gas or Starbucks?
There’s not a person alive not feeling the pinch of effing ridiculous gas prices. The fine folks at ecofriendlydriver.com posted about how people are cutting back on their daily latte in order to afford gas for their vehicle. (I’ll post the post at the bottom of this post. How very strange that last sentence looks.)
One person commented how one of the top 10 ways to save money on every top 10 list made, be it by Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey or the-financial-advisor-of-your-choice, is to cut out your daily trips to Starbucks. Which is all fine and good, but I know several people who pay their bills because people make daily trips to Starbucks, and they are also feeling the pinch from everyone else feeling the pinch. Less people are coming, which means less sales, so they’re losing hours, losing tips, and the pressure increases. Not many people think about them - not that I’m saying peopel should go into debt to maintain their daily latte so my friends get more hours, but just a thought to remember the “little people” behind the counter.
So what kinds of things have you done to accomodate the pinch? We’ve:
- cut out eating out as often (but when we do we’re tipping more, b/c we figure, like our Starbucks friends, those waiters are feeling the pinch of people cutting back)
- aren’t going to movies, bowling, putt-putt golfing, etc and instead opting for watching TV or playing video games or board games at home (which requires no use of gas…). We’re renting movies, and to save even more gas money, doing it through iTunes (boy are those Apple people brilliant).
- i will spend 5 hours shopping and running errands so I only have to make one trip. And no more frivolous spending.
What kinds of things are you doing?
If I could find the actual Kelley Blue Book article I’d give it to you, but alas - I cannot. Here’s the post from ecofriendlydriver.
Gas Prices Killing Starbucks, McDonald’s
I just thought this was an interesting thing to have in a survey. :p Kelley Blue Book performed some market research in regard to new car buyers’ other spending habits as gas prices have risen.
60% say they are eating out less often*
44% are taking fewer vacations
28% are buying fewer or have stopped buying any DVDs and CDs**
28% have stopped going to Starbucks, with another 21% saying they’ve cut back
Tom said,
June 20, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Everyone’s cutting back. I was working retail this past holiday season. Let me tell you, it was the slowest holiday season ever. We didn’t get a rush of people like we always did around the same time every year. It was weird. But there are some people out there trying to help out drivers. Like Jack-In-The-Box for instance. They’re giving away TWO FREE TACOS to all those who bring in a valid gas receipt. This coming THURSDAY JUNE 26th. Make sure to tell your friends. You all can save your receipts and carpool, bike, run, or walk to your nearest Jack-In-The-Box. TWO FREE TACOS DAY!!!!!!!!! Woooooo, I can’t wait.
check it out here: http://www.jackinthebox.com/twofreetacosday
(Offer available in these states: WA, CA, NV, AZ, HI, ID, OR, TX, and these cities: Charlotte NC, Spartanburg NC, Greensville NC, Baton Rouge LA, Nashville TN, St. Louis MO, Salt Lake City UT.)