San Antonio Express-News 4-18-08
Gas prices
hitting home
As S.A. average sets record, those with debt problems cut back.
VICKI VAUGHAN
EXPRESS-NEWS BUSINESS WRITER
Higher gas prices are hitting San Antonians day after day — the city's average jumped to a record $3.27 a gallon Thursday — and those seeking help with their finances aren't shy in saying how much it hurts.
“We're seeing clients who are paying more for gas than groceries,” said Gina Gomez of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater San Antonio.
When it comes to discussing finances, gasoline prices are a hot topic. “Every single client mentions gas prices and what a toll that has taken on their budget,” she said.
Most people seek help from the counseling service because they want to consolidate several credit card debts into a single payment. Some want help in contacting creditors to pay old debts.
Whatever their circumstances, Gomez is starting to see big changes. Some clients “are taking the truck and trading it in on a smaller vehicle,” she said. Others are carpooling or taking the bus to work a few days a week and using their vehicle the other days.
Still others have sold a vehicle and are making do with a single car, she said.
San Antonio gasoline prices now are 36 cents a gallon higher than after Hurricane Katrina, which knocked out most of the nation's Gulf Coast oil production and refining in the fall of 2005.
And, unfortunately for everyone who drives, high gasoline prices aren't likely to ease much, at least until June. The higher price of crude oil — which traded for a record $115.54 a barrel Wednesday —and demand that is expected to rise over the next few months are pushing prices up, the Energy Information Administration said this week.
That higher demand “will likely take retail gasoline prices to $3.50 per gallon and above, even if year-over-year gasoline demand is negative,” said the EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Also, summer gasoline blends are more costly to make, so that pushes up prices at the pump, the EIA said.
Gomez, a certified credit counselor, said she's cut back: “If we don't need to be there, we don't go.” She and her family have walked to a nearby park instead of driving. And it really helps, she said, “that I'm not too far away from my job or my son's school.”
vvaughan@express-news.net