With the $1 off from our grocery card, we paid .839 for gas today

[Omaha Steve]

The limit is 35 gallons. Between our two cars we got to the limit. It used to be when I had a Cobalt with a smaller tank we would have to put some in a can or two to get to the limit.

OS

[WillowTree]

1. I don't have the first clue what you're talking about......

......but it gives the impression that it's a good thing, so I'm happy for you.

I think.......

[rug]

4. $1.69 in Montague, NJ this afternoon.

[Divernan]

5. Some grocery chains give 10 cents a gallon discount

for every $50 of groceries purchased. If you fill up your tank once a month (like us retired folks sometimes do) and you bought $400 worth of food and stuff at the grocery store that month, you'd get an $.80 a gallon discount. SO Omaha Steve must have had about a one dollar per gallon discount.

[WillowTree]

7. Thanks!

The wondering and alternative imaginings of what it's all about were kinda fun, though. LOL!!

[Omaha Steve]

9. Thanks for answering while I took a nap

Our program is 10 cents for every $100. Prescriptions are worth 50 points each, so we clean up there. A few times a year they have 4 times points on give cards, so a $25 card equals $100 or 10 cents off at the pump. There is no limit on points earned. But the maximum redeemable at a time is $1.

OS

[Divernan]

2. Unbelievable, isn't it?

I take part in this "Christmas Angel" program where kids who are living in a quasi-orphanage type setting/residential facility are able to ask for 3 gifts - and cards listing their first name, age, & the gifts are distributed to people in various civic organizations. My particular group takes 30 cards each Christmas. These kids are not delinquent - just kids whose families are, for a variety of reasons (health/employment related) unable to take care of them - and it's a much better arrangement for them than being in the foster system. But this year, for the boy whose card I had chosen, I had a hard time tracking down the 3rd gift. I finally located one online and ordered it but it was a week late arriving.

(I'm getting to the point here) So everyone else's gifts had been collected and driven to the facility already. I was planning to mail this last present but then realized that with gas so incredibly cheap, it was much cheaper to just drive the 60 miles round trip. I made arrangements to drop it off with his counselor (we don't get to meet the the recipients directly - privacy requirements et. cet., but she invited me to tour the place, and mentioned they were doing a Santa meet and greet for the younger kids, and there were other volunteers doing gift wrapping. She was happy that I asked if I could stay and help. So I went for the day and had the best time. A lot of merchants donate a large variety of stuff, and the kids are allowed to pick 6 items which they will give to their families and friends when they have Christmas visits. So my job was helping the kids wrap these gifts and put gift tags on them, and then piling all of them into these beautiful big Christmas gift bags. They were happily telling me which family member was getting which gift, and I appropriately oohed and aahed over their selections. ("That is SO pretty - your Mom's gonna love it!" or "That is such a handy thing to have - I hope one of my kids gets me one!&quot But the really big deal is that the kids are learning that Christmas (and life!) is about giving as well as receiving.

And that late gift? The young man had requested a Steelers jersey (Polamalu his favorite player, if possible). I was amazed to learn that the official jerseys are like $300. And there weren't very many Polamalu jerseys in a medium at any price - since he's not on the roster this year. But at last I found one for $39. What I didn't realize was that it was coming from Shanghai, China! Which was why it took so long to arrive. I checked it out - good quality - and "John" will be excited. Angels are told we don't have to get all 3 things on the list (John's other wishes were for the latest Guinness Book of World Records and a portable radio/CD player.) But I feel these kids have been let down by life/the system so many times through no fault of their own, and if they are encouraged to ask for something, it's good that someone - even someone they'll never meet, comes through for them. So I picture John on Christmas day, wearing his Steelers jersey, reading his new book, with music playing on his radio/CD player. Pretty nice, huh?

Happy holidays to you and yours, OS and thanks for all your great posts through the past year.
Nancy

[KentuckyWoman]

3. I feel like an idiot.

Never thought of taking both cars to the gas station and fill them both up on my points.


Thanks so much.

[Kingofalldems]

6. Gas prices will be $10 a gallon if Obama is elected!

Said all the righties in 2008.

[roamer65]

8. It's nearing depression levels in western Canada and the Dakotas.

All thanks to the Saudi head choppers decision to manipulate the oil markets. Just wait for the impending junk bond market collapse, all thanks to Riyadh as well.
If oil goes below $30, things are going to get REAL bad.

[metalbot]

11. None of this is Saudi based

The US, and fracturing technology, completely changed the rules of the game for oil prices. The Saudis have been getting rich on their oil for a long time not because they had a huge amount of it, but because they had oil that could be extracted (relatively) cheaply. Fracturing technology allows companies to turn on and off production at very, very low cost compared to traditional wells. The Saudis are absolutely screwed at this point, because their only competitive advantage is completely turned off. The Saudi government is going to be dead broke in 5 years, and that's if you are being generous and don't assume further falls. The Saudis didn't make a market choice to continue to flood production - they had no alternative. The costs of cutting back and restarting are completely prohibitive.

There's not a bad guy to point at here - it's just the evolution of how we extract petroleum, and it's making the Saudis irrelevant (which is actually a good thing in the long run).

[rockodman]

10. Fuel

Saw $1.779 87 unleaded and $1.929 diesel in central NC last Saturday about that in Raleigh now.