Oil prices and the economy are obviously two subjects on everyone's mind at the moment. Here are some observations and tips to help you stretch your dollar and not be a sucker.

First, don't buy any more new cars that run on gas! Go with a late model used car or simply restore the vehicle you already have. Sure, we are going to see some domestic layoffs in manufacturing, but the problem is what they are building. You don't even want to buy a new car in a good economy- they are generally bad investments that only depreciate. I find it highly disturbing that car manufacturers needed $5 a gallon gasoline as impetus to clean up their act. Suddenly they are changing their routines and shifting resources towards fuel efficient vehicles- nearly halting the production of SUVs in the process. Who has the better infrastructure to build a long range electric, a company like Tesla or a company like GM? So if Tesla can do it for $90,000 I wonder how cheaply a larger, established company could build one? Anyone who didn't see this day coming simply had their head shoved firmly in their posterior. It was only a matter of time before our fuel prices hit levels comparable to the rest of the world. Oh, and drilling for more on protected land or offshore does little to nothing for the long-term. We simply need to use less. Duh. Don't get me started on ethanol, which is another bad choice. We already divert an abundance of corn to animal feed (bad idea), and increasing dependence on a single crop makes us a one-trick-pony agriculturally speaking. Ethanol can come from other renewable sources.

Second, do it yourself. What do I mean? Back in the seventies when oil prices hit the roof and car manufacturers made the same limited efforts to evolve, we suffered food inflation and shortages directly linked to oil prices. My family started gardening every available space we had for food. We got some exercise, spent more time together, saved on the cost of produce and were able to barter with other neighbors! "Here's a pound of zucchini for your pound of tomatoes." Buy locally and support farmer's markets. You don't have to rely on the FDA to "protect you" when you meet the people growing your food. Speaking of protection- did they ever figure out where those tainted tomatoes came from? Your tax dollars at work. And now there's another beef recall! Not to go back to the last paragraph, but we create problems constantly. "Let's take the cows off of their natural grass diet, feed them corn we could use for food, and then when they get sick from the corn diet...let's give them antibiotics and vitamins instead." BRILLIANT!

Third, the wasteful nature of the well-off should be of concern. Take high-end properties in high-end neighborhoods as an example, where the homes are over-built to last over a hundred years. This on the surface isn't a problem. However, the buying habits of developers and the rich LOWERS PROPERTY VALUES for the rest of us, by reducing the useful life of your property from an appraisal standpoint. Apparently when appraisers look at neighborhoods, they decide on a number of years for the useful life of area homes based on the age of homes that are torn down to build new ones. My home is 84 years old. I have neighbors with slightly newer homes and neighbors with slightly older homes. Up the street, a home comparable to mine that was 95 years old was torn down to build a couple of town homes. This subsequently places the useful life of my home somewhere in the area of 95-100 years from an appraisal standpoint. In fifteen years, I should consider tearing down my house instead of fixing it! Not doing so only hurts me from a resale standpoint. So how does this make the rich wasteful? In neighborhoods on Lake Washington for instance where values are in the millions, buyers like personalization. They don't want the house you built to your liking, they want homes built to THEIR liking. So that waterfront house that was built using the best of everything gets torn down in fifteen years to build another McMansion. Anyone living in an area like this wanting to preserve their property investment is faced with obsolescence on an accelerated scale. Even though your house could last another hundred years, you aren't realizing the highest and best use of your property if your home is over fifteen years old. That's just stupid. People with the best of everything are just throwing it away, not based on need but based on status. Some of these same individuals buy a brand new car every two years.