Petrol prices up again! Now at RM2.70

My reaction can be translated to the picture of Sofea above

As at 5pm yesterday, i kept on visiting the online newspaper to see what's the new petrol price structure is all about, but to no avail, nothing was updated. In a few minutes time, i received an email from my colleague who is kinda related to politics. According to him, the prices of petrol will go up to 80cents per litre. At first i wanted to ignore it, but coming from him, i do have to say i kinda trust him. So quickly i messaged wifey to fill up her tank. Luckily enough, she managed to fill it up early before the que starts coming in.

I officially heard the news on Radio 24's news at 6.30pm that confirmed by 5th June 2008, the petrol will increase by 78 cents. Oh my god, that high??? So i rushed quickly to the Esso station at Keramat after informing a few of my contacts through sms'es. By the time i got there, the que was already starting to build up. Luckily i qued at the correct lane which eventually did not take that long to que. There were already 4 cars in front of me, but hey, what the heck. Might as well go for it. And at the same time i keep praying, please don't let the credit card machine fail now as i have only Rm10 in my wallet.

Fill it up before before you go go!!! This was only at 6.35pm.

The bad
After about 15 minutes of queing up, finally it's my turn. Inserted my Amex card, and finally it was okay. Pump it up to the max at the meter showed RM60.01. In other words, i would be pumping in 31.25 litres of petrol. I guessed that's the last one that i'm gonna get for this price. The next time i pump in at the same amount, i will only be getting 22.22 litres of petrol. That's less 10 litres for what i'm getting now. Technically, i will only be filling in 1/3 of my Waja tank compared to 1/2 as before. So that's the whole news. Usually i will pump in around RM80 for 2 week. With the new price, i will have to fill up RM 112 to get the same amout of petrol. That's RM 32 more. Times 2 is RM64. Times 12 is RM768. That's the additional expenses that i have to incure for the upcoming year. And that does not include long journey trips. This is just the daily commute from Wangsa Maju - Jalan Kent - BNM - Jalan Kent - Wangsa Maju + a few nearby destination. That night by the time we headed to home around 10pm, all petrol stations were still busy like no one's business. We even had trouble getting home as the road that was heading to home was filled up with cars. Finally we took the incoming lane to bypass the jam. There were no other choice. Either face the upcoming cars or stay stuck for the next hour. Petrol stations are the last place on earth you want to go yesterday if you are really in a hury.

A lot more cars were queing up behind the waja. It got even worse after this

The good
By the time i left the petrol station, the que was really starting to build up. Luckily i was done. Watched the news at 7 with papa. The good news is that the Government will going to give a cash rebate of RM625 for cars less that 2000cc. It will be paid when you renew your roadtax. And the waja's roadtax is due on August. Woohoo!!!. Luckily i was in the group. So technically RM625 /12 = Rm52 per month. Well i guess it's better than nothing. Luckily the Waja is 1600cc which qualifies for this and cheaper roadtax. Can't complain there. I guess the waja will be serving me for long. For those of you complaining about abolish roadtax, well how about this. Get yourself a car less than 1600cc. It's about less then RM10 per month.

Next course of action
In these tough time, i guess we will have to really cut down on our expenses. They said change our lifestyle. From car, change to motorcycle, from motorcycle to bicycle, from cab to lrt and from lrt to bus and finally from any of these transport to walking. But then you will have to spend more on mineral water :) I'm already cutting down the expenses to the max including not to use the air cond to and from the office. What else could i cut down on. Just something to ponder...

The effect
As of today as i was getting to work, the cars around me seems to go way slower than usual. Some of them even drove at 30km/h. What the heck??? I know they want to decrease the usage of petrol but, isn't it if you go slower the more petrol you consume since you will need to always step on the accelerator instead of letting the car cruise? I hope today i made it on time before the 9.00am "dead" line. Hope this is only temporarily. If not, i have to face the petrol hike and also the late attendance again.

Note: I hope D'tebing doesn't increase their price arising from the petrol hike.

"Harga petrol di Malaysia masih diantara yang terendah di rantau ini"