Am I Dreaming? Gas is going down?!?

The nice part about working 8 miles away from work is that I fill up only once a week. The bad part about filling up once a week is that it still costs an arm and a leg. (You'd think a 2003 Neon would be more fuel efficient than it truly is.)

So lately I've noticed that gas prices have dipped some. I'm not the only once that has noticed this. It's true--gas prices have fallen for 20 days in a row. This must be a record for 2008.

I should probably fuel up before reality sets in and I wake up again. It's sad that I dream of cheap gas.

Cash or Credit Fiasco of 2008--I'm At War

I never thought we'd again see the day when the form of your payment dictated the total of your purchase. I thought the credit card companies had put an end to that with their merchant agreements and, in general, the market dictated that such a charge was not acceptable.

So imagine my surprise when my local gas stations start conning people by posting different prices for cash and credit. And not just a couple of cents--at least 10 cents a gallon. I thought this was a local thing, but it turns out it's happening everywhere. The same price cash or credit mindset is gone.

I haven't paid for gas with cash in years. I kind of refuse to start now.

But then I went through my local McDonald's drive through last week and was blindsided by a sign which told me that paying by a credit or debit card would cost me an additional $.25. WHAT? Outrageous!

So what did I do? I paid it.

But then I picked a fight.

Not only did I report them to the credit card companies, but I called the McDonald's headquarters when I couldn't get through to the local store. Within days I had a call from the local store's manager. And this week, CVD told me of a small victory. I think. The store has stopped charging the fee. Instead, like the many gas stations in my area, there is now a different price for cash and credit.

When will this end? The whole point is that merchants get more money when they allow credit purchases because we are becoming a cashless society. Plus, when people aren't constricted by cash on hand, they spend more.

So tell me, why are we paying the merchants to use credit cards when the deck is already stacked in their favor? And why aren't the credit card companies enforcing their merchant rules?

Perhaps because the credit card companies, like the merchants, don't have the consumer's best interest in mind. (BLASPHEMY!) Perhaps, because they don't understand that the consumer can only take so much and that, in the end, they are only hurting themselves.

Perhaps the world has just gone mad.

So here is my approach:
1. Report all merchants I visit that use such an improper system.
2. Chose gas stations who just have one price.

That's all for now. I'm sure there will be more.

Speaking of being sad

How about the fact that gas now costs more than lunch? Or dang close to it. The Michigan state average for a gallon of the black gold is now going for an average (meaning there are some lower and some higher) of $4.10 a gallon.

I never thought I'd be saying something like this at such a young age, but here it goes: when I started driving, gas was about $.88 a gallon. That means, in the ten years I've been driving there has been an increase in the price of gas of over four and a half times.

Long gone are the days of filling up on spare change.