Kelly Wright of Cave Spring fills up her mom’s car Monday at the Kangaroo Express on Calhoun Road off the Rome Bypass. Gas was $3.72 a gallon there and many other places around town. (Jeremy Stewart / Rome News-Tribune)
The feeling was one repeated around most of the country as the cost of a gallon of gas shot up closer to $4.
“I didn’t even know it was this much until I pulled up,” Wright said while at the pumps at the Kangaroo Express near the intersection of the Rome Bypass and Calhoun Road where a gallon of gas costs $3.72.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.73 on Monday according to the Automobile Association of America. Prices have risen for 32 straight days and are at a four-month high, the agency reported.
“I drive at least 30 minutes just to get to work and back. I usually put about $10-15 in my tank a day,” Wright said. “But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get to work, right?”
Wright, who is from Cave Spring, said she had been driving a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee that cost nearly $80 to fill up but has been driving her mom’s car since her’s broke down.
“Luckily, it doesn’t cost that much,” she said. “It’s only $40 to $50 to fill it up.”
Several spots around town Monday were at $3.72 for a gallon of regular unleaded, including Kangaroo Expresses on North Broad, Garden Lakes Boulevard and Shorter Avenue.
The Favorite Market at 1389 Redmond Circle had gas for $3.65 a gallon while Hi-Tech Fuel just down the street at 1810 Redmond Circle had it for $3.71 a gallon.
A gallon of regular was going for $3.72 at Kroger on Turner McCall Boulevard, where Jennifer Harris of Rome was getting gas.
“It’s really hard on the budget,” Harris said of the rising cost of gas. “Being a single mom with two kids, having to take them to school and working 32 hours a week, it’s hard.”
Harris said she does enjoy it when the price goes down, which she is hoping happens the closer it gets to summer.
In the meantime, she will work to adjust her budget in order to accommodate the high prices at the pump.
“With the high gas comes high groceries so I don’t go to the grocery store as often and when I go I stick to my list,” Harris said. “Before, when gas was lower, I could go a little bit over on my groceries but now I can’t.”
The price of oil hovered below $96 a barrel Monday, weighed by data released late last week, which showed that U.S. industrial production weakened and Europe remained mired in recession.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I'm not an Obama fan by any means. I was on Team RPaul, but to be honest, I'm sick of the tribal name calling and blaming.
We've got problems much bigger than Obama or Bush. It's systemic. As long as we are running around acting like politics is a football game and not a deeply important matter that touches each of us and that opresses us, we're not going to see ANY improvement.
Goldman Sachs gives to both the democrats and the republicans. They have a strangle hold on our politics, and have repeatedly been implemented in what seems to me a determined effort (If in nothing but greed!) to sink the US economy!
We need bipartisan effort to pass some legislation that would keep speculators from being able to SINK our struggling economy. Just because they are from "Wall Street" doesn't mean they are American or that they care one bit about this country - or any party.
This is what happens when the press is no longer people seeking truth, rather a gang of politi-zealots required to undergo at least four years of indoctrination at a university prior to beginning their chosen career.
The press began in the U.S. as a angry, defiant group of people who were skeptical of everything and went where the truth took them. Phase 2 of their development came about in the 20th century when it became necessary to present both sides to every argument. There was no right or wrong, no good or bad, just differences of opinion. Phase 3 has been to choose a side and present reports in a way that bolster your own beliefs.
Highest Winter prices EVER!