The last of the road trips

Seems our road trip a month or so back was the last for the forseeable future. The price of petrol is about to rise again, making a total increase of 80c per litre in the past 2 months. That is really steep! And another price hike is coming up soon. We'll be paying around R5 per litre from next week, making the cost to fill my tank well over R250. Thankfully I don't have to drive to work, and a tank usually lasts a month...

At the same time, my car has decided to use up extra juice. Where I got nearly 500km out of the last tank, now I'll be lucky if I get 200. Don't know what's up there, but it will have to go in for a look-see (MORE cash out of pocket) to sort out the problem. Granted, it's a heavy car to drive up and down our steep hills here, but that's a bit excessive.

If the petrol price alone were increasing it would probably still be manageable. Unfortunately though it's a chain reaction - anything that needs transporting (food, clothing, whatever) will cost more now, and if the petrol price drops the other prices probably won't. We were just starting to see some improvement in the cost of food items, but that's apparently short-lived.

So no more spontaneous road trips. They'll have to be saved for and planned in future. Darn.