Happy almost end of the work week. Here's what you need to know before you head out for the weekend:
People aren't cutting back even though gas is almost $4 per gallon.
Finding a summer job could be tough this year.
York Water investors to get a dividend payment.
The government is investigating the oil speculators.
The government has been investigating oil speculators for the past six month, it revealed today. Not many details were released, but the focus of the investigation is possible price manipulation.
Oil prices are up 42 percent since December. See article here.
My wife and I don't get to the movies very often, but we were talking for months about going to see the new Indiana Jones flick. Then, those who went before us had a warning: Don't waste your $9.
Wait, what did they say? The movies are $9 per ticket?!!! Definitely not going now, especially with the reviews I've been hearing from people I trust making it sound like Rocky V.
So instead of the relief from day-to-day monotony found in a cinema, I took my fly rod and waders and took off toward Delta, stopping just short of the hamlet for a little Sulphur and Rusty Spinner action on Muddy Creek near Bruce. I already paid for my fishing license, so it was free.
Well, pretty much free. It used to be pretty much free.
Worst way to start the morning ever:
Check out this cool map to scope out where the area's cheapest gas is. How far are you willing to go to save a few bucks at the pump?
| Pennsylvania Gas Prices provided by GasBuddy.com |
| Click here to add this map to your website. |
So I went home this weekend and visited a friend of mine who is into demolition derby. He's working on a car that runs on alcohol because it supposedly lights on fire less easily (I've been to his demo derbies, and that's a large problem).
Anyhow, he said the fuel is cheaper than gas -- only $3 per gallon. Wow, I thought, why doesn't everyone start doing this.
Then, like the ethanol boom that hasn't been, he dropped the other shoe. His car eats alcohol about three times faster than gas. So it's actually about $9 to do what $4 gasoline would do.
Do you think we'll ever come up with an easy alternative to gasoline?
Weis grocery stores have started a new gas incentives program that runs until the beginning of July.
Customers who spend $50 in one purchase save 10 cents per gallon. Spend $100 in one purchase and save 20 cents. Etc. Etc. Basically for every $50 you spend in one purchase at the store, you save 10 cents at the pump.
This differs from the store's last incentive where customers earned 10 cents per gallon for every $50 they accumulated in a given time period. Customers could spend $5 one day and $10 another and those amounts were totaled. For every cumulative $50 spent, customers saved 10 cents.
Which program do you prefer?
I hope you all enjoyed your day off and celebrated outdoors in style. We certainly had the weather for it. But now it's back to reality and time to chug our way through a short work week.
Here's a look at what's coming up.
You may remember last week I posted about the free gas contest that started yesterday at Rutter's. You can find more info here.
Dress for Success is holding a fundraising event on Sunday June 1. The Afternoon Tea is from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn East on Lindle Road in Harrisburg. For more information about the event, check out the organization's Web site.
If you're interested in networking opportunities, check Sunday's Money and More for a list of the groups meeting this week.
Another week's just about over and we have a long, holiday weekend to look forward to. I'm excited and I'm sure you are too.
But before we part ways until Tuesday, here's a quick look at the top business news.
For hundreds of years we have been discriminating against the blind.
No one is buying high-priced clothes because the economy stinks.
Hate to beat a dead horse here: Oil prices are up.
Let's add another fee to air travel.
Nothing like high gas prices to make me want to get away this weekend.
If that news all depresses you, just think in a few hours you can be sipping one of these in one of these.
Hybrids may have been hip, trendy cars a few years ago, but now for some people they are becoming a necessity as gas prices continue to rise.
Because they are in such high demand, car dealerships are seeing them fly off the lots.
One dealer quoted in this story said, "I'm selling every one I can get my hands on. The day the car comes in is the day the car goes out,."
He has a 30-day wait list for the Prius and only one Camry hybrid left on his lot.
Have you considered buying a hybrid to help with the gas costs?
Apparently it's not worth it anymore to let your engine run when you are stopped instead of idling it. Modern fuel injection takes care of those problems, so just turn your engine off when you're going to be stopped for more than a few moments.
That was just one of the good fuel-savings tips in an article I saw on CNN this morning.
The list was one big duh (don't tailgate or drag race away from traffic lights and stuff like that) until I got to No. 5. That one was a paragraph filled with a bunch of old wives' tails about idling your engine that were contradicted. No. 6 wasn't bad either.
To see the list, click here.
No, it wasn't in the middle grade or premium column. It was for regular. Saw it on my way in to the office this morning on Carlisle Road.
If you didn't file your taxes electronically the last time around, your stimulus check is coming in the mail, but it's taking longer than those getting direct deposits because they did file electronically.
I just wanted everyone who is electronically challenged (like me) and back-burnered to know that the checks are finally showing up. I got mine yesterday in the mail. What glee! I'm rich!
I began thinking about all the things it could pay for:
* Three months of car payments
* Three months of student loan payments
* A month's rent
* Utility bills for the next two to four months
"Wow," I thought. "I'm on easy street. No bills for a full month, I can go out and stimulate the economy by buying crap I don't need."
Technically the free gas giveaway at Rutter's doesn't start until next Monday, but I still wanted to fill you in because right now I love the thought of free gas.
Basically if you stop by a Rutter's from May 26 to Aug. 24 and buy select convenience store specials you receive an entry form. The more entry forms you collect the better chance you have of winning.
There will be four drawings to select the four winners.
You can check here for all the details on how you could possible win a gas card worth more than $8,000.
Just before you leave work, here's the big biz stories of the week.
Oil prices keep climbing.
Who's surprised the Saudis aren't going to produce more oil?
We're not going to put oil in reserves anymore.
Pamper the cows and they'll produce more milk.
Craigslist is throwing punches.
When our religion reporter was at the gas station this morning, she heard one customer saying he put more than $73 worth of gas into his tank. Ouch.
When money gets tight, you'd be surprised what you can do yourself. My colleague here on the business staff broke his lawn mower the other day, and it sounded like a simple fix, so I decided to help him out with it last night.
It was either that, or he would have to pay a few hundred dollars for a new lawn mower, or get put on a two-week waiting list at the local repair shop.
No offense to my father and mother, my sister, and my new cousin-in-law. But I don't want to drive an average of 400 miles per weekend to see them for the rest of this month.
But these people are close to me. They are family. I want to cut out the driving, not seeing them.
So really, what are my options here?
I'm trying to get as much mileage as I can out of my trip to Europe last month. The way the economy is going, it's the last time I'll be there until after I'm dead. And that's only if I get cremated and my ashes get blown all the way across the Atlantic.
Anyway, they have a lot of these Smart cars over there, and I think the coolest thing at first glance is that you can back into a parallel parking spot, with your bumper to the curb and the hood toward traffic. And you still don't stick out any farther than a normal sized car.
I wanted one.
Then I got back to the states, and realized why no one has one here: SUVs.
Call me a conspiracy theorist. But, it seems odd that now, when people have started to receive their tax rebate checks, that gasoline prices have started to drop. If one were to speculate, one could deduce that the fall in gas prices are working to lull people into a false sense of financial security allowing them to be more free with their discretionary income, or tax rebate funds. It's just a theory. What do you think? Will gas price jump again?
Did anyone notice that regular gas prices have dropped? Local regular gas prices dropped 0.3 percent today from a Wednesday high of $3.644 to $3.633 per gallon, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Do you think gas prices will continue to drop or is this just a minor speed bump on our way to $4 a gallon?
