Gas price craziness - long term or short term?

[2moretrees]

With gas prices rising by the day, do you think this is going to be a long term situation that I'll need to readjust into my budget or a short term spike that will go down in the coming weeks?

[34saving]

Plan for it in the budget. Worst case you'll have planned for extra and you can put more into savings Plan on LOTS of extra for heat too!

[PRICEPLUS]

I think prices will come down but will be above the two dollar mark permenantly. The SUV craze will be a thing of the past!

[BAGAGT1]

I believe we will be seeing prices hovering over $3.00 for at least a couple of months, at least until the situation in the Gulf is stabilized. I sincerely doubt we will ever see prices under $2.00 again, unless new refinery's are built in North America.

[jmjj215]

do you think we'll see increased demand for alternative fuel vehicles/electric cars/hybrids?

[marglo]

I'd plan it into your budget just in case...although they may fall some in time I don't expect the prices will ever be as low as they used to be. At least not consistently. In our case, it hasn't affected the amount we budget each month because we have been padding our gas/oil envelope for a long time in order to ensure we had enough for our winter (snowbird) trip. But what it does mean is that we may not be snowbirding this winter.

[kashi]

I upped my gasoline budget for the rest of the year to about $140 a month. If I don't spend that, great. I have to get to work, and I can't bike there.

There is already an increase in demand for hybrid cars (years long waiting lists) and manufacturers are slllooowwwlllly creating more hybrid models. I wish they would hurry up and make everything hybrid! In time, I suppose.

[mom-from-missouri]

News this morning said it should start going down, as 8 of the 11 pipelines are now repaired, and running at 60%. By the weekend they should be running at 80%. But, then the same newscast later said gas will continue to rise thru the holiday weekend.
So, maybe it will start to come down after the holiday??? maybe??

[jmjj215]

We could all hedge against continued uptick in gasoline prices by purchasing stock in the petroleum-refining and related sectors I'm thinking of buying some Apache stock.

[BAGAGT1]

Good advice Jesse, for those on the board that are self directed investors, the energy markets are very bullish. I would suggest looking at mutual funds that are heavy in the energy sector, or buy into one of the Energy ETF's like XLE (which is up 31% for the year). I like the ETF's, because they are not as volitale as individual stocks, but have much lower fees than mutual funds.

[larosa7357]

At $3.45 a gallon here on Long Island, I sure hope it's going to be short term. I also hear that the prices are even higher in other areas

Fran