Our communication and computing costs are comparable to our gasoline costs

A few people have commented on a blip in gas prices over the past few months.

Much is made of how gas prices are becoming a significant portion of many people's budget, reducing money for food, medicine and entertainment.

Less mention is made of rising communication and computing costs.

We recently did a quick back-of-the-envelope comparison. The sum of our internet, mobile, and landline costs is pretty impressive, and the mobile costs are going to take another big jump.

If we add in purchasing a $1,000 to $3,000 of hardware every year (average), plus software, services (MobileMess and probably 5-7 other recurrent service bills) and infrastructure costs, I suspect our communication and computing budget is larger than our gasoline budget (though smaller than our total transportation costs).

My sense is these costs are rising at least as fast as the cost of gasoline. Sure, so are the capabilities, but in general the capabilities don't have direct revenue attached.

It puts the gas price rises in a slightly different light -- there are many new expenses competing for the modern household budget.