t's official. A gallon of gas is now more expensive than four candy bars.

I'd much rather purchase the chocolate, but alas, I must be able to get from one place to the other. Darn my legs for not being able to run far distances. Think of how much money I could save.

Because of this whole gas price explosion, I have been in deep thought of how poor college students like me can save up enough cash to take a road trip to San Diego (I don't know why I said necessarily San Diego, but we'll just go with that for the purpose of this column).

Let's take a moment and plan our trip. The 25- hour drive, a distance of 1614.61 miles will total an estimated $170 in gas. How are we going to afford that?

We'll have to cut back on some stuff.

Money-Saving trick No. 1- Cut away the calories. For instance, one 16-ounce frappuccino mocha has 320 calories and costs about $3.50. For those who usually drink one a day, but opt for free water for one week, an extra $24.50 has accumulated. That's enough to get us almost to Dallas.

Money-Saving trick No. 2- Resist the urge to dress cute. There's that one designer outfit that can catch anyone's eye in a mall outing over the weekend.

It's the "It" fashion right now. That means it costs $50. It's almost too cute to pass up, but you must resist because we need to make our way toward New Mexico. That extra $50 gets us somewhat close to El Paso, on the border of the Land of Enchantment.

Money-Saving trick No. 3- Say "no" to fine dining with friends. Sure, it's fun to pack into a booth and spend $10 on a Southwestern style entrŽe and $6 on margaritas at Chili's, but that extra $20 (you include a generous tip because your friend is your waiter) could instead cart us to Arizona for our road trip.

I am sure the Southwestern-style food and margaritas are more authentic (and maybe even cheaper) in the Grand Canyon State.

Money-Saving trick No. 4- Cut back on text messages and down-size your cell phone plan. You can easily rack up $75 worth of extra, unnecessary charges each month. So, make it a rule to talk only during your nighttime and weekend unlimited minutes so you don't get charged for going over your plan.

This one might be the hardest to give up since cell phones are literally attached to the hands and ears of many college students, but that extra money will get us to our destination. San Diego, here we are!

Cutting back on life's luxuries may seem hard, but with gas being so expensive these days, it may be the only tradeoff. With spring in the air, road trips (perhaps other places than our San Diego vacation spot) are on many students' minds right now, and that is a luxury in itself.

Give in to the gas prices and save money on other things. There's nothing more exciting than driving down the interstate to your vacation spot... except for figuring out how you're going to get the money to come back.

Julie Miller is a senior journalism major from Shreveport and serves as the associate editor for The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to jem028@latech.edu.