Volatility

Nobody hasn’t noticed the rise in gasoline prices by now. It’s not just gasoline, it’s everything having to do with petroleum. Just about everything in our civilization has a connection to oil. Agriculture is a big one. Oil is used in fertilizers, tractors, trucks, pesticides -you name it. Expect it to show up in your food bill and plan accordingly.

Here’s how the volatility has affected me. Living in the Great North Woods of New Hampshire, there’s still plenty of winter left. In fact, I’m expecting about a foot of snow on Saturday. At the beginning of the month I noticed my heating oil was getting low. The oil company only delivers to my area one day a week. Even though I called 24 hours ahead of time, they said they could not get to me that week.

I was suspicious. Instead of getting a full order I told them to cap my order at $300. I figured that between a partial delivery and my woodstove we’d be fine until it warmed up. Well, they delivered the partial order, but the price had gone up to $391.40. Pretty big jump in a week. It made me wonder if they couldn’t fill me on purpose the week before.

It took some time on the phone, but was able to get the bill back down to the original $300. While I’d been a customer with them for a while, I had no difficulty ending the relationship if I had to. There are other fuel companies and other ways to heat the house. Firewood literally grows on trees.

This is only the beginning. While it looks like the house will be warm the rest of this heating season, next winter it’ll be worse. In the next few months I’ve got to decide what to do. I’ll go over that in another blog post.

Anyway, buckle up -it’s going to be interesting.

-Sixbears