Comments on: Open Thread: Are You Staying Home More?

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:14:20 +0000

In my case, I’ve been unemployed and marginally self-employed, and have increasingly moved to a conscious search for work that would have me at home as much as possible, or otherwise as local as possible. For non-work, gas prices are a factor in where and when we drive, jokes about if the car actually will run aside. I see a big opportunity for price undifferentiation by local retailers. That is, if Wal-Mart is 10 miles and a more local alternative is a mile, it takes a pretty huge discount at Wal-Mart or a well planned large trip to maximize savings, or else it’s more worthwhile to pay a little more closer to home. I can see a complete reshaping of how people conduct their lives and how we orient ourselves geographically. The farther distances remain most viable in a virtual way and will become more of a factor, but at the same time, local hubs of commerce, etc. will become more important. Perhaps a return of the small downtown as an attractive destination. Even if that’s off, we’re in a phase change. A historic or cultural discontinuity, if you will.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:00:24 +0000

I work with Dallas school district and they recently took away our gas stipend. I travel across the city from school to school and the loss of the gas stipend left a whole in my budget, particularly now with the gas prices increasing. So, on weekends, I stay home now and do garden work, read a book, etc. anything that doesn’t require me to drive.

By: dre1988

dre1988 — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:26:48 +0000

I can’t as my line of work doesn’t allow telecommuting but I’m definitely going out less in my spare time. At close to $4 a gallon, I’ve got to set my priorities.

By: Janice Greenberg

Janice Greenberg — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:34:36 +0000

I just got back from NC where gas prices are up to $3.70. Here in NJ it’s about $3.55.
We plan to go down to NC by car at the end of June. That will be interesting–gas price wise.

By: Jeremy Pepper

Jeremy Pepper — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:59:11 +0000

Moving to LA, I made sure that office to home was a walkable commute, and pretty much trying to walk to work every day.

It hasn’t rained so far, so that’s good. And I’m only using Zipcar in LA. I liked living in SF and walking everywhere, for the most part.

And, where I work (Boingo), we see having a Boingo as another way for the Web Worker Daily to be able to thrive and be productive: tons of hotspots through a subscription to the service, including cafes, coffee shops, restaurants and more.

By: John Swaringen

John Swaringen — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:57:57 +0000

I know I’m staying home a lot more when I go somewhere with my wife and exclaim. Wow, where’d that shopping center come from? The price of gasoline is bad, and in places like Texas (here) and California where we don’t have much in the way of public transportation it can be extremely hard on people. Especially the poor who have to drive to work.

By: HelloChrisSmith

HelloChrisSmith — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:33:36 +0000

I hate the idea of having to stay home because of rising gas prices but I also realize that the less I use, the less strain it puts on the overall demand. Over the last four or five weekends we have stayed at home a lot more.

By: Victor Vogelpoel

Victor Vogelpoel — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:50:39 +0000

For a Dutch guy like me, those prices are heaven. In the Netherlands, we pay EUR 1.54 per liter which calculates to $9.03 per gallon… A very large part of this price are taxes.
Fortunately enough, I drive a company car and have a company gasoline card.

My partner has her own (little) car, but she uses mine whenever possible.

By: Scott Blitstein

Scott Blitstein — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:24:40 +0000

My office is just minutes from my home so it isn’t really affecting how I often I go in.

What is changing is the number of outsourced service call offers we are passing on now that we aren’t willing to travel as far. We used to take quite a few “fill in” jobs but are now much more conscious of how much we need to recover to make them worthwhile.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:12:11 +0000

Great article! At eLearningZoom.com, we are helping customers everyday to leverage the Internet to work at home or anytime anywhere through our online training portal and web meeting.

Why paying high gasoline costs with all the headaches in traffic jams?

http://www.eLearningZoom.com