Be an Informed Consumer

This winter I had to start looking for alternative ways to heat my home other than my normal gas furnace. I chose to use my kerosene heater because its what I had on hand. Now kerosene in this part of the country has always been expensive. However it had never occured to me that maybe the pricing in this area was extremely high. As a matter of fact it basically boils down to price gouging.
Now at the local hardware stores you'll pay on average $7.00 dollars per gallon. A few places around town will also sell you kerosene and they charge $6.00 a gallon. So I researched it for just a few minutes and this was double the price according to the internet for the average price of kerosene here in the U.S.
Its obvious that commercialism and greed are rampant everywhere. In order to protect ourselves we must be diligent consumers. The internet is a powerful tool in consumers hands. We can research and compare and then ultimately let merchants know that we've done our homework and their prices are exorbitant. So the next time your purchasing something use your tools and be an informed consumer. I think I'll look into buying kerosene in larger quantities and maybe cut out the middle man.