I’m in a whiny mood because a friend of mine called me today, who I haven’t had the chance to talk to for a couple of months, and he asked me how I’ve been doing. What a huge mistake is what he must be thinking now. I snatched up the opportunity to whine and complain and vent and rant for over an hour. Maybe that’s why I’m having so much trouble getting enough sleep at night. I can’t stop worrying.

As I blogged about it a few months ago here, I’ve been having financial trouble. Now after pondering and calculating and studying what the fuck is going on, it has become clear to me that I will not be able to overcome this unless something extraordinary happens, for which I’m very hopeful.

In 2005, the year I bought this house, the gas price was a little over two dollars per gallon. Yeah, it’s only 3 years ago! Now? I paid $4.29 per gallon today. And do you know how much I have to drive? Ninety miles a day. Do you know how much mileage per gallon I get out of a Jeep Wrangler? 15 to 17 miles depending on the traffic.

In 2005, I remember shaking my head when they filled up my near empty 250 gallon oil tank and gave me a bill for about $560. Last month, they gave me a bill for $805.35 for 150 gallons of oil. I honestly started shaking and felt faint when I saw that bill. The next day, I told my co-worker about it.

Eight hundred and five fucking dollars and thirty five cents!!!! I do NOT have that money!

How much are you short?

Eight hundred and five fucking dollars. I think I can scrape thirty five cents off of somewhere.

As with the rising gas price, the price of food and other essential grocery jumped in ridiculous proportions to that in 2005. I’ll give you the example of the food items for my dogs because I’m in the habit of watching the prices of these very closely so that I can buy them when it’s dirt cheap. But it’s representative of how much the living expenses have skyrocketed.

• turkey drumsticks were $0.79/lb and now are $1.29/lb
• chicken leg quarters were $0.59/lb and now are $0.89/lb
• pork neck bones were $0.99/lb and now are $1.19/lb
• lamb bones were $0.99/lb and now are $1.69/lb
• veal bones were $0.99/lb and now are $1.29/lb
• ground beef with organs (made for pets) was $1.00/lb and now is $1.50/lb

So there you go. I’m struggling. And I’m tired. So very tired of thinking about the impending doom. But as you might have noticed above, I’m also hopeful. Hopeful for something extraordinary, which I’ll blog about in a slightly less whiny post some day. Hey, what can you do, you know? Gotta take it one day at a time.