Bike commuting saves me a large amount of money! When I bike to work I save $26 per day parking and $5 petrol. Ignoring wear and tear on the car saved that is $620 per month for a 5 day commute per week. However I only bike commute 2 days a week but it has motivated me to catch a train 2 days a week as well which costs about $7 return so I save $24 those days. I would never have caught the train if I didn't start bike commuting. Parking costs rise $2 every 4-6 weeks in Brisbane and have done so for the last 8 months.
So my actual savings per month (ignoring wear and tear on a car which are significant!) are (31*2)+(24*2) or $110 per week which is $440 per month or $5,280 per year for a 48 week working year. I actually feel like I am making money while I commute which when you think about it I am! No wonder I am smiling when I ride. The cost of buying and running the bike is almost nil as I bought it for fun and only started commuting because I saw people here do it and I though - maaaaybbee I can too - and I did! So additional costs are a bit of extra bike oil and consumables but as I haven't taken into account wear and tear savings on the car which would far out weigh these costs they can be safely ignored. I bank the savings into a seperate account for the motivation effect. At my marginal income tax rate of say 50% that means I am saving 5,280 * 2 or $10,560 of my gross income per year - I gave myself a nice payrise! It's win win win from here. Now if I can just get rid of that Monday morning car commute and redo the math... niiice.
Some might say I am only saving the train fair but that is not correct. If i get lazy and don't bike commute to the city I do not catch the train at all. So these are real savings. In 2 decades of commuting I have used public transport less than the 20 times before I started this bike racket. I am a convert and I love it! Biking is of course fun and healthy too and that factor isn't taken into account. It feels great to actually use the bike for something useful and not just tooling around on the weekend, although of course there's nothing wrong with that either. Another unexpected bonus is the faster costs rise the more money I make and the happier I am! City workers who car commute stand to make a fortune by stopping the car commute. If you had a mortgage and used that extra cash to pay it off sooner the benifits esculate due to debt and interest reduction. If you put that money into superannuation you could retire years earlier or retire wealthier. Alternatively you can buy $5,280 of toys or holidays each year and be no worse off. I should calculate the savings on reduced maintenance and repairs on the car as these savings would go up another notch. I am in commuter heaven.