NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Crude oil prices reached a 26-month high last week as bitter cold weather drove demand and an on-going oil strike in Venezuala kept supplies low. As oil prices rise, here are some of the ways the increases could hit your wallet.

On a national average, gasoline prices have gone up more than 11 cents in the past two weeks, according to Lundberg Survey, Inc., a petroleum market research firm.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline, including all grades and taxes, was about $1.60. That's the highest price at the pump since June 2001. The price hike is in keeping with the rise in crude oil prices, which exceeded $35 per barrel last week -- up more than $8 over the past two months, according to Lundberg.

The two major factors behind the higher gas price are the oil shortage caused by Venezuela's general strike and market price increases driven by fears of a U.S.-lead war against Iraq, Lundberg said.

Shipments from Venezuela -- the world's fifth-largest oil exporter -- have been choked by a strike that began Dec. 2.

"People are waiting in line for hours to get gasoline in Venezuela," said John Lichtblau, chairman of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "This is the first time the country has to import gasoline in order to meet its domestic demand," he added.

Related stories • How to beat high gas prices • Cutting your home heating bills • Energy headlines

Venezuela was the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil to the United States in November, before the strike began, according to the Department of Energy.

In 1998, when oil cost $14.40 a barrel, the average household expenditure on gasoline and diesel products was $1,100. By 2000, when oil cost $30.30 a barrel, consumers paid $1,500 a year.

If the price of oil jumps to $40 and stays there throughout 2003, annual household gasoline expenditures could run as high as $2,000, assuming people don't curtail their driving.

For tips on how to get more miles from every gallon you pump, click here.

Homeowners in the U.S. Northeast also can expect a big rise in winter heating costs, as the bitter cold winter led to a spike in demand for heating oil, which, like gasoline, is refined from crude oil, Lundberg said.

Residential heating fuel prices have already risen to $1.54 per gallon, up by 28 cents per gallon since October, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Wednesday. Prices are 37.2 cents per gallon higher than last year at this time.

During the second half of 1998 and the first half of 1999, the winter heating season, consumers who used fuel oil paid about $1,600 to heat their homes. But that bill jumped to $2,300 during the winter of 2000 to 2001.

If prices reach $40 a barrel and stay there, oil heating bills could run as high as $2,600.

Of course, that price could be even higher if unusually cold weather continues.

Most U.S. households heat with natural gas and would not be directly affected by an oil crunch, said Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Association. But they would still see higher heating bills this year because the price of natural gas also has increased as production declined.

"Nobody cut back production. There just wasn't enough drilling," said Lichtblau of PIRF. "Resources have gone down somewhat. Now the price is up, they might want to drill some more. But there just weren't enough opportunities."

Natural gas prices have risen to about $6 per million British Thermal Units, or BTUs, said Joe Abate, an economist with Lehman Brothers. This could add $50 a month to heating bills or about a 2-3 percent after-tax hit for many homes, he said, but that's still not as bad as $8 per million BTU prices in early 2001.

For some guidelines on cutting your heating bill down to size, click here.

"Increasing oil prices directly affects consumers," said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute. "There are increases in transportation and in the cost of all other goods and services that use oil for production -- from heating a factory to building a road."

And according to the CBO, non-energy-related prices would inflate faster if oil prices hit $40 a barrel and stayed there. That large, sustained price increase could in turn dampen overall consumer spending, hurting the economy.

For every $10 increase in oil prices inflation increases by 0.4 percent, said Lehman Brothers' Abate. In the current competitive economy, though, he felt that companies would probably just absorb additional costs from higher oil prices rather than passing them on to consumers.