is commuting expensive?

dcurzon

CiB wrote:

Pffft - relying on a third-party widget to tell you what you save? You need Finest OCD With Added OCD, with a bit of OCD thrown in. I give you: my mileage logs for the car over the last n years that show miles per pound, averaged daily cost etc, linked into an Excel spreadsheet that records the days that I commute by bike, and any bike-related spending. Whizz it all up through a neat little macro and some graphs and a final group of cells that show total spend, save & average inside leg measurement and it spits out the answer. As of today 33 commutes for the year (that few? Not good enough...) has saved £197.72 less £34.11 spending giving a net benefit of £163.61, or £4.96 per commute.

The flexibility is in what's deemed to be commuting-related bike spending. The initial cost of the bike isn't; I'd own a bike anyway. Same for all the gear. All that goes into the Spent pot is additional snacks & bits that are directly attributable to cycling to work, like the Lidl track pump for a fiver as I couldn't get home otherwise.

Stats. Everybody needs some stats in their life to see how well we're doing.

care to make a blank copy of that spreadsheet available?

asprilla

/shame.

I meant £300 a month. :oops:

TheStone

This is worrying. I keep a full spreadsheet of distance and spending. The first time I've looked at the whole thing together.

Since the start of 2006, I've somehow spent £14.9k (although I do now have 2 great bikes and a load of good clothes etc)

Just under 10,000km of commuting, which is a saving of around £2.5k
Plus 24,000km non commuting.

ince

Love the slogan,

Bicycles run on fat and save you money, cars run on money and make you fat.

ste_

My commute was >£6k/annum - by cycling and running it's now not much more than £3k/annum.

I bought a 2nd hand allez for £250 and spent another £200ish on 2 x good locks, some good lights and a reflective waterproof jacket.

So in answer to the question - is commuting expensive? Yes. Is it less expensive to commute under your own power? Yes.

Gussio

TheStone wrote:

This is worrying. I keep a full spreadsheet of distance and spending. The first time I've looked at the whole thing together.

Since the start of 2006, I've somehow spent £14.9k (although I do now have 2 great bikes and a load of good clothes etc)
Just under 10,000km of commuting, which is a saving of around £2.5k
Plus 24,000km non commuting.

That is good shopping! I have a vision of Imelda Marcos-style rack after rack of cycling shoes...

The Rookie

I record the mileage saved by not driving when I cycle, my commuters (over the last 3 years) have cost me a total of £394.57 (including the value of bits given as presents) and I have saved £492.67 through not driving.

The journey takes me a total (changing time etc) of 45 minutes versus 25 minutes by car, but then as I need to do excercise that's a lot less time per week than going to the gym even twice a week!

Simon

Kieran_Burns

CiB wrote:

Pffft - relying on a third-party widget to tell you what you save? You need Finest OCD With Added OCD, with a bit of OCD thrown in. I give you: my mileage logs for the car over the last n years that show miles per pound, averaged daily cost etc, linked into an Excel spreadsheet that records the days that I commute by bike, and any bike-related spending. Whizz it all up through a neat little macro and some graphs and a final group of cells that show total spend, save & average inside leg measurement and it spits out the answer. As of today 33 commutes for the year (that few? Not good enough...) has saved £197.72 less £34.11 spending giving a net benefit of £163.61, or £4.96 per commute.

The flexibility is in what's deemed to be commuting-related bike spending. The initial cost of the bike isn't; I'd own a bike anyway. Same for all the gear. All that goes into the Spent pot is additional snacks & bits that are directly attributable to cycling to work, like the Lidl track pump for a fiver as I couldn't get home otherwise.

Stats. Everybody needs some stats in their life to see how well we're doing.

I just checked your internal cost code.....

Never seen one so appropriate

MichaelW

One of the Grauniad posts recommends amortizing the costs over 5 years which seems sensible to me.

Gym membership is either something you need to add in for use of showers OR something you can subtract as you keep fit on the bike.

I saw one calculation that worked out the number of extra hours you had to work to finance your transportation, then add that to the journey time. The bike came out quite a bit quicker than car.

motopatter

ince wrote:

Love the slogan,

Bicycles run on fat and save you money, cars run on money and make you fat.

now i've read it I love that slogan too 8)