Quit Complaining About Fuel Prices and Do Something

've officially reached my limit for how much complaining about oil prices I can take. Maybe it's because I write for Saving Advice, but I suddenly have people coming out of the woodwork complaining to me about high gas and food prices. Today a friend sent along another one of those emails urging me to refuse to buy gas on a certain day in order to "teach the oil companies a lesson." This is a close cousin to the email that goes around urging me to boycott the big three oil companies. Neither method will be effective, for several reasons. Briefly (I know you've probably heard it before, but it bears repeating if for no other reason than to stop these annoying emails): Boycotting the "big three" doesn't work because, even those stations that don't advertise affiliation with "Exxon," or "Shell," or whatever are getting their gas from somewhere and it's probably from one of the big producers. Do you think the gas station owner has an oil well and refinery in back of the store and goes out and opens it up when he needs more oil? Of course not. No gas station is independently producing their own oil so there is really nowhere you can buy gas that your money doesn't end up in the pocket of a big oil company.