from food to sharing one vehicle. Thankfully our work coincides with one another to allow us to use one vehicle. He works third shift and I work days. There isn't much that we can do about it, because we need our vehicle to get to and from work. Which costs us about thirty dollars a day to go to and from work, one hundred and fifty dollars a week and if you keep on adding it costs about six hundred a month. That doesn't include the up keep of our vehicle or groceries. We both live to far away from our jobs to walk or ride a bike. There isn't any public transportation alternatives where we live.

We have four kids, and we live on a budget. But with the increase of the cost of living and the low employment wages, we are struggling to make ends meet. The cost of everything is going up but there is no way that the employer can afford to raise the average wage. Some employers, like my husbands are actually cutting hours which in turn means less money for us to live on. As if we aren't struggling enough as it is.

I see more of a petroleum impact in the price of the foods we eat. Transportation costs have affected the food industry, and for consumers like myself that means higher prices for groceries. Food prices are escalating and continue to escalate, because farmers are having to pay higher diesel prices to fuel their farm equipment. Since the majority of the consumer goods are transported by trucks, the cost of food has been impacted. Hog, poultry and dairy farmers have to pay more for grain to feed their livestock, this also gets passed on to us the consumers. At times I feel like we have to choose between feeding our kids or putting gas in our vehicle so we can go back and forth to work. We can't afford not to have a job with raising our four kids and a mortgage payment. But on the other hand we can't hardly afford to have our jobs.

Facing soaring costs as the price of living continues to rise, we have adapted to some changes to our lives. Although these are just suggestions, this is what my husband and myself has done to help us with the crunch at the pump. You can increase and improve your gas mileage if you get your vehicle a tune up. Changing the spark plugs and the plug wires, changing air filters, oil and oil filters will help tremendously. Also keeping your tires inflated at the recommended level will you save you to. Taking off easy at stop signs and traffic lights won't use a lot

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