High gas prices are here to stay, and Americans are finally realizing they need to do something about their car gas mileage pain. But the reality is that in the U.S. we’ve been pretty fortunate to have experienced low gas prices for so long.  The last major gas shortage was in the 70′s which many of us don’t even remember.  Now we’re catching up to what have been standard gas prices in Europe, but our lifestyles and city infrastructures are not built to live the European way.

Unfortunately, the U.S. transportation system pales in comparison to Europe’s and we rely too heavily on our cars and our belief that we would always have reasonable gas prices. While many big cities have a rail system, they are completely unmatched in comparison to Europe’s.

The Chicago Transit Authority, for example, is an unreliable system. Trains and buses are rarely on schedule, stations are constantly closed for maintenance, and what seem to be unnecessary thirty minute stops in the middle of a trip has become the norm. In Chicago you just cannot plan to be anywhere at a specific time, whether traveling by air, car or rail.

At least big cities have these options to choose from in order to fight soaring gas prices, and you could feasibly walk everywhere. Several of my neighbors have never owned a car and have never taken a driver’s test. Everything they need is within the neighborhood, and trains, buses and taxis allow them to get anywhere they need to – given they have the time.

Lately I’ve seen more people walking and riding their bikes (which has lead to more biking accidents with

more inexperienced bikers on the roads). But in rural areas there are no options from driving other than to walk or ride your bike, and that could be a mile of biking or hiking just to get to the grocery store – and carrying everything is not even an option.

Other people are trying to build their own Water4Gas system to double their mileage by turning their cars into HHO burning vehicles.

This must be a bigger problem for small town folks or those living in sprawled-out suburbs.

So what are our options? What things are you doing to fight car gas mileage pain and soaring gas prices?

I haven’t done this in quite a while, but here’s a video on how I used to make a quick few hundred dollars. I don’t see how this could fail if you do your research.

I never tried to make this more than just a little extra cash to help finance the start-up of other ventures. With the right organizational skills and the ability to spot opportunities, I don’t see why this can’t be scaled out to bring in a full-time income.

One thing I forgot to point out is that if I couldn’t sell the items on Craigslist, then I’d post it on eBay as a last resort. I think that only happened once, but I found it to be a great resource to unload things. It might cut into your profits a bit, but that’s just the cost of doing business.

Note that I live in Chicago where Craigslist is a very active website and there is a market for just about anything you can imagine.

Millionaire Money Habit: Rather than trying to find obscure markets with no competition, I always followed a philosophy to go where the herds are. Find a way to get involved in areas where the masses have needs or wants, and you should have no problem making money.

Investing without a strategy is like a Sunday driver without a map. You know have a vehicle that can take you places, so you get in and drive around with no destination, no direction and no concept of how long you will be driving before you run out of gas.

It’s important to look at your current situation and examine your goals, timeline and risk tolerance, and outline a plan to reach those goals. Then you can evaluate your necessary investment strategy and game plan. One strategy is to distinguish between a period of capital growth or capital preservation.

According to www.investopedia.com, capital preservation is, “An investment strategy whose primary goal is to prevent the loss of an investment’s total value.” It is a highly conservative investment strategy, characterized to avoid risk but still acquire moderate appreciation on your money. Capital preservation usually means investing the bulk of a portfolio in fixed-income investments that guarantee returns, but offer lower annual returns in exchange for their low-risk association. High quality bonds, money markets and certificates of deposit (CDs) are some examples.

Capital growth, according to www.investopedia.com is, “An asset allocation strategy that seeks to maximize capital appreciation, or the increase in value of a portfolio or asset over the long term.” This would include a portfolio that mostly contains equities, or stocks, in the hopes that the value of the stock will increase over time. Investing for capital appreciation brings on more risk, but the potential for returns can be much greater.

How to determine your investment strategy will depend on your goals, your timeline and your risk tolerance – or how much you can comfortably afford to loose in a worst case scenario. Typically, a person nearing retirement will shift their investment strategy over time towards a capital preservation approach since they do not have the benefit of taking risks and holding through market corrections. Younger investors generally focus more on capital growth, as they have an entire life to rebound from downturns and learn from mistakes.

Current market conditions can also determine an investor’s strategy in the short-term. As discussed in The Best Time Ever to Buy Stocks, the market regularly goes through cycles. There are periods that stocks tend to trend up and times that it trends down. During down cycles it may be best to focus more on capital preservation and prepare to distribute your capital into the stock market as opportunities arise and the market turns around. This, of course, assumes you know how to time the market efficiently, which is a complicated thing to do.

Millionaire Money Habit: Analyze your current situation, investment goals, risk tolerance (link to measuring risk tolerance article), and your timeline to help develop your investment strategy. If you are nearing retirement, put more weight on low-risk, fixed-income investments. If you have a 10 year or longer investment horizon, concentrate more on a diversified stock portfolio for greater returns over time.