Originally Posted by idc

Did you reply to the wrong post? I didn't say anything about feeding/lunch.

Anyway, yes obviously if you are disciplined enough to only buy the necessities and never upgrade them each season (wearing them until they fall apart) you will save more. Most cyclists like to enough their riding though and will get nicer stuff the more they ride, multiples bikes even, and bike stuff is notoriously expensive (imo) because MTB and road cycling are hobbies/sports. So the "fixed" expenses become "variable".

Gas $ is dependent on the length of commute. My commute is only 10 mi each way in a compact car so that's not a lot of gas. Less than a gallon/day.

Originally Posted by Spld cyclist

My wife and I have usually had two cars, but we have saved money on cars by keeping cars much longer than we would have otherwise. This has partly been due to lowered mileage/maintenance, but the greater part is that I am willing to own a much junkier 2nd car since I rarely need it to depend on it get to work. If we absolutely always needed it to be reliable, I would definitely own a nicer one instead. Therefore, we have gone pretty long stretches with no car payment at all. Right now we have a paid off 2008 and hope (knock on wood) to get a couple more years out of our 1998 minivan. We got the van for cheap in the first place partly because it had a lot of miles on it. Insurance is relatively low on that one because it isn't worth much (it's relative because auto insurance here is pretty expensive no matter what). In case no one else has mentioned it, you could see if there is a low-mileage discount for auto insurance.

Jim S.