What are people sacrificing to pay high gas prices?

For some people, the change is subtle. They put just $15 or $20 worth of gas in their tank rather than fill up.

For others, it’s more dramatic. They bought a car that uses less gas.

Whatever the approach, people across the region are responding to the higher cost of gas, which last week topped $3 a gallon for regular unleaded at many North of Boston stations.

Here is how some local drivers and boaters are coping with high prices.

Downsizing

David Zing, sales manager at Brown’s Yacht Yard in Gloucester, said boaters are taking fewer and shorter trips.

Something else he’s noticed: People with big boats are buying smaller, more fuel-efficient ones for quick trips to Wingaersheek Beach or the backside of Crane Beach.

“They leave their big boat at the dock,” he said. “They’re still buying a fairly expensive Zodiac hard-bottom inflatable, and they live on the big boat, at least on weekends, then take the little boat to the beach.”

And big boats are getting harder to sell.

“If you have a 26-foot boat you can drop $100 in an afternoon going from Danvers to Wingaersheek,” he said.

People who trailer their boats or have portable gas containers do better because they can go to a regular gas station.

“I’ve seen people tie up here,” he said, pointing to the docks at Brown’s, “and carry a 6-gallon tank up the hill to fill it up at Richdale’s. They probably save 25 cents a gallon.”

Zing takes his 13-foot Boston Whaler up the Annisquam River to visit friends with bigger boats and amenities like bathrooms.

Abandoning ship

Boat owner Joe Romano of Essex is considering selling his 20-foot Seamaster.

“It’s getting too expensive, between repairs and fuel,” he said while standing at the counter at Brown’s marine store, overlooking Gloucester Harbor. “You’d be better off just renting a boat when you go out.”

Val Quinn, who runs the store and fuel dock at Brown’s, said people can justify the high cost because even with gas prices at $3.32 a gallon at the marina, boating is still cheaper than most vacations.

Jay Enos, owner of Enos Marine in Gloucester, said boaters may be taking shorter trips but they are still spending “a lot of money to go out on the water.”

In some cases, he said, they’re spending money to save money — putting newer, more fuel-efficient engines on their old boats.

No more sightseeing

Charles Bruderer of Methuen has eliminated the day trips he and his family took to New England historic sites.

“I used to like exploring the area,” said the Utah native, who was picking up a drink at Burger King in North Andover on his way to a Boy Scout meeting.

But the 65-mile round-trip commute to Boston for his job as a defense contract auditor and other essential trips are costing about $40 a week in gas, forcing him to eliminate nonessential trips. The commuter rail doesn’t work for him because of his schedule.

Bruderer has also scrapped plans to enroll his son in a Boy Scout camp in northern Maine because “the cost of gas makes traveling so far prohibitive.”

Less idle time

Vinny Manzo of Salem, N.H., puts less gas in the tank every time he goes to the station, hoping the price will drop. Lately, that strategy has backfired.

Manzo, who was heading to a meeting last week in North Andover, has also given up his habit of hitting the drive-up window at Burger King, then sitting in the parking lot with the air conditioner on.

Now he lets Burger King pay for the air conditioning.

“At a price of $2.25, OK, I would sit in my car,” he said, finishing his burger and fries inside. “Now it’s $3.05 at the Mobil at Rockingham Mall for regular.”

Manzo, who works in Billerica as a machinist, said he could carpool with his boss, who also lives in Salem, if they didn’t have different schedules. Plus, it might be awkward sitting in a car for long stretches with your boss.

“That too,” he said, laughing.

New car, better mileage

Nick and Gail Lombardi, of North Providence, R.I., who were visiting their daughter at Merrimack College in North Andover last week, changed their car instead of their habits.

They sold their gas-guzzling Ford Explorer last year and bought a Hyundai Santa Fe, saving $100 a month on gas.

The Explorer got 14.2 miles per gallon on the highway and cost $65 to fill. The smaller Hyundai SUV gets 20 miles and its tank tops off at $35.

The Lombardis still go out to eat whenever they want, take trips and go to the movies.

Would Nick Lombardi buy a hybrid? Not unless the price comes down. “The up-front cost is outrageous.”

A European perspective

Christian Burger, 26, and Nora Von Wahl, 24, are from Germany. So don’t tell them about high gas prices.

“The prices are double what they are here,” said Burger, eating a sandwich at a sidewalk table outside Panera in North Andover.

Germans and most of the rest of Europe adapted to high gas prices a while ago.

“I never had a car,” Von Wahl said. “In Germany, we ride bikes ... . The streets all have bike lanes.”

Plus, she said, “the train system is better and there’s a bus stop on every corner.” It helps that communities are laid out in a more concentrated way so it’s easy to walk or bike to a store.

Here, they drive.

Burger and Von Wahl work as interns at Draeger Medical Systems in Andover and live 20 miles away in Boxford, so walking is impractical. The lack of bike paths makes biking risky, and there are no buses between the suburbs.

“This is a bigger country,” Von Wahl said. “Everything is so far away.”

More paying, less giving

Tatiana Zolotykh of North Andover, who commutes to Boston every day, said the high price of gas is affecting her ability to donate to her children’s school.

“Every day I get a letter from the school or the town looking for money,” said Zolotykh, who came here from Russia 15 years ago. “Now you have to look at your monthly balance. There are things you can’t do now.”

Her friend Evelina Kurraj said that when she first came to the United States from Albania she would laugh that a gallon of gas cost less than a bottle of water.

Now the yardstick is her condominium in Haverhill. Her mortgage is $587 a month, and her gas bill is almost as much — $400 to $500. She commutes to a job in Tewksbury and to school in Boston.

Zolotykh said a car was a luxury in Russia.

“Here, it’s a necessity,” she said, sitting with Kurraj outside Panera in North Andover. “... Mothers have to drive their kids around to day care, soccer practice, school, baseball, music and dance classes.”

Trips to Boston museums are also important.

“You can’t spend your whole life at the playground,” she said. “You’ve got to show them culture.”

But high gas prices are making such trips less and less affordable, she said.

It’s all in the numbers

Ken Thornton, a computer programmer in North Andover and a math major in college, takes a scientific approach to family budgeting.

“If it’s $2 versus $3 a gallon, I spend $33.50 filling up the tank when a year ago I spent $23.50,” he said, after filling up at the Prime Mart gas station in North Andover. “That’s an extra $10 for me every week and an extra $10 a week for my wife. That’s $80 a month.”

The only wiggle room in the budget for his family of four is the grocery bill.

“That’s $500 to $600 a month,” he said. “So there’s some play.”

His daughter, for example, might get fewer of the Lean Cuisine dishes she likes and more Kraft macaroni and cheese.

“We’ll buy less prepared foods,” he said. “You save a little here and a little there.”

No more Big Apple trips

Calvin Weaver of Salem, N.H., said he’s spending less on his children.

“I can’t take the kids out like I used to,” he said, while putting $15 into the tank of his small pickup truck at a station in North Andover.

When he does take them out, the destinations “have to be cheaper or less distance.”

“There are no vacations like we used to take,” he said.

New York City is out.

And paying for his 40- to 50-mile-a-day commute may force him to tighten his belt literally.

“I might want to eat better, but I can’t,” he said. “I have to choose between gas and food.”

Playing musical cars

Shawn Roderick of North Andover drives the SUV because he works in Andover. Gina Roderick takes the better-mileage Volvo because she works in Natick.

But the couple haven’t really changed their lifestyle.

“I’m not too worried about it,” Shawn Roderick said, after a fill-up at Sunoco in North Andover that cost $53 instead of the $38 it cost not long ago. “The weather is nice. I go back and forth to the hardware store a lot, there’s so much stuff going on.”

He said if prices keep going up, though, he might think twice about that third trip to the hardware store.

Gas up, lottery down

Kevin Sharp, who owns Richdale stores in North Andover and Andover, said in the past, lottery sales got stronger when times got tougher.

But in the last year or so lottery sales have been down.

“Is that attributable to gas prices? I’d have to say yes,” said Sharp, wearing a wool cap while standing in the chilly cooler stocking drinks. “In the past, gas has not affected lottery sales. When gas hit $3 and then went back down, there was no effect. But now, the price of gas has been higher and stayed higher longer.”

One of his customers, Chester Casey of Andover, confirmed that assessment.

“There aren’t as many Keno players,” said Casey, who was playing a losing hand himself.

Casey said he only plays once a week and high gas prices haven’t changed that, but they have eaten into other spending.

“My cigarette smoking is down 90 percent,” he said.

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