We hope you filled up your gas tank earlier last week ~ and that you don't need to do it again for a while. Hurricane Ike caused slow-downs and/or shut downs in oil production and gas prices reacted accordingly.
More specifically they went through the roof. In ShopperCast East, we were seeing gas prices at $3.35 a gallon early last week - and we were excited by that price. (Aside - how sad is it when you get excited about $3.35 a gallon?) Then whammo - overnight prices jumped to $3.69 a gallon. Don't blink. Because they're still on the rise. Ouch.
Now prices are up another 5 cents a gallon. Eleven states - Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee - have prices above $4 a gallon. Some areas are predicting seeing $5 a gallon.
If you must fill up, do yourself a favor and use this site to find the cheapest prices. One word of advice though, is that gas prices are rising without notice - so fill up your tank quickly when you find a good price.
--Contributed by Deb