Energy and fuel prices are high enough right now... and variables that may cause price spikes in the future are unfortunately plentiful.  Browse some of the following ideas for offsetting the high cost of energy and compensating for the increased financial burden gas price spikes may cause...

NOTE: We'll be adding to this list as we come across new ideas for offsetting the rising costs of gas (submit yours here) so if you discover idea overlap, please forgive the redundancy.

* GasStress.com's Best Picks for Offsetting High Energy Costs

Buy a cash car.  Save miles (and mpgs) on your gas guzzler and travel around town in a more efficient vehicle.

*Buy a scooter or a moped.  Some models get 100+ mpg.

Downsize your insurance.  If your car has very little value, you probably only need liability insurance.

Cut the kids hair yourself.  Seriously... learn the skill, it's not hard... and for you Mormons - you'll save tons.

*Save on eats.  Buy in bulk food warehouses.  Also, bring a sandwich, an apple, and a juice box (or equivalent) to work.  Axe the daily $7 fast food tab. Major side benefits: obvious.

*Cancel cable.  Trust us, you'll survive.  Possible side benefit: committment to reading more (or spending more family time playing games and singing songs around the fireplace).

*Write a list before you go shopping - and stick to it. One should never go into a store without a strong idea of what one will be buying while in there

*Invite friends over instead of going out. Almost every activity at home is less expensive than going out

Fix it.  Instead of throwing out some damaged clothing, repair it instead. Don’t toss out a shirt because of a broken button - sew a new one on with some closely-matched thread

*Don’t spend big money entertaining your children. Most children, especially young ones, can be entertained very cheaply.  The rest don't remember the entertainment.

*Call your credit card company and ask for a rate reduction. Take any of your credit cards that are carrying a balance, flip them over, and call the number on the back. Tell them that you want an interest rate reduction or you’ll take your business elsewhere. If the first person you talk to won’t do it, ask to talk to a supervisor. If you have a $5,000 balance, even a 3% rate reduction saves you $150 a year.

*Clean out your closet. Go through your closets and try to get rid of some of the stuff in there. You can have a yard sale with it, take it to a consignment shop, or even donate it for the tax deduction - all of which turn old stuff you don’t want to use any more into money in your pocket.  Ever hear of eBay?

*Start a business.  Do something you love, or have an interest in... but add value and re-sell... on Craigslist, on eBay, etc.  Use the extra income to offset fuel and energy costs.

Drink more water. Not only does drinking plenty of water have great health benefits, water drinking has financial benefits, too. Drink a big glass of water before each meal, and not only will you digest it better, you won’t eat as much, saving on the ol’ food bill

*Cut back on the convenience foods - fast foods, microwave meals, and so on. Instead of eating fast food or just nuking some prepackaged food when you get home, try making some simple and healthy replacements that you can take with you. An hour’s worth of preparation one weekend can give you a ton of cheap and handy meals that will end up saving you a lot of cash and not eat into your time when you’re busy.

*Give up expensive habits, like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, energy drinks, and losing at the lottery. Those habits cause money to flow away from you with nothing in return. Call up your fortitude and work hard to kick the habits and you’ll find that money staying in your pocket instead of burning up and floating away.

Make a quadruple batch of a casserole. Casseroles are nice, easy dishes to prepare, but on busy nights, it’s often still easier to just order some take-out or eat out or just plop a prepackaged meal in the oven. Instead, the next time you make a casserole, make four batches of it and put the other three in the freezer. Then, the next time you need a quick meal for the family, grab one of those batches and just heat it up - easy as can be. Even better, doing this allows you to buy the ingredients in bulk, making each casserole cheaper than it would be ordinarily - and far, far cheaper than eating out or trying a prepackaged meal.

*Be diligent about turning off lights before you leave. If you spend one minute turning off lights before a two hour trip, that’s the equivalent of earning $50 an hour. That’s some impressive savings, particularly if you do it before longer trips. The key is to use less energy, particularly when you’re not using the device.

Swap books, music, and DVDs cheaply on the internet via services like PaperBackSwap. You can very easily swap the books and CDs and DVDs you’ve grown bored with via the internet with others. Just use sites like PaperBackSwap, clean out your media collection, and trade them with others online. The best part? You’ll get a flood of new books (or CDs or DVDs) to enjoy, mailed right to you - for free.

Maximize yard sales. I like to stop by yard sales if I see them, but I recognize that often the stuff there is junk. Thus, I’m careful about what I buy and I use clever tactics to find it - and lower the prices. That way, I wind up with a really big bargain - or else I can just walk away with the money in my pocket, having been entertained for a bit.

*Install CFL (or, even better, LED) bulbs wherever it makes sense. These bulbs might cost more initially, but they both have a longer life than normal incandescent bulbs and they both eat far less electricity. CFLs tend to use about 25% of the electricity of an incandescent - LEDs use about 2%. CFLs are cheaper than LEDs right now and produce better light, but not quite as good as incandescent bulbs. My policy? Put LEDs in closets and out of the way places, use CFLs for hall and some room lighting, and use incandescent bulbs (until the other bulbs get better) where you read and do other eye-intensive activities. This will trim a significant amount from your electric bill.

*Install a programmable thermostat. These devices regulate the temperature in your house automatically according to the schedule that you set. Thus, when you’re not home, it allows the heating or cooling to turn off for several hours, saving you on your energy bill. A programmable thermostat can easily cut your energy bill by 10 to 20%.

Cancel unused club memberships. Are you paying dues at a club that you never use? Like, for instance, a gym membership or a country club membership? Cancel these club memberships, even if you think you might use them again someday - you can always renew the membership at a later date if it turns out that you actually do miss it.

*Buy used.  When shopping for standard items (clothes, sports equipment, older games, etc.), start by shopping used. Quite often, you can find the exact item you want with a bit of clever shopping at used equipment stores, used game stores, consignment shops, and so on. Just make these shops a part of your normal routine - go there first when looking for potential items and you will save money.

Give a gift of a service instead of an item. For new parents, give an evening of babysitting as a gift. If you know pet owners, offer to take care of their pets when they travel. Offer up some lawn care as a gift to a new homeowner. These are always spectacular gifts for anyone - I know that, as a parent of a toddler and an infant, I love receiving a babysitting gift, probably more than any “stuff” I might receive.

*Try generic brands of items you buy regularly. Instead of just picking up the ordinary brand of an item you buy, try out the store brand or generic version of the item. Likely, you’ll save a few cents now, but you’ll also likely discover that the store brand is just as good as the name brand - the only difference between the two, often, is the marketing. Once you’re on board the generic train, you’ll find your regular grocery bill getting smaller and smaller.

*Prepare some meals at home. Get an accessible and easy-to-use cookbook (my favorite “beginner” cookbook is Mark Bittman’s excellent How to Cook Everything) and try making some of the dishes inside. You’ll find that cooking at home is much easier than you think - and way cheaper and healthier than take-out or dining out. Even better, you can easily prepare meals in advance - even handy fast food type meals.

Switch to term life insurance. Repeat after me: insurance is not an investment. Switch to term insurance instead and use that difference in cost to get yourself out of debt and start building some wealth. Universal and whole policies are much more expensive and offer a sub par investment opportunity - you’re much better off getting yourself free of a debt burden than spending extra on such things.

Rent out unused space in your home. Do you have an extra bedroom that’s not being used? Rent it out. In our home, we could, if times were tough, rent out our entire basement - it has a “living room,” a bedroom, and a bathroom and has a stairwell right by the kitchen. If we found the right person, this would bring in a lot of extra money.

*Create a visual reminder of your debt. Basically, just make a giant progress bar that starts with the amount of debt you have and ends with zero. Each time you pay down a little bit, fill in a little more of that progress bar. Keep this reminder in a place where you’ll see it often, and keep filling it in regularly. It keeps your eyes on the prize and leads you straight to debt freedom

Get rid of unread magazine subscriptions. Do you have a pile of unread magazines sitting around your house? Likely, it’s the result of a subscription that you’re not reading. Not only should you not renew that magazine, you should give their subscription department a call and try to cancel for a refund - sometimes, they’ll give you the prorated amount back. I’ve had to cull my subscriptions in the past, but I’ve never regretted it.

Eat breakfast. Eating a healthy breakfast fills you up with energy for the day and also decreases your desire to eat a big lunch in the middle of the day. Not only that, breakfast can be very healthy, quick, and inexpensive. A bowl of oatmeal in the morning is often the one thing that keeps me from running out to eat an expensive lunch later in the day - and it keeps me peppy and full of energy for the entire morning instead of in a coffee-laced daze.

Swap babysitting with neighbors. We live in a neighborhood with an army of young children out and about. Because of that, there are a lot of parents out there who are quite willing to swap babysitting nights with us, saving you the money of hiring one for an evening out. A few families even take this to incredible extremes. Try to find another set of parents or two that you trust, and swap nights of babysitting with them. That way, you’ll get occasional evenings free without the cost of a babysitter, saving you some scratch.

*Brown bag your lunch. Instead of going out to eat at work, take your own lunch. Lots of people think that this means “nasty lunch,” but it doesn’t. With some thoughtful preparation and just a few minutes of time, you can create something quite enjoyable for your brown bag lunch - and save a fistful of cash each day, too.

Look for a cheaper place to live. The cost of living in Iowa is surprisingly low, enough so that I’m quite happy to give up the cultural opportunities of other places to enjoy Iowa all year around. When I want to enjoy the cultural opportunities of another place, I’ll travel there - after all, I can afford it. Take a serious look about moving to a less expensive area - if you can find work there, then a move can definitely put you in better financial shape.

*Find free entertainment.  Check out what your town’s parks and recreation board has to offer. My town has several wonderful parks, free basketball and tennis courts, free disc golf, trails, and lots of other stuff just there waiting to be used. You can go have fun for hours out in the wonderful outdoors, playing sports, hiking on trails, or trying other activities - and it’s all there for free. All you have to do is discover it.

Start a garden. Gardening is an inexpensive hobby if you have a yard. Just rent a tiller, till up a patch, plant some plants, keep it weeded, and you’ll have a very inexpensive hobby that produces a huge amount of vegetables for you to eat at the end of the season. I like planting a bunch of tomato plants, keeping them cared for, then enjoying a huge flood of tomatoes at the end of the summer. We like to eat them fresh, can them, and make tomato juice, sauce, paste, ketchup, pasta sauce, and pizza sauce. Delicious (and very inexpensive)!

Dig into your community calendar. There are often tons of free events going on in your town that you don’t even know about. Stop by the local library or by city hall and ask how you can get ahold of a listing of upcoming community events, and make an effort to hit the interesting ones. You can often get free meals, free entertainment, and free stuff just by paying attention - even better, you’ll get in touch with what’s going on around you.

Get a crock pot. A crock pot is perhaps the best deal on earth for reducing cooking costs in a busy family. You can just dump in your ingredients before work, put it on simmer, and dinner is done when you get home. There are countless recipes out there for all variety of foods, and every time you cook this way, you’re saving money as compared to eating out.

Pack food before you go on a road trip. Have everyone pack a sack lunch for the trip. That way, instead of stopping in the middle of the trip, driving around looking for a place to eat, spending a bunch of time there, and then paying a hefty bill, you can just eat on the road or, better yet, stop at a nice park and stretch for a bit. Plus, you’ll save a lot of money and a fair amount of time this way.

*Downsize your cell bill.  Go through your cell phone bill, look for services you don’t use, and ditch them. Sit down and go through each item on your bill and see if there’s anything there that you don’t use, like a surfeit of text messages or web access or something to that effect. Then call your cell phone company and ask to have those services eliminated. Boom, you’re saving money.

Consolidate your student loans. Interest rates are quite low right now, so it might be worthwhile to consolidate your student loans into one low-rate package. Look into the various student loan consolidation packages - even a 1% reduction on a $10,000 loan saves you $100 a year - and your loan is probably bigger than that (and the rate cut you could get is probably bigger).

When buying a car, go for late model used. These are typically cars coming straight off of leases, meaning they were cared for by reliable owners. My truck was purchased with this criteria and has lasted me several years already with only one significant issue - and I saved a ton of money on the purchase price over buying new. Only now is it beginning to show significant signs of aging - and with the money I saved on that purchase, I was able to get out of debt that much quicker.

Hit the library - hard. Don’t look at a library as just a place to get old books. Look at it as a free place to do all sorts of things. I’ve used it to learn a foreign language, meet people, use the Internet anonymously, check out movies and CDs, grab local free newspapers, and keep up on community events. Best of all, it doesn’t cost a dime.

Use a simple razor to shave. I’ve been a big advocate of the basic safety razor for a long time, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. For “normal” shaves, I just shave in the shower and dry off the blade afterwards, using just soap for lather - incredibly cheap, since I only swap blades once every few weeks. The real moral of the story? Use a simple razor - not an expensive electric one that stops working in three years - and shave your face when it’s wet. You can get a very good shave with some practice and save a lot of money over the long haul.

Find out about all of the benefits of your job. Most people aren’t even aware of all of the benefits available to them. Spend some time with an HR person finding out about all the benefits of your job - you might be surprised at what you might find. I found free tickets to sporting events, free personal improvement opportunities, and an optional employee match on some retirement funds that maximized the money I was socking away. This not only cut down on my own spending on things like sporting and community events and educational classes, but also improved my retirement plan.

Make your own items instead of buying them. It’s amazing how many things you can make at home in just a few minutes that saves a ton of money compared to the commercial version.  I can't think of any right now, but I'm sure if you really looked around...

Encourage your friends to do less expensive activities. This is often a tricky thing to do, but there are a number of techniques you can try. My favorite one is to be the first one to suggest something - that often gives you the power to steer the group towards things that are cheaper. If you can convince your friends to go to the park and shoot hoops instead of going golfing, those green fees are going to stay in your pocket.

Buy a smaller house. I currently live in a 2,000 square foot house with my wife and two kids. Frankly, it’s just the right size for us - if anything, it’s a little big. We often find ourselves in the same room in the house, just surrounded by empty space. You don’t need a giant place to live. Instead, buy something more modest and you’ll find yourself with plenty of room - and still plenty of cash in your pocket.

Drive a different route to work. This is an especially powerful tip if you find yourself “automatically” stopping for something on the way into work or the way home. Get rid of that constant drain by selecting a different route that doesn’t go by the temptation, even if the new route is a bit longer. You’ll still be time ahead (because you’re not stopping) and you’ll definitely be money ahead.

Always ask for fees to be waived. Any time you sign up for a service of any kind and there are sign-up fees, ask for them to be waived. Sometimes (but not always), they will be - and you save money just by being forthright about not wanting to pay excessive fees. I did this with my last cell phone sign-up and got part of my fees waived, cutting down significantly on the bill.

*Don’t overspend on hygiene products. For most people, inexpensive hygiene products do the trick - for example, I just buy whichever toothpaste is the cheapest, and the same goes with deodorant and the like. The key is to use this stuff regularly and consistently - bathe daily, keep yourself clean, and you’ll be just fine. No need to buy a $40 facial scrub if you actually scrub your face properly.

*Eat less meat. For the nutritional value, meat is very expensive, especially as compared to vegetables and fruits. Simply change around your regular meal proportions to include more fruits and vegetables and less meats - eat a smaller steak and a bigger helping of green beans, for example. Not only is this a healthier way to eat (saving on health costs), it’s also less expensive.

Use a brutally effective coupon strategy. Here’s the trick: wait a month before using the coupons. Save your coupon flyer out of your Sunday paper for a month, then bust it out and start cutting anything that might be of interest. For a bonus kicker, use the coupons in comparison with your grocery store flyer that week to find out ways you can use a coupon to reduce the cost of an item already on sale - you can wind up paying pennies for some things and, on occasion, actually get food for free (I’ve came home with a ton of free yogurt containers before, for example).

Air seal your home. Most homes have some air leaks that make the job of keeping it cool in summer and warm in winter that much harder - and that much more costly for you. Spend an afternoon air sealing your home - the DoE has a great guide on basic airsealing.

Make your own beer or wine. If you enjoy an occasional drink, this is a great way to enjoy some of the beverages that you love at a very cheap price. You can easily make five gallons of beer or wine at once and it doesn’t take that long, either, once you have the basic ingredients. Even better, it’s a great activity to do with friends - you buy the equipment, they bring the juice and you both get a few bottles of delicious homemade wine out of the deal. A nice entertainment, plus some free beverages - that’s a great frugal deal.

Make sure all your electrical devices are on a surge protector. This is especially true of your entertainment center and your computer equipment. A power surge can damage these electronics very easily, so spend the money for a basic surge protector and keep your equipment plugged into such a device.

Get on an automatic debt repayment plan for any student loans you have. Many student loans offer a rate reduction if you sign up for their automatic debt repayment plan. This way, not only do you save a few bucks a month, you don’t have to go to the effort of actually paying the bill. Our automatic plan saved us about $60 a year.

*Cut down on your vacation spending. Instead of going on a big, extravagant trip, pack up the car and see some of America some years for vacation. One of the best vacations I’ve ever taken was when my son was an infant - we just packed up the car and drove around Minnesota, eventually camping for a few days along the north shore of Lake Superior. For a week long relaxing vacation, it was incredibly cheap and quite memorable, too.

*Utilize online bill pay with your bank. This serves two purposes. First, it keeps you in much closer contact with your money, as you can keep a very close eye on your balance and be in much less danger of overdrafting. Second, it saves you money on stamps and paper checks by allowing you to just fill in an online form, click submit, and have your bill paid. Try it out - and take advantage of it if you’re not already.

(Some entry content included from www.thesimpledollar.com)

More ideas to offset rising gas costs...

1. Buy generic prescriptions instead of brand name medications.

2. Do your own nails. Times have changed... change your habits.

3. Rent out a room or garage for some extra compensating ncome.

4. Replace 100 watt bulbs with 60 watt bulbs... or better yet, go green with cost-saving compact flourescent bulbs.

5. Throw pocket change in a jar and take it to the bank (or the gas station) when it's full.

6. Go to a matinee instead of an evening show.

7. Share housing with a friend or family member.

8. Cut down on dryer usage.  Hang clothes out to dry

9. Have your water company do an audit so you are not charged sewage fees for water used in your garden.

10. Refinance your mortgage. Rates are great, now may be the time.

11. Save doubly.  Grocery shop on double coupon days

12. Use low flush toilets or water saving devices in the tank.

13. Drop unneeded telephone services like call forwarding or caller ID.

14. Save on produce.  Buy fruits and vegetables in season.

15. Kick ATM fees.  Avoid using your ATM card at machines that charge a fee.

16. Become a sample scrounger.  Ask your doctor for samples of prescriptions.

17. Borrow a dress for a big night out, or go to a consignment shop.

18. If you pay for childcare, make use of the dependent care tax credit or your employer's dependent care flexible spending account.

19. Don't use your dishwasher dry cycle; open the door and let them air dry all night.

20. Skip x-rays.  Skip annual full mouth x-rays unless there is a problem; the ADA recommends x-rays every 3 years.

21. Water your garden at night or early in the morning.

22. Call for cheaper calls.  Shop around for long distance rates.

23. Hand wash instead of dry cleaning.

24. Garden.  Grow your own vegetables and herbs.

ETC.

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