Black Thursday

I normally don't like to blog about politics but yesterday's announcement by our dear PM really made my blood boil. At a stroke the price of petrol went up by 78 cents to RM2.70 (40.625% increase!). How ridiculous can you get? To make matters worse most of Penang's jokers were actually putting our already slow traffic to a standstill in their efforts to rush to the petrol station to fill up before the price hike. Most of the roads with any semblance of a petrol station were filled to the brim with up to kilometres long of cars waiting to fuel up. Some were actually blocking the entry/exit of some roads in their efforts to queue up for petrol. Come on people! How much can you save?

I did a quick calculation of how much more I would need to spend on petrol and it came up to the following:

Currently am refuelling bout 40 litres every 1.5 weeks for my Slowtra. This means I’ll hafta refuel approx 35 times per year.

This would make my fuel costs

Yesterday
(40 X 1.92) X 35 = RM2688

Today
(40 X 2.70) X 35 = RM3780

Difference = RM1092

Deduct the RM625 rebate promised by our dear Gov and this means that I would be paying extra RM467 per year or RM38.916666666 per month.

Which doesn't sound that bad until you hear that Tenaga Nasional is to raise electricity rates by 18% for home users. This will then likely spiral the price of everything else upwards. Went for lunch earlier today and a bowl of large koay teow ting immediately went up to RM3 from RM2.50. Unscrupulous or Unbelievable! On top of that I''ll be moving to my new house soon which will mean that my new mileage will be approx 40% higher. Double Ouch! Now excuse me while I go sulk in a corner..