Okay, before I start blogging about Oil and Gas, I’d like to share a humorous and embarrassing story that happend at work today. My financial advisor’s team had just finished a meeting with a a group of trustees for a foundation, and there were left over sandwiches and cookies from the meeting. She insisted that I take some food to bring home, which I did (I am not a man to decline free food). I packed 4 chocolate chip cookies, a vegetarian, roast beef, and turkey sandwich on a paper plate which i covered with another paper plate. I brought it back to my cube and did not think about it for the rest of the day. As work finished, I decided to drop off a package for my FA on my way out. So here I am, trying to hold a package the size of a econ 100A book while holding two paper plates with my other hand (I don’t want to get grease on the package). I drop it off in the mail room and take the elevator down and decide to take a cookie from my loot. LO AND BEHOLD, there are TWO sandwiches (turkey sandwich missing!) on my plate! So theres probably a bun, turkey, tomato, onion, and who else knows what scattered somewhere on the Merrill Lynch floor. Someone’s got to clean that up! And I am extremely sorry for the person who has to. Okay, now that I feel loads better getting this off my chest, I’d like to talk about oil.

So, whats your biggest expense besides rent? Most of you guys will answer gas (or food). This answer is valid, because with the weakening dollar (you are now able to buy a lot less with the same $ you had two years ago!), oil fights in some oil exporting countries, and the crappy diplomacy our President exudes! It is really a scary thought, especially when the number one investment bank, Goldman Sachs, predicts that the price per barrel of oil will reach over $200. To give you guys a general idea, the price of crude oil was around $63 when it was around $2.00, so it’ll probably go up to >$8/gal when it hits $200… makes sense? Crude oil prices are reflected in retail gas prices. Yes, the price of crude oil did drop to $113 for two days a few days ago, but I guarantee you will not see a drop in prices at the pump. They will ignore those two days and continue charging the same price. This is an exact example of how greedy oil companies reap in profit. However, I have been reading other internet articles and using my own ingenuity to come up with strategies on how you can save on gas.

#1 – Carpool! Carpool to meetings, to events, to everything. It’s good that most of us actives in VDC are doing it, because it saves a lot of money in the long run. Also, carpooling reduces the demand for gas, which will ‘equilibrize’ with supply, causing P to fall, as we all learned in basic economics.

#2 – Keep it under 3k RPMs. This is for you crazy aggressive drivers, V-TEC lovers, and lazy people who don’t like to shift in manual. I read somewhere that going above 6K RPMs is like “gas flowing out of a garden hose.”

#3 – Invest in oil to offset the price you pay at the pump. I guess this is only for rich people… but I have invested $100,000 of (unfortunately) fake money in the Virtual Stock Exchange in oil ETFs, such as OIL and USO. My result? Over $10,000 in gain (more than 10% returns). As the stock price goes up, you get money to pay for gas. Sounds pretty neat, huh?

#4 – FILL UP TODAY! Regardless if your gas tank is empty or not. Cos its going to go up by next week. I’m not predicting it will, I KNOW it will because the price of crude oil keeps increasing. Consider it an investment on your part.

#5 – I think this one is my favorite, which is why I saved it for last. Two words: Fountain Valley/Westminster. If you ever drive north to go back home, or commute from north, drop by BROOKHURST NORTH off the I-405. Go down Brookhurst into the Chevron. Now, I worked out the numbers for this one. Gas is $4.16 for premium at the Chevron on Culver, its freakin $4.06 on Brookhurst! Okay, thats 10 cents in savings… but if you fill up a 10 gallon tank, thats already a dollar in savings. Now do that four times…. thats an extra gallon, an extra ~25 MPG. Keep doing that and you’ll generate a positive feedback loop. What i’m saying here is, if your gas tank is ever near empty, hey, call up some bros and make an Alertos/BCDs/Pho run!

Notice May 6th when I went to Fountain Valley, compared to when I fill up at USA gas. Heck, i’m even getting better gas with Chevron at a cheaper price.

Thanks for reading this post, any comments and disagreement are welcome.