Record Heating Prices Likely This Winter

[SummerSailing81]

Well, guys & gals, here we go again. Looks like we're going to need to further tighten our financial belts. :ohno

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/record-heating-prices-likely-this-winter/20070925095509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Maybe we need to make a mass exodus to Florida this winter. DH says we won't be able to turn on the heat until February! :lol2

[HeLivesinMe]

Well, guys & gals, here we go again. Looks like we're going to need to further tighten our financial belts. :ohno

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/record-heating-prices-likely-this-winter/20070925095509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Maybe we need to make a mass exodus to Florida this winter! :lol2



One thing that really helped us was getting a wood stove, and then getting a blower to go with it. Our fireplace is in the garden level of our tri-level home and it was difficult to get the warm air higher than the mid level, but the blower helped a GREAT deal. In our area, we have no burn days, but with the wood stove we bought, we can still burn during no burn days. We also do NOT pay for wood. It's fortunate that hubby works for a lumber yard, and a few times during the winter, he takes his truck to where they keep all the scraps (including the saw dust) and they just dump everything into his truck. We sort it into firestarting wood and keepitgoing wood (familyspeak there) and I just keep the fire stoked through the day (hubby usually starts it before work). I don't know what we're going to do this year since our little one is into everything. Right now we have a plastic fence in front of the fire place, but I'm sure we wont' be able to keep it there, but we need to keep him away from it.

In any event, if you have access to FREE wood (and if you live near a lumber yard, they are HAPPY to get rid of their scraps), then I highly recommend getting a wood stove.

[JenGC]

I wonder if we heated by kerosene if that would be cheaper than electricity. I don't heat by gas at all.

[HSmomto4]

They said this last year and we had a record hot year.

[Issachar]

Hey HeLivesInMe, that is EXACTLY what I was going to post. When we bought our house in 1986, it was all electric. Gas was not even available in the neighborhood. I said no way! We installed a wood stove that is ok to use on no burn days (we only get those in the summer anyway around here) and it heats our whole house. The back bedrooms are cool but that is fine for sleeping. I work in the summer to get wood. In all these years, I bought one cord of wood one time. (Even that is cheaper than electric) The exercise of getting the wood is good for you too. (I mostly split by hand) About 12 years ago, they came through and put gas into the neighborhood. We switched over time to a gas furnace, water heater, dryer and stove. So now we don't use the wood stove as much. This winter is looking very hard financially though so I am already stocking up on wood.

Issachar

[Cindy S.]

My sister got her fuel oil bill last week, $620.00 for fuel at $2.69/gal.

We haven't bought fuel oil in 4 years, we converted to wood and are making use of our 5 acres of woods we bought for recreation/possible retirement, about 3 hrs. away. It's lots of work to cut, haul, split and stack, but well worth it.

[Issachar]

$2.69? wow ...

We lived in Connecticut in the '60's (61-68). We heated with fuel oil. I remember my dad being shocked when it hit .13 per gallon. :)

The good news? The gov't says there is no inflation to be concerned about. :)

Issachar

[Issachar]

Since the residual oil import program was instituted in the spring of 1959, fuel oil costs in New England have increased tremendously. The average price per barrel has increased about 30 cents in just 2 years. Competition in the industry has declined considerably, encouraging high profits for the distributors, and squeezing the poor consumers. The price has not only injured the direct user of residual oil; it has also resulted in higher electric bills in the northeastern area which already has some of the highest power rates in the country. The July 1960, increase of 15 cents per barrel to electric utilities has cost customers of the Central Maine Power Co. an estimated $230,505 in increased electric power rates. http://www.muskiefoundation.org/esm.index/1961/fuel_oil.htm

Cents? Cents?! Who talks sense anymore?

Issachar

[ojibweindian]

Somewhat unrelated, but still valid.

Anways, my wife (a good woman), cannot save a dollar if her life depended on it. Every single time I get to a point to where there's adequate funds in our account, she blows it at Wal-Mart.

Why do I mention this? Wait just a little longer.

I've had several talks with her in the past about how saving is a good thing, and many recent talks trying to explain to her that some serious economic trouble is most likely around the corner (as stated by Greenspan, and other economists and financial experts). Her response continues to be "they've been saying that for years".

She knows that milk, bread, eggs, gas, and everything essential to living has gone up, but she still buys into the belief, disseminated by the FED and the gov, that inflation is low. She also believes that people are earning quite a bit more than they used to. When I try to explain that the purchasing power of the dollar is down, and why, her eyes glaze over. She doesn't wanna hear it.

And that's the problem with things. Lots of nasty things are looming around the bend, in almost plain sight, but the country, as a whole, doesn't want to see it. It's easier for them to stick heads in the sand, and hope that their tailfeathers won't be among the many that'll be clipped when the bottom falls out of the economy.

[Issachar]

In NO way am I pointing a finger at your wife (God forbid), but the principle of what you describe for many Americans is in this, I believe:

Proverbs 6:
6 *¶Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
7 *Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
8 *Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
9 *How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
10 *Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
11 *So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

We might say that we are currently in economic summer. Winter is not too far ahead. We don't know how harsh the winter may or may not be, but it will be.

Issachar