Rising Prices

I've had some noteworthy lifeshocks around money over the last few months. It all started with my thinking about why the cost of college education seems so outrageously expensive. Why is it our children have come to accept the fact that a college education is synonymous with graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt? There seems to be no end in sight for this issue. All I see are businesses interested in lending students money versus finding ways to deliver college-level education at more competitive prices. Where is the SouthWest Airlines of education? What segments of society are getting excluded from higher education because of this?

But more on the home front is the cost of gas and the cost of food. I've been driving more lately. Some of that is work-related and some of it is that I'm out more and dating and just seeing more people in general versus staying home all the time. In the past I was lucky to only fill up with gas once a week or every 10 days. Now it's much more often. It's something I can afford so I choose to drive, but it just seems like there is a powerful trend up in prices that is not letting up. Sure it falls back some, only to rise even more a few months later.

I was speaking with a friend of mine who has retired with his wife in San Miguel, Mexico. They sold both of their cars and walk everywhere or rent on rare occasions.  I know that's not uncommon for New Yorkers or people in Boston or maybe San Francisco but for us Texans that's such a foreign thought. Yet, how enticing is that - no automobile to feed endless amounts of maintenance and gas to. Which reminds me, I need new tires ...

Anyway, what I also wonder is how the price of gas is impacting the cost of food. Sure seems like I'm paying more at the grocery store. How about you?

So let's look at the trends. Notice over the last three years there have been spikes but this current upswing we are on seems to have a head of steam to it ... where is it going to end and what will it mean?

Tom