Originally Posted by
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It's interesting to note that the more money you make at your job, the more sense biking to work makes financially.
Consider biking to work at a $10/hr job. 10 minute commute by car or 30 minutes by bike. If you bike to work, then consider not having to go to the gym for an hour a day in addition to driving 40 minutes.
An hour on a bike every day vs. a $60/month gym membership is $7200 saved in gym memberships plus another 40 minutes to work and earn money at your $10/hr job is $17333 for a total of $24,533 extra in your pocket over 10 years, plus the original $26,000 just for using the car gives you $50,533 over 10 years, or about $20 a day.
If you earn $60 an hour, then biking makes even more sense, as you have to spend an hour working out every day just like someone that makes $10 an hour, and that's precious time you could use to make more money, so that's $137,200 in your pocket over 10 years, and that's before you consider compounded investment income.
Biking to work is a smart financial decision, but for a rich person it borders on genius.
That's a simple and interesting way to put things. I believe your argument assumes that 1 hour biking equates to 1 hour of working out at the gym. I don't think these two are necessarily equal depending on the person.
The financial argument you make also negates potential losses from not owning a car (i.e. time wasted riding bike to grocery store, risk of injury, risk of air pollution).
Don't get me wrong, I believe that owning a car can be very expensive but I'm not sure if it necessarily breaks down into the financial argument that you make. Regardless, I find it interesting (and a little annoying) that the CF forum always converges on, "cars suck, riding a bike everywhere is the best thing for everyone."