Just six months after Lupe Alvidrez bought a brand new pickup truck for his wife, he drove back to Odessa, Texas to buy her a small car to drive instead.
After looking at their fuel bills, he realized they would save about 300 dollars a month even after they made payments on both vehicles.
"Sometimes you make a goof and sometimes you don't. This just had to be a bad one I guess," the welder told AFP.
"We figured out we were paying close to a thousand dollars a month worth of fuel."
Norma Alvidrez drove more than a hundred miles a day to get to work and then to check on her patients in rural West Texas.
The truck was a treat to replace her bulky minivan, but she's much happier in her little Honda Civic, even if it gets a bit bumpy on the country roads, Alvidrez said.
Rural residents have been particularly hard-hit by high fuel prices because they tend to have lower income levels and often have to drive for miles to get to the nearest store, doctor or even to visit their friends and family.
They usually don't have access to public transit and also tend to drive larger vehicles because of cultural preferences and towing and hauling needs.
That's especially true in the Lone Star state, where ad lines and tee shirts proclaim "Everything's bigger in Texas."
Not too long ago, one out of every four vehicles sold in Texas was a pickup truck, and roads were clogged with hulking sports utility vehicles.
Texas produces 20 percent of the nation's oil and fuel prices have typically been well below national averages.
But even in the heart of the oil fields, gasoline is now selling for more than four dollars a gallon.
Fuel costs are expected to account for 4.2 percent of average US disposable income by the end of the summer, said Brian Bethum, chief US financial economist for Global Insight. That's up from just 3.7 percent in the first half of the year and fast approaching the record 4.5 percent set at the peak of the OPEC oil crisis in early 1981.
In some rural counties, average fuel costs now account for as much as 16 percent of median income, according to a report by the Oil Price Information Service.
And there are 661 US counties where fuel accounts for at least eight percent of median income.
Some people are cutting back on going out. Others are trimming their grocery bills by cutting back on meat or fresh vegetables. There have also been reports of gas being stolen out of parked cars and people switching jobs to shorten their commutes.
An Odessa car dealership has started offering "guaranteed trade-ins" in television ads touting the fuel economy of its Hondas, Mazdas and Kias: Asian brands many self-proclaimed rednecks would not have been caught dead driving a few years ago.
"It's been pretty crazy," said Anthony Wood, sales manager for Kelly Grimsley Auto Group.
"We just got a truck full of Hondas pull up and I don't expect to see them next week. We can't keep 'em."
One customer was even willing to learn how to drive a stick shift so she wouldn't have to wait any longer to switch out of her sports utility vehicle, Wood told AFP.
Randall Roberson, an appliance technician, has had to stop taking his daughter on fishing and hiking trips because he can't afford the extra fuel.
"I was fixing to get me a camel or a burro or something," he joked as he filled up his tank.
"I've got my house paid for and my truck paid for, but have to watch my money a lot better or walk."
