I went to fill up at the pump again today, and man, it's killing me. I feel like I've been violated, and not in the good way! The high gas prices at the pump just keep going up, and I don't feel like I can do a thing about it. I think a lot of people feel the exact same way. High gas prices are bleeding costs over into other areas of everyday life. After I stopped for gas, and got up off the ground where sticker shock knocked me, I went grocery shopping. Yes, I am the man in the family, and yes, I do the grocery shopping. I also do the dishes and all of the laundry. I do not vacuum. It makes me sneeze too much. So you can guess that I don't dust either. However, we are dust in the wind when it comes to grocery prices affected by higher gas. Just where are we feeling the pain?

Milk. Up 50 cents in a week. Bread. 15 cents more. In fact, it seems like everything I once purchased from my list has gone up at least $. 25 cents or more. That ends up being an extra $15- $20 per shopping trip to the grocery store.

Add that to the additional $40 it costs me to fill up my older, but still very fuel efficient mini-van, and my monthly budget just increased by $240. As you can well imagine, I am looking for ways to save money, and stretch that tank of gas into ten days or two weeks.

So I've compiled this list of simple techiniques that I'm using, and every one else can swipe and deploy to cut the amount of gas they use.

NUMBER ONE: Slow down.

Maybe no one remembers when the speed limit was 55 mph on the freeway, but suffice it to say, I was dancing in the street when Congress raised it to 70. (or left it up to individual states.) Or rather, I sped from one city to the other, and marvelled at the ability to make it 30 mintues sooner. But in town- what diffrence does it make?

I get passed by idiots zooming 50 mph in a 35 zone, racing from one red light to the next. Here's a common scenario: I sit calmly at the red light waiting for it to change. Idiot driver one zooms up my bum, slams on his brakes and screeches to a halt millimeters from my bumper. The light changes, I take my foot off the brake, and let the natural idle of the auto carry it forward: idiot driver honks his horn because I didn't jam the accelerator and race from 0-50 in 6.6 seconds. I coast up to 5-10 mph, then lightly depress the accelerator to carry me up to 25-30 mph. I get passed and flipped the bird by I D, who races to the next red light and stops. Meanwhile, I take my foot off the gas and maintain, watching the traffic ahead. The weight of the van slows it down just enough, so that by the time I'm close to the intersection, the light has changed, and everyone has jammed up to 50 mph again. I coast through the light, and repeat this process 8-9 more times on the way to work.

Sure, I don't always time it right. But SLOWING DOWN is the number one thing anyone can do to lower gas prices.

You can also check your tire pressure, check your air filter, remove all the junk from your trunk so you travel lighter, and oh yeah, drop about 20-30 pounds of junk from your waistline so that you're lighter. Also, fill up at gas stations in the morning instead of night, because as gas heats up in the day, it expands.

Now we could argue over the laws of supply and demand, which don't logically apply to the gas crisis. There are supposed to be market forces at work that won't allow the price of gas to go lower than $4 per gallon, now that we're used to paying it. Those market forces are called oil executives, and their companies are pulling in billions of dollars in profits per quarter. They are also using those same profits to promote the search for more oil.

Nevermind that we have enough wind sliding through Kansas, the Texas Panhandle and off the coasts in the Gulf to provide power to everyone in America. And if we slowed down to conserve gas, we might not want to explore those alternative resources, right?! So speed up.

What's going to solve the gas crisis is a combination of alternative efforts, such as solar farms, wind farms and the reduction of use by drivers. There is no one single solution this time. Driving hybrids still pull electricity from the grid, and petroleum products fuel a lot of power plants.

If every single driver slowed down five mph, and turned off one or two lights, we might start to make a difference in usage. You're going to have to learn what I learned. There is no way to control every other person on the road, and all you get from it is a case of angina and road rage. It's pointless. The only person you can control is yourself, and you need to decide how you're going to contribute to saving the world today.

Make it a habit to do one or two small things each day, and if one million people join you, then real change can occur.

Slow down.

Fill up your tires.

Clean your air filter.

Don't drive when you can walk.

Make one trip to the store intstead of multiple trips.

Support local energy initiatives. Turn off lights. Turn off power bandit appliances when you're not home.

What else can you do?