Gas prices - What are you paying in your neck of the woods to survive?

[Kyung]

You know, I get a lot of questions about page rates and things like that. People are curious and they want to know. And I see page rates for other parts of the country. Well, the thing is they all have to be put into context, i.e., cost of living. So to get an idea of what things are costing us, let's take a survey of gas prices and miles that people are traveling to work. Very informal, just chime in whatever area you are.

Now, I live in California. Our standard of living is high here. A house despite the recent mortgage meltdown is still going to run you over $600K, a nice house, 3-bedroom. Condos are running $350K to $500K and up.

Gas prices here are about $3.50/gal (in the last week) for unleaded to $3.70 and up for Supreme unleaded for those of you who can afford the "nice" cars :)

I drive anywhere from 10 miles one way to 30 miles one way depending on if I'm working local or hauling myself into downtown LA.

What kind of prices are you guys looking at out there?

It's sad. I read an article the other day about how gas prices are getting so high that people are actually starting to carpool and ride public transportation more often. I'm not sad about that. The sad thing is that we, as court reporters, can't rideshare. Just not feasible. Unless, perhaps, we work in a courthouse.

[Charlene Friedman]

in NJ the cost of living is pretty high up too. the cost of gas right now is about $3.70 for unleaded. the housing market here is pretty similar to california depending on what part of NJ you live in. north and central jersey a house will go around $500,000 to $600, 000 and south jersey it's less. the average for me is driving anywhere from 30 to 40 miles one way, but there are instances where i work pretty close to home and will drive 10 miles one way.

about eight years ago i commuted from NJ into NYC and took all public transportation, that was great! you know what's sad? my husband is a reporter too and there have been times where we've had deps at the same location on different cases but it's impossible to ride in together because who knows when the other one is going to finish!