Cheap Gas

When I first started driving, I completely understood that the associated costs would be my own responsibility. My parents made sure of that. I was firmly engrained with the fear of two things: auto insurance payments and the ongoing cost of gas and car maintenance. (That's why I didn't drive until I was 19.)

As a full-time college student, I considered gasoline to be expensive, yet necessary, at 29-cents a gallon. If I could manage to save up a dollar (which wasn't all that easy on $1.65/hour part time wages) I could put almost 3 1/2 gallons in the tank and I was good to go! Truth is, I knew gas was a good deal, especially as fuel prices began climbing the mid-'70s. When gas reached 50-cents a gallon, I was ready to hang up my keys. The very idea!

Boy, was I naive. Nowadays I would kill for prices like that! You've seen it - more and more folks are actually driving off without paying for a fill-up, which is really dumb since gas stations video tape license plates as you drive away. If I were that desperate, I would find another way to get around.

What may surprise you is that the price of gasoline and everything else is really just the same as it always was!

What the. . . ???

It's true. Back when stuff was cheap, our dollars were backed by real silver; and today, that same amount of silver still buys the same amount of gas as it did back then. The problem is, our paper money is no longer backed by silver and now it has far less value than it used to. Therefore, increasingly more dollars are needed to buy the things we need. So in reality, the prices of goods and services have not gone up at all; instead, the value of the US dollar has diminished. Drastically.

What this also means is that real money, like gold and silver, holds its value over time.

By the way, the value of your fuel-buying dollar will slip again this summer. Unfortunately, you likely won't be able to pay for your fill-ups with silver or gold, so please don't carry your precious coins around in your car console.