I know people that live in a rural area (as do I) & drive 50+ miles a day to work & back and based on their fuel bills alone they just don’t have the additional to spend, besides the fact that some of their mortgages have doubled.
I employ around 10-20 teenagers & young adults & their single biggest complaint is how much they spend on gas. Some of them are students that are & were driving a few counties away to attend a university, now they have had to move closer, settle for a community college or quit altogether. Two that I know of for sure have requested full time schedules (after dropping out “for now” as they claim) since Christmas based on this one single issue.
And don’t get me started on these people and their no “money down live beyond your means” personal mortgages & their multiple investment properties. When friends of ours mentioned their intentions a few years back & threw in the words “Carlton Sheets, all we could do was look at each other & shake our heads. For these kinds of people, I haven’t much sympathy.