With the rising gas prices (+15 cents in the last week alone, up to $3.47 a gallon today), I was wondering how much I was spending to commute to work every day.

Unfortunately I work in Concord, which is 32 mile round-trip commute a day and there is roughly $1.50 worth of tolls. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a commuter rail or bus between Manchester and Concord.

That means right I pay nearly $6 each day (assuming 24 mpg for my car) for the privilege of working in Concord, about $30 a week, $120 a month, or roughly $1500 a year (I subtracted 2 weeks of vacation time from this total). That isn’t counting wear/tear on my car either.

Ouch!

So now my wife and I are really trying to cut down on gas usage. I pick up anything we need at the grochery store on my way home from work and try to do our errands there. The past two weekends, we avoided driving around as much as possible and stayed home. We have also cut down on going out to eat. I am going to avoid turning on the air conditioner this year as much as possible and use fans. Yet it seems prices for such important things like food are going up nearly as quickly as gas. When will it end?

Makes me wish we had a well developed public transportation system in New Hampshire. So far there has been rumblings about commuter rail and  commuter buses, but I am guessing that is years away from happening. The environmental benefits would be great, there would be a lot less wear/tear on cars, and the roads will be safer (less cars = less accidents).

If prices continue to go up, I think my next step will be to see if I can trade my car in for good mileage sedan. That should help a bit.