Instead of taking an elaborate family vacation this summer, Heather Lavine, a mother from Waxahachie, Texas, scrapped her travel plans and bought her kids a $200 pool from Wal-Mart. She placed it right in the backyard of their home -- which is located across the street from the source of their woes: a gas station. "I think we'll be having that pool again next summer, I really do," Lavine said. "I think gas is just going to keep going up, and with gas going up, groceries are going to go up and then you have heating bills that are going to go up." Gas prices have skyrocketed to over $4 a gallon and a recent report predicts that it could increase to $7 a gallon within two years. Given these staggering projections and today's economic...