AA, the motoring group, has released figures which don’t bode well for the average working family. The group worries that families are actually spending more on petrol than they are feeding their families and the recent scare over a potential strike during the Easter holidays didn’t make things any better.
Currently, petrol is at record high this year of 142.48p and diesel at 147.88p per litre. Now a family car with a 50 litre tank will cost over £71 to fill and this is at a time when most households are struggling to keep up with budgets, including putting food on the table for their families.
The amount estimated that two-children families are spending on food per week is just at £70 and that included food items and non-alcoholic beverages. What this means to a family with two vehicles is that they are spending at least £22 extra for filling up than they did just a few short months ago, at the beginning of the year.
The news only gets worse as there are still fears of a petrol tanker strike because talks are failing. Recent news shows that drivers are still queuing up at pumps even though the strike has not happened. Even so, since there doesn’t seem to be an agreement close at hand, there are still very real worries that the strike could happen at any moment and drivers want to be sure that they have sufficient petrol to tide them over.
According to a spokesperson for AA, Edmund King, households are under what he refers to as ‘intolerable strain’ because of widespread panic over the strike and are not filling up more frequently and spending less on necessities such as food. As a final note, fuel prices remain inordinately high even though the strike has not happened and oil has dropped in price.
