By Rachel Wolfe
In Orlando, Fla., Sabrina Brown has begun mapping out her weekend errands to avoid driving all over town in her orange 2019 Nissan Altima SR. At $3.98 a gallon, a full tank costs her just under $65. She recently texted family members who live on the other side of the city to see if gas prices were any lower over there. (They weren't.)
"I'm nervous," said Brown, 48 years old, a state-employed behavioral health worker. "Gas jumped overnight and just keeps jumping."
She plans to use her neighbor's Costco membership next week to take advantage of the chain's discount fuel costs. She also bumped her thermostat up to 75, from 70, and plans to use fans more often as the weather warms. Orlando has been in the 80s for much of March; meanwhile temperatures plummeted into the 30s in the Northeast.
Consumers around the country say they are rejiggering their routines in efforts to cut their energy usage at home and on the road. They're also starting to cut back on discretionary purchases to make up for rising costs elsewhere. For an economy driven by consumer spending, such changes in behavior matter.
High prices for electricity and natural gas used for heating and cooking already have alarmed consumers and played into local elections. For the past year, falling gasoline prices have acted as a shock absorber, offsetting an 11% year-over-year increase in the price of natural gas and 5% rise in electricity. That reprieve ended this month, and could last as the war with Iran drags into its fourth week.
The national average for a gallon of regular has just about reached $4 -- climbing more than $1 in the last 30 days. The number has been a psychological threshold for many consumers, according to a 2022 AAA survey. Although $4 today, adjusted for inflation, is less than in previous price spikes, the last time gas hit a national average of $4 a gallon in 2022, it helped trigger a broader pullback in discretionary spending.
"Gasoline is usually the most salient price for consumers," said Harvard economist Jason Furman. While other costs such as insurance and services might rise quietly in the background, gas prices are broadcast on street corners, serving as a barometer for the broader economy.
"Consumers were already frustrated by rising electricity prices," Furman said. "Now, they have to deal with both problems simultaneously."
In the Bay Area, Andrew Reback, 56, is planning to park his 2014 Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen TDI with a turbocharged diesel-fueled engine once diesel prices hit $9 a gallon.
Instead, he will drive his wife's fully electric 2025 Volvo EX90. Diesel prices were $7.80 when Reback filled up last week, bringing his total to around $117 to fill the 15-gallon tank.
California has some of the nation's highest gas prices because of taxes, environmental requirements and a lack of refinery infrastructure in the state, which has helped push the state's residents toward electric vehicles.
The Rebacks had an at-home EV charger installed recently for roughly $2,000, which they had planned even before the recent rise in gas prices. A year ago, they had decided to spend around $50,000 to install rooftop solar after he said their combined monthly natural gas and electric bill hit nearly $800. The EV charger will be powered by the solar panels.
Now, their electric bills are close to $0 except in the winter when it's less sunny. "Honestly, it's left us wondering why everyone is not doing it," Reback said, adding that he calculated the investment would pay for itself in under six years.
The U.S. has become less energy dependent, and Americans consume less gasoline relative to their inflation-adjusted incomes than during previous price spikes, thanks to increased energy efficiency and generally rising incomes.
The increase in prices will nevertheless squeeze people's paychecks. That, along with the anxiety of a surge, can lead consumers to cuts spending elsewhere.
That's partly because consumer expect the bump at the pump to precipitate broader inflation, as has happened in the past. It is also because people think of their budgets in terms of "buckets" rather than as one long list, according to Yale Center for Customer Insights director Ravi Dhar.
The stress of going over in one category, said Dhar, causes people to pull back in the others.
"Even though in a rational world you should look at your total budget, when one of those buckets starts exceeding, you feel emotionally and psychologically stressed." The stress is amplified, Dhar said, by the reality that in many parts of the country, people have no other option but to drive to get to work, school or the grocery store.
"You have this unavoidable spending you can't control," Dhar said.
Merdeka Martin, 46, is putting herself on a socializing hiatus to keep herself from spending money on cocktails and meals out -- and on the gas it takes to get there. She isn't turning on any lights in her house until the sun goes down to trim an electricity bill that is around $180 a month.
"You better watch your account to the penny because you don't know what's going to happen next," said Martin, who drives 30 miles each way to get to work at a commercial food supplier outside Atlanta. (Public transit isn't available, and carpooling isn't an option because she works from around 4 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.)
The rising price of gas usually hits low-income families and the working poor first, economists say. They already have little room to maneuver and cut from already stretched budgets.
"It's really a dramatic story based on where you fall on the income distribution," said Cornell economics professor Ori Heffetz.
Eric Wickham, 32, a freelance software developer, said the combination of a shifting job market, the rise of AI and now a new war in the Middle East has made him feel hopeless about finding a full-time job.
"Prices have already been skyrocketing with inflation, and this feels like it's doubling down on top of us," said Wickham, who lives in Savannah, Ga. with his parents -- a retiree and a substitute teacher. They are planning to skip the road trip to visit family in North Carolina they normally take around this time of year because of rising fuel costs, and are trying to cut down on any nonessential spending such as occasional meals out.
"The rise in gas prices won't just affect the pump," Wickham said.
Write to Rachel Wolfe at rachel.wolfe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 22:00 ET (02:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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