Fuel prices is going to be a big story this year, as the video below explains. I’ve been a long time putterer, preferring to walk places because though time consuming I really enjoy it but I have wrecked my knees with 20+ years of 10 mile hikes on hard city sidewalks. In the cold weather I ache like an old man so I’m thinking about a bike of some type for grocery trips.

There’s a lot of electric scooters and mopeds on the market. I found two pretty decent ones on Amazon for under $2,000. Extreme scooters’ XB-502 and XB-600 are very cheap stop gaps that can get you to the grocery and back – if you don’t have to shop for a large family. They are $799.00 and $875 respectively and I heard you can get a quite a few years out of them. Of course you get what you pay for but these babies can be shipped to your door now.

But if you live in areas where you’re only connected by highways you’re going to be boned. Sorry sub-division dwellers.

When I was in grad school I lived about a half-mile from the big grocery store and I just slapped on a backpack for my shopping trips. If you’re in walking distance it’s going to be more economical, and healthier, to make a couple of trips with a ruck than burn $5/gallon gas. And frankly I think the $5 target is best case scenario. I used a large camping backpack, which may look silly but who’ll be laughing when you have extra money in your pocket at the end of the week? But a good sized daypack, like the 5.11 3 Day Rush is probably suitable for most single peoples or couples needs. Again, large families need more supplies than you can hump unless one of you is unemployed and can spend their week shopping but some of you young people out there can certainly save gas by hoofing it.

This is, again, in my opinion conservative. I personally think that by 2012 $7.00 gas is a possibility: