What do you think when you see those long lines at the Costco gas pump?

With transportation fuel going above 6 & 7 dollars a gallon, & Interstate Truckers delivering us EVERYTHING we buy - they have to pass double their fuel costs onto us - the buyers. High fuel cost Jack's up costs to make all our stuff, too. Plus our heat, lighting, water pumping to our homes, you name it. Then combine that with a dollar loosing purchasing power? We may ALL be waiting to buy stuff on sale for the best price possible. Anyone who's old enough to have parents or grandparents that lived through the depression can tell you that most people were so thrifty then - they would for example wash off pieces of aluminum foil to use over again. Best not to say, we will 'never' wait.

 

slow down, buy less stuff

 

My parents kept a 3-gallon glass jug full of sugar, sealed with wax, in the basement for as long as I can remember. As the saying goes - Burned Once, Twice Shy...

 

Hey we do that; ditto for plastic wrap.

 

Where did they get a three-gallon glass jug?

I was pretty excited to discover half-gallon Ball jars at the local hardware.

 

Amish or Mennonite Community sellers were our sources for 2 gallon size. For 1-gallon Mason w/screw lids there's Amazon. Any larger we go five gallon food grade buckets with mylar bags inserted with oxygen absorbers.

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Beats me. This was back in the post-war 1940's.

 

Does it have to have a tight lid and have to be made of glass? If the loose lid is all you needed and non-glass stoneware is OK then Ohio Stoneware Co makes an assortment of crocks in sizes from 1 gal all the way to 10 gals. You can order directly from them or sometimes be able to find it on Amazon, but ACE Hardware is the place you can order and pick it up locally. Amazon shipping has delivered us several shuttered crocks. We have 2 gal, 3 gal, and 5 gal crocks used for a variety of homemade fermented probiotics such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and miso.

Ohio Stoneware ~ Preserving Crocks

 

Back to the topic at hand!
Before getting the heck out of crazy California, took this picture of our local Costco gas station. It was right at the ending of the last administration - before prices basically doubled - so there was no urgency to find the cheapest place in town.
LOL
love & miss our old neighbors - but not so much the rest of the stuff like this;



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And I’ve found you can get at least 20 uses out of a ziplock bag before it’s time to toss it.

 

...and there are two sides to a sheet of toilet tissue (but there's a limit to everything).

On another note, Sam's Club charge card has raised the cashback to 10% on gas purchases for the remaining Tuesdays in April. That couples nicely with the suspension of (Connecticut) sales tax on gas that just kicked in ... almost makes me wish we used more than a few gallons a month.

 

When refilling the pantry and the Suby's tank Monday evening, Gasbuddy showed my nearby Costco running $0.58/gal below the regional average, $0.30 below the closest nearby non-arterial stations, $0.60-0.90 below the more convenient arterial locations, and $1.20/gal below the local high price leader. (Two nearby Arcos have since fallen to just $0.24 above Costco.)

The Suby needed 13 gallons, so Costco saved $8-12 on that tank compared to the convenient high profile arterial stations. The current wider-than-average price spread here brought a higher than normal crowd, causing a 4 to 5 minute wait, below normal for rush hour at this location but unusually long for that time of evening. Even so, that still equated to a savings of $100-140/wait-hour. Even with our state's high minimum wage being more than double the federal minimum, most worker's after-tax wages here aren't (yet) that high.

Being retired, I'm no longer a wage earner. And I had some paperwork to fill most of the wait time.

Other newer locations have more pumps, producing shorter waits at the few times I've visited.

Sam's Club used to match Costco, but closed shop in this state several years ago.

 

You probably saved more than you realize. Costco pays 4% back on all gas you buy there at your end of the year rebate.

 

That must be balanced against a card (not accepted at Costco) that pays 2% back on everything all the time, and a couple other cards (also not accepted at Costco) with varying rebate menus and calendars that are currently giving 5% back on gas stations. Though the later two are sufficiently finicky and troublesome to usually get set aside, they are often not worth the trouble.

 

Planning a long trip this weekend. I still have 1/4 tank I bought in Jan, but I will have to fill it up before hitting the highway. Bummer!

 

My last fill-up was Jan 30, and the gas gauge is only down about 3 pips. Sometimes I wonder why we've got a car, lol. Retirement and covid have radically reduced our driving. That and we're lucking to be walking distance to a lot of local stores.

 

Probably not a better time to sell your Prius, but it's nice to have a car if you don't like Ubering.

 

Yeah it's the same with real estate. Everybody in our neighborhood's a millionaire, big whoop.

And this might not be appreciated by an Uber driver: