And it's meant families have been forced to reassess their budgets to cope with the strain of the weekly fuel bill.

Add to that increasing grocery bills - a flow-on from high petrol prices and an interest rate rise, and the result is stressful.

The Johnsons of Tuncurry, a single income family, are just making ends meet, and they're not the only ones.

With three children to ferry around to school and sporting activities as well as running those everyday errands, mum Christine says it's not easy, especially when petrol prices hit $1.43 cents a litre around Forster on Friday.

"We're coping, but it's very hard," Mrs Johnson said.

"You really look at making sure you get everything done when you're out and about."

Currently the family spends around $80 a week on petrol to fuel their family car, the Ford Falcon Forte, and their Holden Astra.

"A year ago it would have cost $50 to fill up Peter's car and my car was about $60, now it costs $70 to fill his car up," Mrs Johnson said.

Mr Johnson travels to Wingham five days a week to work, racking up 90km a day.

"He refuses to fill up in Forster as last week petrol was 10 cents a litre cheaper in Taree," Mrs Johnson said.

To make ends meet, Christine said her sister would sometimes take her oldest daughter to primary school, on the odd day when she did not need to take the car out.

"I know other people are certainly cutting back, trying to walk a bit more and cutting back on day trips," Mrs Johnson said.

"We are trying to keep as close to home as possible and do things where you don't need to drive."

If petrol prices continue to rise Christine said she will be forced to look seriously at cutting back on her children's after school activities.

And scaling back to one car or exchanging to a smaller family car for the Johnson's is just not an option.

"We need a car that's big enough for three kids, and we would like to get rid of the second car but Peter needs it at the moment as there's no public transport to Wingham," Mr Johnson said.

You can win

* To help ease the burden of continuing high petrol prices, the Great Lakes Advocate, NOTA's sister publication, has petrol vouchers to give away to readers over the next six weeks.

Make sure you don't miss next week's Advocate to find out how you could be in with a chance to win a $100 petrol voucher each week for the next six weeks.

You could also go into the draw to win $1000 cash.