gas prices: what is it doing to your modeling budget?

[route66modeler]

HI, Well, here in St Louis gas has hit $3.79 for reg gas. I know this is less than what people are paying on the coasts, but it is taking a bigger chuck out of my hobby budget. The biggest knock to me is that I will not be traveling to INDY for the may 5th show and Louisville KY july show. These are great shows and great people who put them on, but I can't justify the cost to make these trips. The only out of town show I will be going to is the KC Slammers show in june. I'm lucky to have a good friend to stay with and will only have the cost of gas and my vendor table. Steve

Edited March 11, 2012 by route66modeler

[Rob McKee]

Gas prices here in Vancouver are out of control. We are paying more than $4.00 for a US Gallon.

I am fortunate however to have several hobby shops close by so it doesn't cost to much to get to them. Where these prices are going to impact me is on vacation. We usually drive down the coast to Oregon or California to do some camping. Towing a trailer with my F-150 may just be to expensive for us this year.

[Bartster]

It doesn't affect me at all. I don't know where the closest hobby store is. I'm sure there must be some in Houston or Austin, but I'm right in the middle, a little over 70 miles either way. IT's the cost of postage that gets me!

[tabsscale1]

not doing anything t my budget right now as the shows i want to go to come later and saving some money for that

[niteowl7710]

I'm not happy to see the prices climb, but in reality I work reasonably close (1 tank of gas a week) to work. I'm fortunate that my job is high-paying, in a growing industry. I know many here are unemployed, or on a fixed income (which has effected my parents in recent years) and so any spike in fuel costs which effect the price of everything can be damaging.

I have to say the many years I spent paying off every penny if debt I had (other than my current mortgage) was a little pain and "suffering" back then for the ability to do what I want, where I want now was well with the effort now.

[Johnag4004]

You lot over the pond don't know how well you have it, I have a few friends over there who also complain now and then about how much fuel is costing you, here's one for you, here in the UK a US gallon of fuel would cost you $10, which keeps going up each and everyday, plus, everything over here is also more expensive in general, so PLEASE, just realise just how well you have it...

Sorry for the rant...

[skmodelcars]

The gas prices going up is making me buy less and make fewer plans to go to shows. In fact I'm thinking of selling some kits since I have more than I'll build. I only get so much done and you never know what'll happen with production and aftermarket parts suppliers. You have to get the stuff when you can.

Edited March 11, 2012 by skmodelcars

[Bartster]

ouch

Edited March 11, 2012 by Bartster

[Borgis]

Well, I don't know what the average american makes a month, but here in Sviiiden

95 octane gas costs about 8 bucks a gallon. Actually it's 15 SEK per liter, but that's harder for you to compare.

[Craig Irwin]

My hobby budget has been very limited for 3 years, this can't help. I plan on riding my motorcycle as much as I can, rain or shine because it gets about 50 MPG. I also go nowhere I don't have to to keep my miles down. Sadly this includes trips to the hobby store.

[Art Anderson]

Gasoline prices today aren't that much more, in relation to all other financial things than they were in 1960 (about 30-cents a gallon back then, when minimum wage was less than a dollar, a good salary might have been about $6000 a year, and a new house about $9000, a new Chevrolet Impala was perhaps $3000, and a model car kit was $1.49 msrp).

Believe me, back then, as a teenager, buying gas for Dad's cars when I went out cruising on Friday nights (and the expectation WAS that I would put as much gas in the tank as I used, PERIOD!), impacted my model kit buying back then as well. The same was even more true during my college years, and I wasn't your average "traditional" college student--I didn't start off to college as a freshman at age 18, graduating at 22, money-wise that was not in the cards (4 years of college, 4 years finding the money to do it!); so I worked my way through, on and off in my local hobby shop. Now, I got paid pretty well for what I did (the owner and his wife saw to that) and got my kits when I was with them at a nice discount,but still--I could not afford all the stuff I wanted model-wise--I had to learn to set priorties,

Still, in those years of the 1960's, i managed to acquire and restore a '29 Model A Ford, buy a virtually new, barn-find '31 Roadster (financed in large part by finding a lot of NOS Model A Ford parts in SE Iowa, hauling them back to Indiana, and nearly doubling the money invested), and my hobby shop job when I laid out of school, I managed to make it. I'd like to be able to say that I still own those two Model A's, but no, I sold them off about this time in 1969 to help finance my last three trimesters of college (graduated in June 1970).

But in all of that, I managed to build a pretty fair number of model cars--1966 was the year that I, with the support of the Hobby Shop (the former Weber's Hobby Shop here in Lafayette) started building a collection of Indy 500 cars, for a yearly window display that became a local tradition (every once in a while, someone will stop me on the street, or at a local car show, ask when I and my buddies are gonna do that once again). The experiences taught me, back then, to make the most of any model car kit I bought, to learn to kit-bash and even started scratchbuilding, to get the race cars I wanted to build. While I had an airbrush and compressor from my Sr year in HS, a Dremel tool bought my first year working at the hobby shop, my tool box was mostly a few Xacto knives and some needle files--not much more than that.

Yeah, a model car kit rose to an average $2 per kit for a kit of an American car (there weren't any import kits back in the 60's or early 70's much worth writing home about--that really didn't start happening until the 70's for most of the US away from port-of-entry cities), that $2.00 price tag stayed pretty much standard until the late 70's when inflation creep came along, then $2.25, about $2.50 by 1980 or so.

Gas prices went up gradually all through the 60's, BTW. What was 30-cents a gallon for regular leaded gas in 1960 became over 40-cents by 1970, even higher for premium, which is what my brand-new '70 Cuda 340 demanded when I treated myself to that new car upon receiving my BA that June. And yeah, even at an $11,000 a year salary in 1970, the gas that car drank impacted my travels, what with apartment rent, utilities, groceries, paying off what seems today a miniscule volume of student loans (just $4000!). I remember thinking about hopping on a airline for a vacation seeing the sights in Southern California in 1972, and deciding that the more than $500 round-trip fare was not worth it (it's a lot less than that still today!). My annual pair of grandstand tickets to the Indy 500 were all of $30 per seat but even that seemed a bit steep (but I wouldn't have missed the "500" for anything back then!). I pursed my lips when I bought my first really good camera, a Canon, in 1971--almost $150.00, questioned my sanity at $175 for a Gitane 10-speed touring bicycle the same year. Apartment rent (in a new complex) was a princely $250 a month.

Inflation happens, has almost always happened (deflation, or the opposite of inflation) is what happened during the Great Depression of 1930-32 (it officially ended with the start of an upturn in the economy in the second quarter of 1933, although its effects were still being felt in a few pockets of this country well into the 1960's). And, as cheap petroleum (time was, an oil production company had only to poke a hole a couple thousand feet down, strike it rich!) has gone away, yeah, gasoline has become more expensive, but with some reading of history, anyone can plainly see that it's never really been "cheap", not when all other factors are taken into account. 10-cent a gallon gasoline did happen, but at a time when an hourly wage was perhaps 30-cents or thereabouts. So, it really is all "relative".

Art

[moparmagiclives]

The cost of fuel is going up, just as it does every spring. But we do have it better then most country's, the media hypes it up to get us all roused about it and take our attention off more important topics. Everyone talks about the price of the oil barrel going up and we get into a frenzy... Did you know most of the gas you pump in th states doesn't come from the oil or the barrel ??? Its a synthetic blend from the garbage that is going to go to waste anyway. Hmm... Why does it cost do much ? Oh yeah, we have to have it, that's right.

Personally, I'll take the cut for fuel from something less enjoyable then my past times. Like I need another 5 dollar cup of coffee anyway.

[Lownslow]

not much i save 70$ a month for hobby budget on a unemployed income. i did stop buying any kit i could afford and fixed my eyes on stuff thats not as common.

[58 Impala]

Some of my wife's relatives live in England, and I always hear how good we have it. Maybe that's why there is so many expats from Britain living here.We do have it good but I'm tired of hearing it. I'm not happy with the oil companies or any of the useless politicians in this country. The oil companies are greedy and the politicians all the way up to the top are idiots who only care about getting reelected. I believe we should use our own resources and tell the middle east to pound sand. I feel better now that I ranted.

[Erik Smith]

Forget gas prices. I know they are obvious and get a lot o press. But, the big hit? Health insurance. How much has that gone up compared to gas prices in the last 10 years? I figured out the increase in gas prices costs me about $23 more per month than one year ago. My insurance and home heating both exceeded that increase last year.

I haven't seen it affect my hobby budget though, as my family does okay income wise.

[Harry P.]

Forget gas prices. I know they are obvious and get a lot o press. But, the big hit? Health insurance. How much has that gone up compared to gas prices in the last 10 years?

And that's assuming you either get it through your employer, or if not, that you can even afford to have it!

[kitbash1]

It's not the price of gas, it's this unemployment thing that puts a crimp in my modeling budget. I havn't bought much since I got let go back in August 2011.

[Scuderia]

I don't think it's slowed me down much. I buy all my kits via eBay or the cheapest online vendor option, and they're almost all cars that no one wants anyhow so that helps save money. Only time I go to the LHS or HL is get glue, paint and Xacto blades, and I try and schedule that when I'm already in the area doing other things.

Edited March 11, 2012 by Scuderia

[moparmagiclives]

And that's assuming you either get it through your employer, or if not, that you can even afford to have it!

27% over last year where im at. ..... Like I said, keep the minds busy with the small stuff. But it's not a political debate. So on to the hobby topic...you guys who use a lot of brass and aluminum for scratch building, how has that been affected at the register?

Edited March 11, 2012 by moparmagiclives

[Nick Winter]

I keep my hobby budget seperate from the rest of my money, that way there is no effect by common things (gas, cost of parts, insurance etc)

Ncik

[Junkman]

It's about $8.20 per US Gallon here.

They recently raised it by 2p per litre (about USD 0.10 a gallon), so when I fill up from dust to flood, a complete tankfill costs me roughly £1.20 more than before.

Gosh, the impact this has on my life! I am doing little else than running around in panic thinking where I can save 1 quid 20p every two weeks to make up for it. Imagine, that's 2.40 a month! 28.80 per year! I really should buy a new 25k car that needs less petrol so I can save some 30 odd quid a year.

My children now get bark to nibble on instead of stale bread and they have to walk to school barefooted, in the rain, two miles one way, up the hill both ways.

For some strange reason, it hasn't made an impact on my model car budget yet.

Edited March 11, 2012 by Junkman

[Harry P.]

It's about $8.20 per US Gallon here.

They recently raised it by 2p per litre (about USD 0.10 a gallon), so when I fill up from dust to flood, a complete tankfill costs me roughly £1.20 more than before.

Gosh, the impact this has on my life! I am doing little else than running around in panic thinking where I can save 1 quid 20p every two weeks to make up for it. Imagine, that's 2.40 a month! 28.80 per year! I really should buy a new 25k car that needs less petrol so I can save some 30 odd quid a year.

Oil companies love people like you!

[crazyjim]

I have less than 20,000 miles on my 3 year old truck. I don't drive much so the price of gas doesn't affect me much. What gets me is that when the price of oil goes up the price at the gas station goes up. But that crude oil at the pump has already been processed.

[Junkman]

Oil companies love people like you!

It's mutual. Without oil companies I wouldn't have any petrol to dump into my big bloody V8, so I love them.

What I hate are politicians. 80% of what I pay for the petrol are their stinking taxes.

[Rob McKee]

Some of my wife's relatives live in England, and I always hear how good we have it. Maybe that's why there is so many expats from Britain living here.We do have it good but I'm tired of hearing it. I'm not happy with the oil companies or any of the useless politicians in this country. The oil companies are greedy and the politicians all the way up to the top are idiots who only care about getting reelected. I believe we should use our own resources and tell the middle east to pound sand. I feel better now that I ranted.

I hear ya on this. I feel the same way with our politicians here. They just keep taking more and more out of our pockets!