I feel like I’m stealing gas

OK, I'm having a moment here.  This morning, I caught a comment on the NBC's Today show about gas prices going back up.  Again?!  Here in Utah, we're always waiting for our gas prices to go down to be in line with the rest of the country.  How often do you see or hear something about gas prices dropping and wonder why that's not the case at the pump you're using?

My moment today came when I was done filling up my SUV.  Not long ago, I was choking as I saw the pump get to around $80 for a fill up.  Today, I went from empty to full for just under $47.50.  Do you feel like you are stealing it at that price?   I realize my discount of 35 cents per gallon was caused by a big grocery bill but don't take away my moment.  My biggest discount so far was 85 cents per gallon and now with every fill-up, I want the pump to tell me that again but it never does.

My wife has a ginormous Ford F-250 diesel that she uses to haul a horse trailer all over.  I'm just glad we're not in California when that thing needs a tank of fuel.  $4.74 here will make you pass out but Californians are paying $5.73 per gallon for diesel.  I think my wife's truck has a 35 gallon tank so at that price, it's $200 to fill up.

In some states Diesel is cheaper than regular but here, it's $1.25 to $1.50 more than regular unleaded. In Oklahoma, diesel is $4.03 today.  In Hawaii, you'll pay over $6 a gallon so I guess we should be glad it's not quite that bad here.   The odd thing about watching gas prices is that when there's unrest anywhere or threatening weather, or a squirrel sneezes near a refinery, the price at the pump goes up INSTANTLY.  I always think, "Wait a minute.  The fuel in the tank underground has been in that tank for weeks.  Why does the price of THAT change?"  It had been delivered and was waiting underground way before the unrest or the bad weather or the squirrel.

I have solar panels on my house installed by the previous owner and I dream some day  of having an electric car or truck that I can plug in and power by the sun for almost nothing but I'm not there yet.  But I did have a better trip to the gas station today.