For 2000 euros you can ged decent 2nd hand car.
Older cars need more money for maintenance.

If you calculate time, bicycle takes about 40 minutes longer in my case. If you earn a lot per hour, you could say car is cheaper.

Still, the main reason I commute by bicycle is because I LOVE it.

I don't really ride for the money, but not having a second car probably saves us $3-4,000/year.

That's a lot of bike parts.

I spent about 400 bucks the day before yesterday on bike drivetrain parts and tools. It took me a year and a half to ride the 3500 miles it took me to wear out the chain, and the new crank I just wanted to get a lower granny gear. When I drove to work in my car (38 mpg) I spent that much in a month or slightly more for gas.

I ride for environmental reasons, to have fun and to stay in shape. All are important to me. Environmentalism is what gets me in the saddle some mornings though - it's a few pounds of CO2 less to get to work.

I started commuting in mid-Feb. I've put over 2,000mi on my bike. I live 11mi from where I work.

According to the spreadsheet I keep I've spent 10x more on bike stuff (all inclusive, bike, gear, lights, clothes, parts, maintenance, repairs, etc.) than I have saved so far and I save an average of $6.50 a day (computed generously including the wear & tear calculations for the US tax deduction).

And I still pay the same car payment (I'm not car-free) as well as the same car insurance.

At this rate I'll never save money by biking to work.

That said, will I go back to driving a car? Hell no.

There is no cost savings with health care here in the people's republic of Canada, either.

I've saved over $1,000 JUST IN FUEL over the past year and a half, by commuting.

I still have a car (a piece of crap old beater). It won't die if I barely drive it, so commuting is helping me avoid the cost of purchasing another car.
My wife has a car from work, but that's for work purposes only. That's why we haven't abandoned the beater yet.

Time-wise it's almost a wash. Like everyone else said, the physical/mental benefits are huge, and far outweigh the dollars saved. When I started commuting (and bought the bike) I (like the OP) used the excuse to the wife that it was 'for the money'--but now it's not about the $ any more.

Personally I don't consider a free triple bypass to be a wash with not needing it at all.

Your bike expenses have to be spread over the life of the items you've purchased. For example, if you spend $80 on a pair of tires, but you expect those tires to last a year, then those tires cost $3.33 every month for twelve months. Similarly, you should be able to spread the expense of your bike out over several years.

Unfortunately, we typically have to pay the full purchase price up front, so it feels as though we are spending more than what we really are. On the other hand, some months we may not experience any out of pocket costs, but we still have to count a portion of bike price and maintenance costs as an expense incurred during that month.

Over the past 4.5 years, I've spent only about $20 per month on bicycle commuting (if I depreciate my bike fully over that time period, which isn't very realistic, since it should provide many more years of useful service). That doesn't mean that I never have to spend more than $20 per month on the bike. When I have to spend money, it's usually more than that, but I don't have to spend any money on it most months.

Every day that I ride saves me 1-1/2 gal of gas. Call that $6. Every day I ride costs me 1500 extra calories. Call that $3. Win!

To the OP...in my case, switching to car-light/car-free has (and will continue to) save me tons of cash. There are different ways to commute. You can spend all the $$$ you would have saved on brand new top of the line gear, or you can buy at discount via ebay, craigslist, etc. I have yet to spend more than $200 on a frame, and probably total (4 bikes) have spend less than $2000. That compares to the $10,000 per year I was having to spend on my car (gas, insurance, parking, maintenance, etc). I don't think it's really comparable. Not to mention that the decision to go car free meant that I finally had to leave my job and find one closer, which was something I was procrastinating on. I went from a 2hr round trip commute in the car (M-F) to a 30 minute round trip commute on bike (M-F).

Aside from the simple comparison of car vs. bike, you should think about the health costs associated with a more sedentary lifestyle. All the riding will for sure defray some otherwise expensive and typical health conditions of the average American.

This is one of my top reasons for riding to work. I have a tough time figuring out the hierarchy of importance, but I think it goes something like this:
#1 - Time. It takes me 25-30m by bike or 1hr+ by bus.
#2 - Environment. I wouldn't consider myself an environmentalist by any means, but it's nice not to spew CO2 on my commute and equally nice to reduce my financial support of Big Oil.
#3 - Cost. I get PAID to bike to work. Otherwise it'd be $150/mo to park or $850/yr to bus. (This might really be #2 , but I like to think it's #3 .)
#4 - Health. I should prioritize this higher, but it's just an ancillary benefit.
#5 - Ego. I get to feel superior to people who drive to work. (Only kinda kidding!)

It's not as if riding a bike is free but it is still ultimately much cheaper than driving and maintaining a car the majority of the time, unless you are just constantly rushing to the bike shop for something else (I don't know why you would be). I go through 2-3 tires a year, and maybe double that in tubes... the bike cost is a one-time thing... pay for tune-ups once every two years when I get in over my head on something... it's pretty cheap. I think just using price of gas alone multiple times I appear to have pretty big savings with the bike, and that's not including maintenance on the car or time spent being pissed off in traffic.

Heretic!

To go about 2500 miles in the last year, I bought a single-speed bike on sale for $160 from Nashbar with free shipping and a special 20% one item email coupon, then bought some blow out brakes, alloy seat post, comfort saddle and new tires for about $100 more. $260 for 2500 miles is a bit over 10 cents per mile. It also saved me about 100 gallons of gas if I drove my old pickup or minivan (@$4/gallon = $400) which I then traded in to buy a new Prius V, which now makes it such that my bike communting only saves me about 58 gallons of gas, which is about $230. But next year, I figure my annual maintenance costs for the bike should only be $40 for new tires, tubes, new gloves, batteries/lights accessories. (I ride cheap michelins or kendas).

As for time, my own time isn't worth much. The company pays me for intellectual property and it's project based on a schedule. If I get it done sooner, my time is still worthless. But that said, riding 6 miles to work only takes about 25 minutes door2door. Driving the 9 freeway/expressway miles takes about 12 minutes, but then takes another 15 minutes hunting for parking and hiking back to the office across campus. So it's a wash. I have a bluetooth headset in my ear while riding. And my car has bluetooth. Both get internet radio whether I'm in the car or riding my bike. Yes, riding does have the disadvantage that if my manager calls in, there's a heck of a lot of wind noise on the ear piece, while the car is whisper quiet and I have air conditioning. But that only happens rarely.

So in a time and economics comparison, I think bike commuting completely wins, just based on gas prices alone with time being the same. I don't need liability or collision/comprehensive insurance for my beater clunker, and while I do standard things like oil changes and filter changes for my cars, tuning up the bike is a LOT cheaper and faster. Certainly I have expensive road bikes. But rather than paying $thousands, I buy them for sub $1000 or may around $600 on CL or eBay and fix them up. It would still make commuting by bike cheaper, over time.

It can be as cheap as you want it to be. I think my bike is pretty nice, though objectively only an entry-level road bike. I improve it from time to time so it's not like I'm a fanatic about spending nothing but I save thousands per year by biking to work. I would never trade the time spent commuting for a half hour in my easy chair so it's a no-brainer. Save thousands, enjoy yourself more, indulge in a cheap hobby. And that's just the selfish (albeit honest) reasons.

Well, my company got 6 cars.And i using 3 bicycles.(2 Derailleur, 1 Rohloff) I definitely able to confirm that using a bicycle is cheaper, much cheaper.

A car annually maintenance cost easily cover years of a bicycle maintenance.

I find that posters here frequently over estimated the cost of driving. I have a 12 year old Honda Civic that rarely breaks down, gets 32mpg & insurance is very cheap. My old Fuiji Crosstown was constantly breaking down and the LBS was charging an "arm and a leg" to fix it.

Every once in a while this question is posted in BF and I'm always amazed at the posters who claim no savings at all. This thread at least seems to have quite a few of us who have seen substantial savings.

About 15 years ago my wife and I had bought a new home and deliberately bought near a bike path that would take us right into Boston past both places where we work. We'd shared one car for several years already and saw no need to get a second car. But the following year we managed to save up 20 grand from some extra jobs and considered plucking it down on a second car "for the convenience".

Well, we quickly rethought and decided to look for some land in the country for a second home. We lucked out and found 4 acres surrounded by 18000 acres of state forest with an old abandoned farm house on it. We got it for the 20 grand. I fixed up the old house over time in part with savings from biking every where. Eventually we even timber framed a new barn/studio with 140 of our friends doing a traditional barn raising. I often do the 136 mile ride from Boston or back on my bike and my commute into town is a twelve mile dirt road ramble where I am far more likely to see a bear or a coyote than a car.

Do I regret not buying that second car? NEVER!

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Eh, I don't see how it could more expensive really. At least in my case.
14.5 miles one way. 29 miles round trip. Car gets around 26-27 mpg. So I save a gallon a day. Which as of today in my area is $3.49. So I don't have to pay for parking or anything but $3.49 * 5 days = $17.45
Lets say I just do it twice a week still = $6.98 which is about the cost of one inner tube. $6.98 * 4 weeks = $27.92 not including oil changes, anti-freeze, and other fluid replacements.

So in summary. I bust a tube once every couple of months and it's about $6.50 on Amazon. But just by travelling by bike twice a week throughout the years I've saved 27.92 * 12 months in gas = $335.0 + an oil change

There's more to vehicle maintenance than fuel fill-ups and oil changes. To do an honest comparison, you have to include all expenses - purchase price, insurance, registration, ALL maintenance costs including tires, tune-ups, repairs, etc.

I drive a vehicle that is extremely cheap to maintain (including fuel @ 30+mpg). See my earlier post for the analysis - I've tracked every single dollar spent on the car since I purchased it a little over 3 years ago. I could buy a brand new bike every year, and still have money left over for the amount that the car costs me...no matter how frugal I am with the car.

Thanks. Glad you quoted it. It made read it again. I had to make an edit!-

"Do I regret not buying that second car? NEVER!"

Keeping up the insured car and using the Bike, for commuting 5 days a week,
should be compensated by the Insurance rates reduction, to save money..

selling the car and canceling the Auto insurance will.

Do not forget to factor in depreciation, it is the largest expense of owning a (EDIT; non POS) car.

Not always. I bought my car for $750. As long as it's running, it will likely not depreciate. In fact, I may even be able to sell it for more than that.