Originally Posted by
chefisaac
So my wife has a hard time believing that we will be saving money by me commuting. She is an accountant type person... you know the type. Yikes.
Anyway, I plan to start commuting next Monday and have invested to turn my mtn bike to a commuter. Regardless of what I spent, I want to find out how much I will save by commuting by bike.
So.... I currently drive a toyota tacoma 4 wheel v6 and get about 18 miles to the gallon (avergae between city and highway) and gas is around $3.25 give or take. I drive 22 miles round trip so I know gas will cost me .18 cents a mile which is $3.96 for gas.
But figuring out the other stuff.... tires, wear nad tear, ect. I have no clue.
She gets the health benefits but wants hard facts on savings.
Any ideas?
For a high level engineering estimate, I just calculated my gas savings and doubled them to include wear & tear on the car. This assumes you're not getting rid of the car, so you still have insurance and capital expense on the car (either payments or depreciation), "opportunity cost", etc. I'd be surprised if my number was really far off. For my Honda Civic, that comes to about $.25/mile, with $.12 of that being gasoline.