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She puts it so simply and well: "All over the nation, as the gas prices creep up, we're all taking a pay cut." She's right. Salary raises are not keeping pace with the rise in prices at the gas pump and the grocery store. Gas prices jumped 10.5 percent last month, The New York Times reports, compared with an increase of 4.7 percent in April. And food prices rose 0.3 percent last month, which doesn't seem like a lot but they are up bigtime over last year.
Gas prices are hitting people in different regions of the country differently. Nationwide, the Times reports, Americans are spending an average 4 percent of their take-home pay on gasoline. (Remember, that's an average, so you know if feels like far more than 4 percent for many.) But in rural parts of the country, where incomes are lower, people drive in trucks and vans farther to work and shop, the percentage rises as high as 13 percent.
MacLaughlin, who blogs at Suburban Goddess, says she is taking the good with the bad on her pinched budget. There may be no weekend trip with her daughter to Sea World this summer, but she is thinking more creatively about inexpensive activities to do with her and taking full advantage of already paid-for services like their community pool. The result: More fun, quiet time with her daughter mixed with the unwanted money pressures.
Mimi-pz has some good suggestions on Parenting for some fun and cheap activities with the kids this summer. Kids or no kids, we all need to make adjustments in our spending to handle the rising prices of the fuel that makes our vehicles and bodies go.
So this week's Shine Money Poll question: What are some of the changes you are making in your monthly expenses to handle the increase in prices?
