These crazy gas prices! We buy gas on base and even it is skyrocketing. It's put a real damper on those things that I'd otherwise have done/attended/participated in. Like tomorrow, we had a HS day at a ceramics place to go to ... but, because it is about 30 minutes away, I've decided to forego the outing-- because it would be a round trip to GO and paint the piece, plus the cost of the actual piece (though I could have just given DD a $$ amount to stay under) plus another round trip a week later to pick up the finished (fired) piece. Gas just rules that out. Kiddo has a month of track starting on Thursday which we've already signed up/paid for and both DH and I think it is a great opportunity for her that we've decided to suck up the gas expenditure and take part in this homeschool track program (offered in May only) which meets 2x a week.  The meeting place is about 20 minutes from home. Heck, I've already prepaid for a field trip to a factory (in downtown Chicago) but I'm strongly considering not going and just forfeiting that money (only $6.00) because it would be at LEAST 45 -60 minutes getting there in traffic and most certainly more coming home, due to the time of day--- all that time sitting in traffic just sucking down gas. *sigh*
 

So, has gas changed ya'lls outings yet? If not, how are you dealing with the higher gas costs? Ya know, come to think of it-- if it were JUST gas prices raising, we could deal with that. But obviously everything is raising (string cheese is now $3.09!!!! when we moved here it was under $2.00! Needless to say, I don't buy it now. Instead I buy a block of Colby-jack and slice it into pieces. Yes, DD loves cheese and eats a piece every day! She'd be happy with a piece at every meal...but I frown on that. LOL)

 

And now I read this article and feel "validated" in my thinking/observations. Funny, my online buddy was the first to inform me about the rice hoarding going on. So I mentioned that to a few homeschool moms a couple weeks ago when we were discussing gas prices. They looked at me like I was crazy! Now they might not think I'm quite so crazy.

I'm even reevaluating if I *NEED* the items that I was going to purchase through the food co-op, or if I ought to change some of those items to other things that the prices have already been going up, to try to stock up more on those. This is all driving me nuts, I tell you. We were already on a pretty tight budget due to the HUGE pay cut we saw moving off of sea duty in Hawaii to shore duty in Illinois. Money isn't very stretchy nowadays either. LOL  This one-income,  homeschooling family definitely has some purse strings to tighten. Pretty soon, I think, that so-called purse is going to be inside out from so much tightening though! Ugh. I even sold a few books via email lists here lately. Something I said I didn't see me doing again anytime soon, due to the headache. Well, having even a tiny bit of extra cash flow far outweighed the potential headache. Now to just sit and wait for those money orders to arrive!

So, readers... weigh in. Has the rising gas prices (and even food costs) played into your homeschooling yet? If so, how? And, how are you coping?