Savings by Commuting
 

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?

* With bikes, the money put into wear and tear, clothing, lights, bags/racks, etc. adds up.
* With cars, you also have wear and tear plus pricy maintenance (you can usually do your own maintenance for a bike)

I don't know how to break down the costs either.

Here's the deal. Your wife is super smart. And here's why: The most significant way to save money by commuting is to go CAR FREE. If you can drop an entire car from your family, then it's almost a complete no-brainer. Car free means no car payments, no insurance, and no maintenance (oil changes, tires, wipers, etc.)

If you can't go car free, then I can see why she has doubts. She's probably thinking big picture overall savings. From the sounds of it, you're trying to compare $3.96 a day in gas vs. riding your bike. She's seeing the cost of the bike, the tires, the clothes, the extra food, all lumped up together.

If you already own a car, then commuting by bike is not really much cheaper imo.

Of course it depends on how much you value having padded shorts, bike jerseys, a nicer bike, etc. If you commute in gym shorts and a t-shirt and use an existing bike that you maintain yourself you will save a little more.

ha, i spend way more per day taking my bike to work than my car - mainly due to the train that i have to use.

that said, i see you're in jersey as well - i know my EZ-pass bill is well into the triple digits per month, any tolls you're saving by biking? without tolls, the savings is quite minor by taking the bike, especially if you're buying a lot of cool bike gear more often.

commuting is more about freeing yourself of the burden of a car, the gas station, the emissions, etc. the health benefits, the mental health benefits. tell the wifey to forget the numbers, she'll understand when you're a leaner, happier person in a month:)

Here's a quick example, I don't claim accuracy but it's going to be similar to what's in her head...

Annual Expenses
---------------
Bike $1200 (new bike, bike parts (chains, tires, etc))
Maintenance/Repairs $100 (bike shop fees, tool costs, whatever)
Clothing $500 (cold weather clothing, shoes, etc.)
Food $500 (food you wouldn't eat if you were driving)
Total $2300

Driving 250 days a year at $4.00 per day is $1000 (for gas, add more for maintenance I guess)

If you remove the car payment, insurance, maintainence, depreciation, and operating costs and compare that to the same costs for running a bicylcle and add in the health benefits the bike will usually win unless the commute is just too far to be practical to use a bike.

If you own a car factor the daily cost of use and pay attention to fuel costs and parking and compare that to the lower expense of cycling as even if you don't commute every day, every day you ride will save money and reduce the wear and tear on your car.

On that note, my commute to the frame shop is a 100km round trip which takes me about 4 hours but I always think that many people spend 4 hours a day doing other things like watching t.v., going to the gym,and engaging in other types of recreation.

Even if one spent 2 hours a day riding to and from work it would still be better than wasting your time in front of the television and if you have a gym membership you probably won't need that anymore either.

Amortize the cost of a bike over the period you can use it, and a good one should last well over a decade and the cost per day becomes trifling... my wife's $1200.00 commuter has been in constant use for 5 years and the daily cost is about .75 cents a day when I factor in maintainence it has seen.

Assuming you are not selling your vehicle then my suggestion would be to keep the estimate simple and conservative (ie, just count gas savings and ignore maintenance). So your saving $4 every day you commute.

Now add up your costs for commuting (converting the bike, lights, panniers, racks, clothes, etc). Take that total and divide it by $4/day and you have the number of commute days you need to have under your belt BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY HAVE ANY SAVINGS AT ALL. Depending upon what you've spent to be a bicycle commuter that could be a year or more. It will be at least a few months of commuting.


My suspicion is that your wife is correct, the change in mode is not likely to actually mean any savings...

I use the IRS business rate. .51 per mile for 2011.

Their site says "The standard mileage rate for business is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile."

A good accountant would easily dispute the applicability of using that rate for savings in this case. That rate assumes the cost of the vehicle, cost of insurance, and many other amortized fixed costs that would not actually be saved by the OP unless he sold his current car. It seems more likely from his post that he is only planning on not using the vehicle while riding his bike to work...

I look at it like this: When you buyd a car.... thats the intial investment. Want a CD changer? Want AC? Want a sunroof? All gonna cost more. Buts its the intial investment that it takes to get a car. For biking, it is the same: The bike and the gear become the intial investment... whatever it is. And as we know... *most* of the time, a new car will be more expensive then a new bike plus gear (remember... I said most of the time). Now a car has insurance, gas, oil, check ups, tires, etc. A bike has check uos (most can be done by yourself) and a few other things like tubes, ect. I am not a nut about buying an expensive bike nor the top of line gear. The idea for me is to ride. The reason? To increase base miles a week, have fun, get stronger, faster, lose weight, save gas money, ride on side streets, avoid traffic, avoid stupid people (ya ya... I know they are still out there with a bike), etc.

Here's a pretty good calculator for commuting costs. Plugging in your numbers and assuming a 3 day per week commuting schedule, you save $170/month or $2042/year.

Other benefits are that you are using the car 1/2 as much (for commuting) so it will last twice as long (for commuting). That doesn't apply to the other uses of the vehicle which are usually more than you commute by a large factor. Also consider that since the wear and tear is less, you aren't going to be doing as many repairs. A brake job, engine problem, driveline problem, cooling issue, etc. could easily cost you far more than $1000.

On the other hand, the initial outlay for bike, equipment, clothing, etc. is probably going to be much less than $2000. Few repairs on a bicycle is going to even approach the cost of an oil change on a car, much less the cost of a major repair.

How to save $10,000 by next Thanksgiving

Dumped the car for a bicycle. "I save a small fortune in taxi and subway fares — plus untold hours sitting in traffic or on a subway platform — by riding my bike everywhere in Manhattan," says hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson. "Plus, it's great exercise!" Savings: You name it, but at least $4,000 a year. (Plus, you can save on the gym.).

https://news.fidelity.com/news/artic...ncial-planning

^ This is by Fidelity Investments, not BikeForums.

Wait ... you spend $1,200 a year in chains (not including maintenance and repairs) and $500 every year on jackets and shoes? Why can't you use last year's cold weather clothing? These are strange annual expenses indeed.

Your thinking is flawed. Commuting by bike is far cheaper, when biking, I feed me which I do anyways. When I drive I feed me and my car (assuming you own your vehicle).

If I packed my lunch when driving, I'd spend $50 every 2 weeks or so on gasoline. So $1200 or so just in fuel not including maintenance a year is freed up in your budget. Depending on your insurance, your rates might go down (because of the drop in yearly mileage), tires/suspension/brakes will last longer as not being used.

Yes, there are some things that cost more in the long run (bike tires don't have the same longevity as car tires) but those are offset by items that last far longer (brake pads/rims, inner tubes). Yes, there will be an investing period as you build up items needed for your commute, but those will last until they wear out or fall apart.

I guess I don't understand her argument against you riding to work. Your post suggests you are pitching it to her based on monetary savings but she is against you commuting unless you can show that it saves money (?).

If you already own the car and the bike, their acquisition costs don't count (ask accountants or even MBAs about "sunk costs"). Although replacement costs do count. There is cost avoidance - my biking to work avoided purchasing another vehicle (even a commute-beater) for 2 years when my daughter started driving. And will postpone eventual replacement. The gym cost savings are not to be sneezed at - my wife dropped me from her gym membership as I was getting plenty of sustained aerobic activity and we had a small gym at work that was sufficient for some basic weights exercises. Now if my medical and life insurance premiums would reflect significant health improvements (and ignore any increased accident risks!)......

My wife considers my time and availability for activities important to her to be more important than any financial considerations. So I drive on days we're doing something right after work and I need to be "presentable" (not sweaty, not in bike gear, etc...) immediatly upon my arrival home.

that really is the point of big change. if you're going to commute by bike to work, but still carry all of the costs of owning a car (payments, insurance, city/county/state registration, maintenance, parking, etc.) you can potentially save a little money on lower gas station tabs, but the really BIG MONEY in bike commuting is if it allows you to go from a 2 car family to a 1 car family, or from a 1 car family to a no car family.

I'm not going to defend my mostly arbritrary numbers, it was only an example to give an idea of what kinds of costs to consider.

When I went car free I eliminated a car payment, insurance, high fuel costs, and upkeep... at the time that expense was $8000.00 per year and whereas my bicycles have maintained their value that van would now be worth a fraction of what it was costing me.

I recently went though the same process of figuring out how much I save by commuting. Unless you really enjoy the process, I would echo those who said just leave it at the gas money calculation.

If you ride your bike to work every day, 5 days a week, saving $4/day in gas adds up to about $80-$88/month. Assuming you take two weeks of vacation a year, and get 10 days of holidays each year, you would save $960 / year in gas money. (I'll show my work for extra credit, $4/day * 5 days / week * 48 weeks / year = $960) (52 weeks - 2 weeks vacations - 2 weeks holidays = 48 work weeks / year)

If you do want to figure in simple maintenance, go find what you paid for your last oil change. If you change your own oil, figure the costs of the oil, your time, and disposal of used oil. Using the same assumptions as above, you save 5,280 miles/year on your car. (22 miles / day *5 days / week * 48 weeks / year = 5,280 miles) This translates into about 1 to 2 oil changes, and a tire rotation. When I take my work truck in, it costs about $45 for an oil change and an extra $25 for a tire rotation. If we use these costs and round up to 2 oil changes a year, you are saving $115 in simple maintenance a year. (2*$45+$25=$115)

Adding gas and simple maintenance you are saving around $1,075 per year. (960+115 = 1,075) (please note all of the assumptions we made to get to this point, if any of the assumptions are wrong, please take a moment to go back and change the calculations to fit your scenario.)

Subtract whatever you spend on your bike and accessories to find how much you could really saved this year.

This is as far as I was willing to go for my own case, but we can go further if your wife is really business development material. (sorry, I am an engineer and poke fun of the business development folks regularly.)

Beware all ye who enter here.

If you want to get into the real nitty gritty you can estimate how many miles you will put on your car before you sell it, trade it in, or get rid of it in any other way. Then estimate the maintenance costs that will be associated with driving that many miles. If you are really having a good time at this point in the process you need to recognize the time value of money, and discount it to calculate present cost / mile.

Then decide if you will be truly saving the miles (getting rid of the car based on age, not miles,) or just delaying the miles (getting rid of the car based on mileage, not age.) If you are saving the miles multiply the present cost / mile by the 5,280 miles / year and you get how much you would save in a year in other maintenance. If you are delaying the miles you get to calculate the present worth of delaying the purchase of a replacement vehicle for however long your riding will let you delay that purchase.

If she is the accounting type, let her try to figure out how the preceding two paragraphs apply to your situation while you go on a nice long ride. :p

I won't bother you with all the details, but so far I've been commuting solely by bike for the last three months and have already covered my initial expenses in purchasing the bike and ALL the necessary accessories and safety items needed for commuting... all this just be saving around €160.00 of gas per month. And I haven' even begun on the merits of health and weight loss which are becoming quite apparent to everyone around me!

That's all the reasons you should need. I suspect your wife is talking about the savings the way the cliche'd husband used to describe the "savings" associated with a shopping spree at a 50% off sale. In other words is it really "savings" when at the end of the day you have fewer dollars in your account than you did when the day started?

^ it seems to me that most people in this thread already understand "savings" to mean "reduced expenditures", but if you'd rather make this a debate of semantics, have at it, i guess. those are always "fun".

It will be very difficult to come up with a solid number. You can look at how much you spend on gas, tires, etc. Bike maintenance is pretty cheap. Your first year will be more expensive - particularly winter jackets, gloves, etc. Once you have your gear, its a matter of just replacing what wears out.

Also to consider is the benefit to your health that may outweigh in the long run any car-related savings. Of course, again, its impossible to put a number on that.

Oh, ok. Well, in that case, $1,200 a year in bike chains is pretty cheap compared to $80,000 in gasoline and $30 M in oil changes. ;)