Planning Schedules Around Rising Gas Prices

One of the biggest problems that we face today is the rising gas prices and how they affect our ability to get around. When it costs $60 or more to fill up a vehicle it starts digging into already limited budgets and wondering where we can cut back to save money. One of the places we don't want to cut back is our children's activities. It's important for them to have things other than school to go to as it develops not just their social skills but also their self confidence. So, how do we balance our children's needs against the needs of our budget? This becomes especially important in households with more than one child involved in activities as it can involve a lot of trips and not all of them will be on the same side of town.The first thing that we can do is get together with other parents of children involved in the same activities and set up carpooling. This has two values. First, it cuts down on the amount of gas needed by any one family which can make a significant savings especially for activities that happen every day. The secondary benefit is that it saves time since only one parent each day would be doing the driving that allows the other parents in the carpool to focus on other tasks. It also has the added benefit of peace of mind knowing that your child is getting to and from meeting or practice safely. Lastly it frees up the time needed to take other children to activities if you have a household with more than one child. The important thing to remember is that you have to trust the people that you have the carpool arrangement with because if something comes up and they aren't able to fulfill their agreement then your child also won't make it where they need to go so everyone involved needs to realize the importance of the arrangement.Another thing that can be done is to schedule other things in the same area around the same time cutting down on the number of trips needed to get things done. For instance if your child has football in a certain part of town and you also shop in that area do your shopping during the practice so that you don't have to make a separate trip back. This is also another time saver and we can always use more time in our schedules. Or, to save even more gas if your area has a public bus system park at the activity and take the bus to run your errands or do your shopping. This takes a little bit of planning and learning the bus schedule but it is a great way to save gas and still get all your tasks accomplished.It's possible to still lead a full active life and still take your budget into consideration. It may involve a little bit of planning on your part and maybe even a little bit of trust in other people but it still very doable and you'll be able to see the money saving results immediately. It's important to remember though that things won't always go as planned and sometimes we have to have back up plans and a little bit of flexibility for when those little delays pop up.
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