Hoarding Gas: Is it really worth it?

Everywhere you turn, someone is complaining about the outrageous prices of gas. Yet, there is very little we can do about the whole situation. For as long as I have been driving, prices for gas having been rising and falling and rising and falling. It a part of life we all have to deal with.

Yet, as prices continually rise, so do the comments about someone being “raped” by the simple act of filling the gas tank. I can’t say I blame them. The amount of gas that is consumed and used on a regular basis is substantially lowering the amount of money in my bank account! Yet, my income does not increase. Therefore, the rise of gas makes a person have to stretch their dollar even further than ever before. That will make for some real cranky people.

A few months back I received an email. This email was intended to not only inform people, but to put a lighter note about the rise of gas prices that everyone is complaining about. It was a real eye-opener for me, and I hope it will be a real eye opener for you as well.

Obviously, the prices for certain products may vary a little depending on the city and the state, but overall, the price per gallon is obviously reflected. And while I am still cranky about the rise in gas prices, it makes me happy I don’t have to use any of these other products to run my car.

It also makes me wonder why people aren’t complaining about the price of that bottle of coke they purchase daily for lunch. After all, they don’t propose boycotting that bottle to get coke companies to lower their prices, yet, the same doesn’t hold true for the gallon of gas. Is it because gas is a necessity to get back and forth to work, while coke is just something we want, but don’t necessarily need? After thinking about it, does it make much sense?

Bottle of Coke 16oz $1.59........ $12.72 per gallon

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29 ............. $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19 ...........$9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 ........ $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 ......... $10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 ...... $33.60 per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 ..... $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 .. $123.20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 ....... . $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 .....$84.48 per gallon

Evian water 9 oz $1.49..$21.19 per gallon

Printer ink @3.3oz at various prices… @$5,200 per gallon!!

What other products can you think of that are this outrageous per gallon?

Now that I have you thoroughly steamed about the rising costs of gas you are probably wondering what you can do about it. One thought that comes to mind is hoarding gas while it is still inexpensive enough to hoard. After all, with the national average, as of today (Feb. 23, 2011), being $3.19,(check out current averages here) it is more affordable now than it will be in 2012, when they predict gas prices to average at $5 per gallon. So what is the problem with this?

There is many problems to this hoarding, the first is that it won’t solve anything. After all, unless every person in the United States decides to hoard gas, enough which will allow them to survive for at least a month period of time, were no one will need to buy gas for at least a month, and everyone stopped buying gas at the same time, one person hoarding gas will be very insignificant to change anything. Even if this were to happen, it would be difficult if not impossible to coordinate this effort with the billions of people that need to be involved. The second problem, even if this happened and did work, once gas prices dropped, and people felt comfortable buying gas again, the pure act of buying gas again would immediately cause the gas prices to rise once again. This would put us right back to the same problem we were already having!

The next problem is purely a cost issue, which is the whole reason why the rise of gas prices is so irritating to people in the first place. They don’t want to spend the money. So, hoarding gas, which will be downright expensive to do, is probably more expensive then paying the gas prices of today.

Take this for example:

Say your vehicle held 15 gallons of gas. You use at least one tank of gas a week. To make it manageable, you would need three 5-gallon gas cans to fill up that one tank of gas. With an average of $10 per gas can, you would need 3 gas cans just to make it through one week… 12 to make it through one month. If you wanted to be able to go a full 6 months without having to buy an ounce of gas, you would need 72 gas cans. At an average of $3.19 per gallon of gas, how much would hoarding cost you?

To hoard for 1 week, it would cost you… $47.85 for the gas and $30 for the containers = $77.85

To hoard for 1 month, it would cost you… $191.40 for the gas and $120 for the containers = $311.40

To hoard for 6 months, it would cost you…$1148.40 for the gas and $720 for the containers = $1868.40

To hoard for 1 year, it would cost you… $2296.80 for the gas and $1440 for the containers = $3736.80

Doesn’t that show you hoarding will actually become more expensive than just buying the gas? And we haven’t even discussed the issue of storage. Now I do understand the gas containers can be reused, but to hoard, you will need to have enough gas containers to get you by for a certain amount of time. Eventually you will have to refill them with the much higher gas prices. Now wouldn’t you rather have a slightly smaller shock at the pump than filling up all those gas containers? After all, an upfront cost of just $47.85 is alot easier to stomach than $191.40

Now that you see the numbers, has your perspective changed a little bit. By no means am I suggesting people should not be angry about the price at the gas pumps. It is downright ridiculous. After all, for the majority, gas is a necessity. We need it to go to work, so we can pay our rent and we can buy food. It really is a necessity. Not all of us are so lucky to be within walking distance to our job.

The problem is, there seems to be very little we can do to have much effect on the gas prices. So, the next time you hear someone complain about being raped at the gas pump while they are drinking their bottle of soda, you can laugh, knowing how happy you should be that our cars run off gas and not Coke!