BOSTON - Americans squeezed by price high gasoline and rising costs for food and other essentials were simple but effective measures to stretch their paychecks a little more later.
Reduce driving is an option evident but even non-drivers have seen living costs rise because companies are trying to pass on the rising prices of raw materials and energy.
Data Friday showed gasoline and food prices pushed inflation U.S. to a year in 2-1/2 high of 3.2% in the 12 months to April.
Inflation is much lower when the food and energy are removed from the equation, the best way to consider the price growth for policymakers at the Federal Reserve. But depriving them of a budget of households is not so simple.
John Bedell, 38, an architect who lives in Boston, said that he was bringing his lunch to work more often to save money.
Bedell was also trimmed its entertainment expenses - making cuts in its package of cable television and books borrowing and films of the public library instead of buying them.
Kim Williams of Boston is brown-bagging lunch more often too. "I shop as much as I used to." I try not to eat as much to the outside, and I try to cook them, said Williams, 47, who works at the customer service.
Club automobile service AAA Friday packed the national average price for regular gasoline at $3.98 per gallon, from $3.81 a month ago and 38% more than a year ago.
Drivers whose cars require premium gas cough up $4.25 per gallon on average.
Gasoline and food prices were not the only headache to consumers last month. For new vehicles, prices have increased and the increases in cars and trucks are even more steep.
The Americans also had a little more digging to pay for the medical care last month and prices of clothing and furniture turned higher.
THE TRUCK IN THE BARN OF THE PARK
Many Americans have no choice but to drive to work. Still, some trips have to be cancelled, if for the shopping centre or see friends and relatives.
"I am driving less." "You don't get to go to see the much enlarged family", said Dave Bennett, 51, of Waltham, Massachusetts. "You can really do a lot of things on travel costs."
Bennett takes the train to his work in the financial services sector but the readers of his home at the station. It provides that the price of its rail pass to jump as well.
In Kansas, in the Midwest of the United States, the average gasoline price is a little below the average national, $3.89 per gallon, according to AAA.
It is little comfort to equine enthusiast and freelance photographer Kathy Wismer, 45, of Baldwin city, Kansas.
It costs Wismer some $90 to fill the tank of his truck to tow a trailer of horse to and from events.
"The truck is quite properly parked in the barn now," she said. Instead of this, she and her husband, an air traffic controller, drive their gas and sipping subcompact when possible.
Kyle Robinson, who is the owner of a landscaping company and his wife, Rebecca, a nurse, were on vacation in San Francisco Friday. The couple from Connecticut, said that the trip was possible only because they remain with friends to reduce costs.
"Between food and gas, every day expenses are much more difficult," said Rebecca, 37.
The spectacle of Robinsons the Enigma of the new economy poses to the economy of the United States where small businesses are traditionally the engine of growth of employment.
Each worker who makes his own lunch could mean a sale lost to a local sandwich shop. Any owner forced to cut its own grass means lost for a lawn service business.
"Not that many people spend money, it seems," said Kyle Robinson, 26. This means that "more hours by myself, number of employees," said.
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