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Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com

Gas prices cause worry, but habits change little

By Julie Muhlstein, Herald Columnist

People are worried, no question.

With gas topping the list of necessities costing more each day, it's easy to find folks nervous about their finances.

Mary Ann Stine doesn't have a huge car. Friday, she was gassing up her 2005 Subaru Outback at a Shell station in Everett.

I was stunned when the pump stopped. Stine owed $53.15 for her fill-up.

I know I'm paying the high prices -- gas at the station Friday cost between $3.71 and $3.97 per gallon, and diesel was $4.45. Still, unless I'm off on a trip, I usually get $20 or $25 worth of gas and go on my fairly merry way. That amount doesn't last me as long as it used to, but I have yet to drop a fifty into my gas tank.

With all that worrying, are we changing habits? Are we driving less? Or scrimping elsewhere to pay for pricey gas? We're at least thinking about it.

Working for the Everett School District as a curriculum specialist, Stine, 60, needs her car to visit schools during the day. She is reimbursed for mileage, but those rates haven't kept pace with soaring fuel costs, she said. At home on Whidbey Island, she's made a routine of combining errands into fewer trips.

"We do drive less," said Stine, who lives in Clinton. "And I have stopped getting coffee at Starbucks, that's probably saving $5 a day."

Melanie Diaz, of Lake Stevens, drives a 21-year-old Nissan Sentra. Filling up at a 76 station in Everett, where regular gas was selling for $3.75 per gallon Friday, Diaz said she fears it will top $4 by summer.

She has a 15-mile commute to work at Aviation Technical Services in Everett, a far shorter trip than her 60-mile one-way commute in a former job. Diaz, 40, has tried mass transit.

"Public transportation is great, but in Snohomish County it's not convenient enough," Diaz said. She once worked in the Canyon Park area, and took a bus from Lake Stevens. "I had to be at work at 8 a.m., and I was leaving at 4:15 a.m. to get there. And I couldn't get all the way home, the last bus left before I could get there," Diaz said.

Thrifty by nature, she makes coffee at home and brings sack lunches to work. She also tries to grocery shop around the outside edges of the supermarket, buying nutritious fresh produce and meat and avoiding processed foods in the center of the store.

No matter how many pennies she pinches, Diaz said it's hard to get ahead. "Whenever they raise the minimum wage, everything else gets jacked up," she said. "You get ahead, but boom -- it's gone putting gas in the car."

Steve McLeod, another Whidbey resident who works in Everett, does ride the bus. A retired teacher who works as an instruction assistant, McLeod, 60, leaves his 1998 Chevy Malibu at a park-and-ride lot on Whidbey Island and rides the ferry to Mukilteo. From there, he takes Everett Transit, which he said is "the best deal around."

His way of cutting costs is to make a tank of gas last an extra two or three days by taking fewer or shorter trips.

Unlike Diaz and Stine, who said they're not getting econimic stimulus checks from the government, McLeod said he has one on the way. "I'll apply it to credit card debt," he said.

At a Starbucks on Everett's Evergreen Way, two visitors from Sweden were outside ­sipping their afternoon coffee Friday. Lennart Folkesson, 60, and Sture Johansson, 71, have been in Everett three weeks visiting Folkesson's brother.

Gasoline, sold by the liter in Sweden costs nearly double what it does here, they said.

Pointing to massive SUVs in the parking lot, Lennart Folkesson said, "we can't use those in Sweden. We've had high gas prices in Europe for many years. Here, they have it cheap."

He is nonetheless sympathetic to Americans. "I can understand they need a car. We can go by train," said Folkesson, who also believes Americans work harder and longer than Europeans do.

The Swedish visitors aren't immune to this country's money worries. "All of Europe depends on the American economy," Johansson said.

Lots of us are worried, yet judging by my totally unscientific afternoon of observation, we haven't put our worries into much action.

A line of cars snaked around the building at the drive-through Starbucks. With engines idling and gas burning, drivers were waiting patiently, waiting to dispose of disposable income.

I didn't have to wait in line, my car was already parked. I went in and bought a cup of coffee -- for $1.90.

We're worried, but probably not enough.



Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.