Hello all, So gasoline prices have dropped sharply in my area. I just got gas at $2.54 US per gallon. I haven't seen prices this low in many years. My wife and I went to grab dinner last night and on the way to the restaurant I saw gas for $2.54. On the way back I took a different route and the gas station I was going to buy from was at $2.59! Price gougers! So I drove out of my way to get the lower price (the wife was even on board with the plan). So I drove a few miles out of the way and added a good 10 min onto the trip to save $0.60. My time was worth more than that but I couldn't let it go. My last silver buy was 5 silver maples for $99.00 (shipping included) back at the end of Nov when price were very low. I ordered from a small seller on ebay and they haven't sent my package out yet so I have a dispute open which I'm sure I'll win no problem. Now I am spot watching like a hawk to try to get it at or below $99. It has been as low as about $99.50 from the dealers I've been looking at but for some reason I can't pull the trigger. That's about a dime per coin over what I paid previously and for some reason it is really eating at me. Even at about $20.10 per coin (what it is as I write this) it is less than a quarter over what I paid last time. I can usually find ten or twenty cents on the ground each day. What is the deal with me? It only seems to trigger this response when I buy commodities like gasoline or PMs. If I buy another item that I collect like a sword or an autograph or a rare comic book or whatever, if the price is a little higher than what I want to pay (by a few dollars) I gladly pull the trigger and don't worry about it. I have cut back going out as much as I used to for food but once in a while I like a nice steak dinner or just to go out to get a slice of pizza instead of making one at home for 1/3 the price. I clearly have some sort of bias when buying PMs and gas but I can't figure it out. It is like my inner bargin hunter/cheapskate pops up out of no where on just a few types of purchases. Anyone have any insight to this? Am I alone?
lol you probably driving a big yank tank as well and spent a lot more in fuel to save your 60 cents pretty typical thing that people do not just Americans.
Yeah, we don't have kangaroos to travel in like you have. What is a "Yank Tank?" I have a Toyota Corolla and the wife has a Nissan Versa. Both get excellent gas mileage.
Speaking of the price of gasoline, I remember reading something correlating the price of crude oil to precious metals prices. I can't find it at the moment but I recall a graph that had silver spot closely tracking crude prices. Just a random thought there. Oh, and I just filled up the car at $1.99 a gallon in my neck of the woods.
Court Jester, bugger off from the thread if you can't play nice. In Florida right now gas is $2.59 - works out to 84c/L in AUD. About half of what it would be in Melbourne right now. It's fallen from $3.39 when I arrived in August - about a 24% fall in price. All due to gas tracking the price of oil per barrel. Australians are getting screwed over by the refiners and retailers. Prices can vary by 20-30c a gallon in this county though - drive down to the outlets near some fancy "snowbird" retirement developments, and the stations there are charging 10% more for gas than a few miles up the road. Elsewhere in the US, gas is under $2 a gallon - that's about 65c/L AUD. US is now a net exporter of oil I believe. Shale oil is bigger than Texas.
Now that the topic of petrol and cars us been raised, let's just get this one thing out of the way to avoid further useless debate. The best Australian car, ever, is the HQ Monaro.
only if you were born in the stone age the newer Falcons and HSV's cars are much better especially the last ones -- hsv gts Gen f with 430KW
Petrol and PMs are fungible. Hand forged swords, autographs or rare comic books are not. For petrol I also price convenience into the cost. If petrol is slightly more expensive on the way to work I will still pay it so that I don't have the inconvenience of making a separate trip later in the day. If I know there is a cheaper petrol station which I will be driving past later in the week I will hold off buying petrol at the convenient place, even if I drive past it several times before I fill up with cheaper petrol. If I see a rare trading card pack I will buy it at whatever price, even if it is more than I am happy to pay. On the understanding that if a better one comes along (or a cheaper one, I dollar cost average those as well, go figure...) I will sell the first one to recoup my money (Note: this has never happened, I just keep them both) If there were two packs available in the same condition I would get the cheaper one. If there were two available in different conditions I would buy the one in the best condition, even if it was more expensive. Same with many things, the cost is based on desirability, condition and rarity. I desire cheap convenient petrol but the condition and rarity do not change from one shop to another. I desire PMs but in general one bar is the same as any other so I go to the cheapest place to get it. My katana was not cheap, but I waited a few years before I found the one I wanted and may have overpaid a little...