I have been commuting first by walking and then mostly by bicycling in concert with public transportation since July 24 of this year and have tracked expenses and compared them to what I would have spent for gas. I'm posting weekly blogs: http://bicycle.markstone.org. So far (4 months+) it has saved in cash about $402, approximately $100 a month. This includes purchases made for the bicycle: 2 new tires, 4 tubes, some cold weather gear, a MiNewt 600 Cordless, and a can of Tri-Flow.

However, if I didn't own a car at all it would be more because of insurance and maintenance. (I paid off the ol' clunker a while ago, so don't have car payments).

And, as mentioned in a couple of posts above, the savings in health care costs has the potential to be enormous in the future. We will be riding our bicycles while others are laying in emergency rooms with heart attacks and strokes. Although there will be exceptions to this generalization, it is nevertheless true for most cyclists.

I find my biggest savings comes in not doing the other trips I would do in concert with driving to work. Then, when I do run errands, I am more careful to plan and more efficient. No running out for just a minute or down to the grocery for a bag of chips - ends up being bigger savings than just not driving the 8 miles to work.

I will post pictures of my commuter later in the week. Working on a few things.

I dont much listen to my wife anyway. Once I am set in what I want to do, I just do it.

I know I will save money (feel better, have fun, and be healthy). I dont know how much money but I know it will be cheaper versus driving. I have gottan everything I pretty much need. Its amazing what you cna get when your wife is traveling for a few months! :)

Maybe we will go down to one car too. That might be a long term goal.

Use the calculator I linked to. It really helps convince the bean counters...I'm married to one too. Here's my case: I own my truck and I like having it for trips other than to and from work (my wife's car wouldn't do too well for fishing and camping) so I don't have a payment. But from the calculator, it would cost me $460/month or $5500/year if I drove every day. This year I am currently bicycle commuting at an 81% level (>4 days/week). That drops me to $84/month or $1000/year. I save $4500/year or $375/month. Any bean counter worth their salt would kill for that kind of cost savings.

And I save about 3 tons of CO2/year.

I don't bike commute to save money. I do it because it makes me feel great.

+1 ... I commute for my mental and physical health. Not to save money.

I'm not a math type at all, but I'd like to point something out. Those who have just done the calculations on fuel savings alone are doing so at current prices. The amount will go down if the price of fuel goes down, but it will go up when the price of oil goes back up. $3/gallon now, but remember when it was roughly a $1 more?

Food and maintenance are the only annual expenses; and even maintenance will drop since I can't imagine spending a hundred bucks a year on chain lube or tire patches. Everything else you listed is just an initial investment.

Compare that to the initial cost of a car, though.

My wife and I recently sat down and had to hash this out, to a degree. She already allows me to ride, but this conversation between us had to do with her, specifically.

We live 2 miles from my son's school.
My wife is a student and stay-at-home mother of 2 more.
We, as students, have access to a free bus service anywhere in town.

Without getting into numbers, the reality was this - she believed we were only spending somewhere near $200 a month on gas (1996 Econoline E-150 van); the reality is that we were really spending closer to $400.

I showed her how, even after the initial investment of buying her a bike, with some adjustments to how she does things - along with me helping more by picking up the kids with a trailer (for my 5 year old - too young to ride on the streets just yet) and my 11 year old, and other errand services, we could save $10,000 in one year.

That still means the van can be used a few times a month when needed. But through just not filling up but once ($100) a month and instead, using the bikes/bus/walking we will save $10,000.

If you want hard receipt-style numbers, they're all bull****. Nobody I have met actually can live long-term following every dime they make while working full-time. You'll slip somewhere. It's those slips that cost so much as they add up over the year.

Do yourself a favor, give it a try. Make an earnest effort to adjust everything you can and you'll see a financial improvement simply by riding a bike.

While I certainly agree that you can get some savings, it's not clear how you get to $10K. Dropping the gas bill from $400 to $100/mo gives savings of $3600/yr, but if you still keep the van then insurance, registration, and other fixed costs stay the same. You're likely to see some savings in maintenance, but there will also be some added bike purchase and maintenance costs so it's hard to see where you'll get the extra $6400 in savings.

+1 of course, but having some money left over from savings reduces my stress levels and makes cycling even more fun!

Let me just say it's a lot more enjoyable when it's not about the money.

The food costs associated with driving save me funding, savings gives me interest which I'm including. $10k is a rough answer, but if adjustments work out right - I'll make it happen. The biggest one being that she gets accustom to the changes, she'll find savings for herself too.

My wife prefers my disposition when I'm riding to work. I'm much less cranky! :D

Not true, I put only $50 in max at a time. My tank takes about 16.5 gallons or so....17 if it really cold out :whistle: It is a very rare occasion if I fill the tank regardless of the cost.

Still getting oil changes at the dealer, eh?

I commute by bike because IT'S HEALTHY FOR YOU! It is currently my primary form of exercise. Sad, by true. It took quite a while before I got to the point where I looked forward to biking to work rather than finding an excuse to drive. I don't want to lose that, so I'm doing my best to continue commuting during the wet, CA winter. I'm doing pretty well with the 45º ride home.

Perhaps you should include the cost of a gym membership in your savings?

+1 Me too, physical and mental health and enjoyment...but at the same time I really enjoy the money saved by not having to fill up my vehicle. 1 tank of gas will last me 1 year. I estimate I save about $3000-4000 by not driving.

If you're saving basically $4/day on gas that's $20/week or very roughly $1000/year on gas alone.

Assuming you're going to be cycling the same distance as you previously drove (and of course it may be more or less, if you can take shortcuts or if you have to take longer routes to stay off the interstate etc) you'll be doing about 100 miles per week. At that rate I'd reckon you'll be changing your chain and cassette roughly twice per year and, depending on your weight and riding style, a rear bike tyre every 12 months and front tyre every 24 months (if you're heavy and skid a lot then maybe more often).

If you didn't go for an expensive bike you can probably fund your bike purchase, basic clothing and a year's worth of maintenance out of the fuel savings alone in your first year. From there on in the fuel savings will cover your bike maintenance many times over. Of course if you end up with a bike built from top-end components they are a lot more expensive but I'd imagine the lower-end will still work just fine. My bikes use Shimano Deore cassettes which are way cheaper than the top-end stuff and seem to last very well.

If you keep the car you'll still have to pay for insurance, figure in depreciation, servicing and any annual inspections where you live. If it's on credit you'll still have to pay the interest. If you keep the car you may find your insurance premium reduces if you're not using it to commute any more - you'll be doing 5000 miles less each year and not driving in the rush hour.

If commuting by bike means you can lose the car your savings will jump further - no more depreciation, no more insurance, no more servicing etc.

Being Mr Cheerful, if things do turn nasty in the Middle East and Iran starts playing silly games with Suez or Hormuz the price of gas will jump, which not only means you save even more money but also potentially means you're the guy who still turns up for work while everyone else is stuck because they can't get gas for their cars.

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". :thumb:

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.

I commute to save money, because it makes me feel great, and I enjoy it very much. But I also commute because I'm closing in on the big Six Oh (I'm almost 59) and that in itself introduces a whole new set of feelings. Imagine being 60 and still able to ride your bike and be active and fit, while your car-only peers are watching their bodies begin to decompose! What is fun for me is being able to ride, and ride easily, and know that this lifestyle choice will have huge implications as I get older. I enjoy not being bound to a prescription drug, I enjoy having a strong heart and clean blood vessels. I enjoy being mobile, while others are starting to think about walkers, canes and knee surgeries. Save money? Heck yeah - I don't have to buy that Lupitor. I enjoy reading the studies that show people with active lifestyles have less incidences of Cancer and Diabetes. And the feelings - don't get me started on the feelings - sailing on two wheels through the pre-dawn air, everything silent and crisp and new, just the sound of the tires on the pavement - Is there anything else that feels like that? So, Alan, +1 :thumb:

+1

FWIW many moons ago, I made a detailed spreadsheet of various commuting methods specifically for my commute, including mixed mode commutes, and I also rated each on exercise, robustness (in case of storms, bad weather, etc) and reliability (how often the commute would be disrupted, whether by traffic, train delays, flat tire) as well as total trip time. Of the 20 or so options I examined, cycling was clearly the cheapest, coming out at 37c/day (rate is based on basic tire/tube/lube replacement). Driving came out at $2.34, but was the fastest and also the most robust and reliable, and did not include maintenance/insurance etc because I own the car and drive other places than work anyway. (One of the slowest and most expensive was to drive to the metro station, park, and then ride the train - which is what I did for years! The very slowest was to walk 3 blocks to the bus stop and transfer to the train station)

I come to the office only ~200 days in a year, so $400 isn't a great saving over a full year in my book. I can easily blow that on cycling parts and gear in a year, especially across 3 bikes. Also I do extra sets of laundry every week for my cycling gear. Detergent ain't cheap.

Nope! That's how we become addicts :thumb:

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.

Just use 50 cents/mile to calculate driving costs. That's what the federal government pays for reimbursement and it includes gas as well as maintenance, wear-and-tear. If you have to pay for parking when you drive, you can add that as well.

I know that I save money bike commuting, even though I spend a fair amount of those savings on bike gear. However, I would rather spend my money on bike gear than gasoline and car costs. If you don't buy a lot of unnecessary bike gear, you can save quite a bit. Here are examples:

-- Gasoline and maintenance savings @ 50 cents/mile
-- Parking
-- Insurance (my company reduced my rate $50/year when I showed my mileage reductions)

I also tend to spend extra money when I drive because I more frequently go out to lunch, go shopping during lunch hour. If I sold my truck, my savings would be huge but I don't want to do that. I like having the option to drive when weather is crappy, doctor's appointments, restocking clothes and supplies in my office, bringing home laundry from work, etc.

My commute was 22 miles for 4.5 years but increased to 30 miles in October. We got our gasoline bill the other day and it totalled about $250 for the month, and all of the charges were for my wife's car. I showed her the bill and said: "Look how much money I'm saving us by riding to work. Not a single one of these gas charges were for my truck." Of course, I turned around and spent $125 on a new light system, but that should last me a long time and I can recoup some of those costs by selling my old one.

This is a great calculator, assuming all of its underlying assumptions are correct. Thanks for the link.

Ride, feel happy. More energy, not stressed in stop and go cager traffic. No contest. Whats the price of awesome legs and a normal sized waist? What is the price of my commute when I take the mountain bike and get 8 miles of dirt and 12 of pavement?

Yup, even though plenty of people still don't have a gym membership anyway -- BUT if someone's the type who wants to exercise and is likely to get a membership, they'll definitely save this way.

Being Mr. Despondent, :p if all your other coworkers can't show up, you're going to be stuck doing all of their jobs in the meantime and will never get back home. :D

Good to see another Nutley cyclist here!

Up to a point, but if the company looks to start letting people go the chances are the one guy who can get in no matter what isn't going to be at the top of the hit-list.

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.