$100 Oil Is Here and It's About to Hit Your Wallet in 5 Ways You Aren't Expecting

Key Points
Brent crude prices topped $100 this week, and WTI almost did.
Oil prices drive gasoline prices -- and much, much more.
Oil stock prices already seem to foresee an end to the war.
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Oil prices are rising (in case you haven't noticed). Brent crude prices that closed below $73 on Feb. 27 briefly touched $118 a barrel on Thursday, and is now at $108 early Friday. WTI crude -- oil extracted far from the Persian Gulf, but that's still tied toglobal marketprices -- came close to hitting $100 a barrel, settling around $94 Friday morning.
The implications for gasoline prices are obvious. Before the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, gasoline prices in the U.S. averaged $2.95 per gallon, according to data from GasBuddy.com. By Tuesday, that had risen to $3.84 per gallon, a 30% increase.
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Assuming you own a car, you've probably noticed this increase already. But here are five more ways you can expect the rising cost of oil to affect your daily life.
1. Grocery prices
Groceries were already getting more expensive before war broke out in Iran. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, after falling 1.4% in January, food prices shot up 2.4% in February. Expect food prices to rise further this month and next (and as long as oil prices stay high).
Why? Because food arrives at the grocery store in trucks. And trucks burn gas and diesel to get it there.
2. Airline tickets
Think it costs a lot to fill up your car lately? Be glad you don't drive a Boeing 737. According to ABC News, jet fuel costs are up nearly twice as much as ordinary gasoline, surging 57% to $3.93 per gallon since the war began.
ABC's prediction: "It's not a question of if airfares will rise because of higher fuel costs, but when, for how long, and by how much."
3. Heating and electricity bills
With winter on the wane, higher oil and gas prices are at least arriving at the right time to minimize their effect on the U.S. economy and on household budgets. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the cost of heating a home was already looking steep. Winter started with a December 8% colder than usual in the U.S., says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By February, fuel oil inflation hit 11.1%, says BLS.
But you use electricity to heat your home, you say? The good news here is that BLS data show a small dip in electric rates in February. The bad news is that the war is causing a spike in natural gas prices, and demand for electricity at large artificial intelligence (AI) data centers continues to climb.
Expect inflation here, as well.
4. Construction and housing costs
Construction, housing, inflation, and mortgage rates are all intertwined, but we'll start with the first two. As with groceries, pretty much everything you need to build a house arrives by truck -- and as you'll recall from up above, trucks burn gas and diesel. That's going to push housing costs higher for as long as the war impedes oil supply.
5. The ripple effect on inflation and mortgage rates
The good news here is that mortgage rates can have a greater effect on what people actually pay for a home than construction costs. This is because most people don't pay cash for their houses, but take out mortgages to buy them. And 30-year mortgage rates hit their lowest level since August 2022 last month -- 6.05%.
The bad news is that war-fueled inflation drives up the cost of everything. Given enough time, we'll probably see mortgage rates rise as well.
The best news of all
I want to end this article on a bright note, though, and that note is this: Have you noticed how oil and gas stocks have reacted to the war and to the rising price of oil? Since the start of the month, shares of ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) stock are up 4.1%, Chevron (NYSE: CVX) 6%, and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) 8.8%.
These are significant rises to be sure, but they're nowhere near the price spikes in gasoline (30%), Brent crude oil (41%), or jet fuel (57%). What does that tell you?
It tells me that some of the savviest investors on the planet, who watch these oil stocks like hawks -- according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, more than two dozen analysts make it their day job to know what's up with all three stocks -- don't expect the war to last forever, or for high oil prices to last very long. They're already making plans for when oil prices come back down.
When double-digit oil price growth sparks only single-digit oil stock price growth, this is the only logical conclusion.
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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chevron. The Motley Fool recommends Occidental Petroleum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.