<p>“This is a forum full of very intelligent educated people, did anyone see this (high energy costs - not just gas, but our utility bills doubled as well) coming ?”</p>
<p>I did. Near the end of 2000. It was a perfect storm of weather, power problems on the west coast and middle-east turmoil.</p>
<p>“For those who foresaw our current situation did you take any action to mitigate the risk ? For eg. drive energy efficient cars, live an energy efficient life-style, invest in oil and gas companies ?”</p>
<p>I wrote an investment newsletter recommending precious metals and energy stocks for several months in 2001. I stopped as it was taking too much of my time and as many other writers came in as commodities bottomed. One thing that I’ve learned in the trading community is that some people can spot trends forming way ahead of the crowd. What I like is a good group of people that can bounce ideas around - this is hard to find as traders are frequently crude and argumentative.</p>
<p>We bought our car in 2000 and it has about 155K miles on it. I’d say that it was fuel-efficient for the time (28 MPG, 30 yesterday on a trip to the beach) compared to minivans and SUVs but we only bought it because the minivan that I thought we wanted was backordered with no discounts available. I like to buy things when they aren’t in big demand so that I can get a discount.</p>
<p>We live in a pretty small place and had paid it off in the 1990s and it means that we have low property taxes, heating bills, water bills, electricity bills, etc. We don’t have cable tv or cell-phone plans as I like to minimize cash flows outward.</p>