Today’s Monroe, Mich., gas prices posted at Michigan Gas Prices are ranging from $1.57 to $1.69.

While I haven’t found much to celebrate about the falling gas prices because of other economic chaos of the past few weeks, the fact is families on a budget may want to start thinking about opportunities that have been on the back burner for awhile.

Here’s why: Most of the gas expenses in your household are related to the daily work commute – not your social or shopping drives.

I’ve been tracking our household expenses on computer since 1996. I am missing some data because of a computer hard drive crash a few months ago. But it is obvious that, over the years, that my family’s gas expenses went up when either my husband or I had a daily work commute out of town, and down when we both worked close to where we live.

In fact, the monthly expenses was so tied into the daily miles driven that I couldn’t  determine the impact of rising gas prices when I did try to crunch those statistics.

The problem is: if you’ve got to cut back on gas expenses – the social and shopping trips are what drop off. If carpooling to work out-of-town was THAT easy for Monroe residents, we’d all have been doing that all along.

Well, the lower prices have been in effect for long enough that you should be noticing a little bit less pain at the pump.

Maybe you can start looking at road trips that have nothing to do with work:

• When’s the last time you took the kids to the zoo?
• When’s the last time you visited one of the museums in the metro areas?
• When’s the last time you went to your favorite specialty or independent stores in Ann Arbor, Novi or Perrysburg?
• When’s the last time you had lunch with the friend who lives an hour away?
• When’s the last time you did a “stock up” run at store that doesn’t exist in your neighborhood?

It’s not going to cost as much to make those drives as it did this summer.

Break out of your cabin fever for a day, and make a road trip you haven’t done for awhile.