What happens next??

With soaring living costs and a slowing economy, what will happen when I can no longer afford to go to work?
I spend on average £250 per month on deisel commuting to work, home fuel/electricity costs are running into £100 a month and both of these will only continue to rise while wages remain the same and are likely to due to the threat of a recession.
Food costs are increasing and due to the 'credit crunch' I will more than likely be paying a lot more for my mortgage when my 2 year fixed term runs out next year.

My question is; what happens when an economy reaches the tipping point whereby it becomes too expensive to work/live thereby exacerbating the situation with further slowed growth and raging unemployment?

This may be an obvious question for an economist but as a layman I am merely interested, if not a bit aprehensive!!

www.telegraph.co.uk.../money/2008/07/26/cnenergy126.xml

reply to post by Thebudweiserstuntman


carpool? bus? walk? bike? motorcycle? scooter? moped?

at this time there are alot of options

at some point it will be a huge concern, even here in seattle there are some who have transferred or quit to get a closer to home job cause of commute time and gas and raising price of even parking garages

if you are able to do any of the above congrats, if not, i dont know what else to say

i refuse to own a car in a city and therefor take the bus or my bike or walk

reply to post by MurderCityDevil


I live in a rural area where bus / cycling etc are impractical. I agree with not owning a car in a city - there's no point with good public transport links however at some point ther will be a 'critical mass' point whereby people like myself can no longer get to work. My partner is a nurse so is limited to areas where she can work but i'm pretty flexible as an environmental consultant but ironically that means i need to use my car for work. We live inbetween our two places of work and my car is one of the most economical in its class but still costs a fortune!

Anyway the point of this thread is not to answer my specific problems but to start general debate on the issue. What are the options for the future? I can't see biofuels filling the gaps.

reply to post by Thebudweiserstuntman


understandable, well here in emerald city, the scooters are selling like hot cakes, and ive seen alot more electric scooters and bicycle lately as well

which is pretty awesome and at a 1 gallon tank at 85 mpg average, thats not bad

granted most scoots cant go on freeways where they are unable to keep up with traffic

i agree though something has got to give

reply to post by MurderCityDevil


Sales of 'Smart' cars over here have shot up pretty much - they're two seater cars with small engines but not really practical for every day use. Was reading in another forum that its costing $5 in the US for 'brand' name bread - that's insane, even by UK prices. We're still only 90p - about 50 cents. At least that balances some of the cheap petrol you guys get! It costs me £70 - around $140 a week to fill my car.

[edit on 25-7-2008 by Flory]

Originally posted by Thebudweiserstuntman
Was reading in another forum that its costing $5 in the US for 'brand' name bread - that's insane, even by UK prices. We're still only 90p - about 50 cents.

I have no idea where that number would come from. Name brand bread in the Southeast is $2 and you can get store brand for $1. Personally, I can't really tell the difference. I can't imagine it being much higher anywhere else in the country.