Daily Commuter Saving

kelsen

Disregarding the cost of maintenance and parts for the bike, how much money do you save commuting over a year?

Me...

Rail: £9.60
Bus (optional as I can walk): £2.70
Total: £9.60 or £12.30 per day

That's £2170pa or £2780pa based on 226 working days.

I know the savings would be less if comparing against the cost of a season travel ticket, but I wouldn't buy a season ticket only to use it part-time!

Wrath Rob

Come on Kelsen, you know the real answer is £0. We spend all of the saved cash on upgrades, new clothes etc!

kelsen

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's purely a theoretical question.

Let's look at it another way - How much money do you save towards bike stuff by not using PT?

SimonAH

Not so good for me.... now I've relocated so close to my office my commuting cost per year by car would be about £170 per year. Against that I have to weigh £700 for a new bike (a grand on the cycle scheme), a guestimate of £300 in clothing, £50 on cycle specific tools, £120 on lights, £75 on tyres and tubes and lets say another £350 in various 'nice' bits (including converting the fleet to SPDs). Oh yes, and £134 for a waterproof bag (and another £200 for two more bags as my wife and daughter caught me designing mine on the Timbuk2 website and had to have a bag each too). And then the MTB that I bought and sold so -£30 as I made a profit. And then the pedicab project because I've turned into a cycle nut ~£1000 and fancied playing.

OK, it's costing me around £2.40 per mile to get to and from my office by bicycle, or seventeen times more expensive than reclining into the heated leather and premium stereo that is my car.

But I'm happier :-D

dhope

About £1500 a year plus whatever my sanity is worth.

Might break even this year after totting up bike related purchases over the last couple. Probably means it's time to buy another bike.

il_principe

Wandsworth Town to Waterloo + Zone 1/2 would cost me £1,168.00 a year. So, yeah a good saving, but my cycling expenditure (over the 10 years or so that I've had a proper job) outweigh that by a fairly hefty margin. Still, money spent on cycling is never wasted. Money spent on sitting on a train = a depressing waste. I always defend my cycling cost by pointing out that I've never owned a car. F*ck knows how much that has saved me over 10 years!

bails87

I drive, and park for free, so let's assume that HMRC have done a good job of estimating depreciation, fuel use, wear and tear etc and call it 45p per mile to drive.
say I cycle 4/5 days, so 4*23miles*45p per mile = £4140.

Hmmm.........

gtvlusso

Not really sure.....The car is so inefficient that there has to be about £5 a day.

I buy secondhand and bargain bucket where I can, but rarely keep any records and don't upgrade that often.

My biggest saving is bringing a packed lunch into work, that save me about £5 to £10 a day in food and junk!

CiB

I kept a spreadsheet going last year to identify the benefits over the 12 months and discovered that out of 68 days commuting by bike the net benefit taking out the cost of buying lunch instead of taking it with me, spare tube, odds & sods etc came to a measly £352 (saved £409, spent an extra £57). Gawd it was dull keeping it going.

Now work on the assumption that the car swallows a gallon of diesel driving to work & back so that's about £6.60 per day saved. I'm aiming for about 90 bike commutes this year (limited to 2 days per week out of school hols) so about £600. Minus the Di2 to make it even more fun still = priceless.

daviesee

£625 by train.
£2318 car & parking.

I feel a new groupset coming on. Or a bike :P

Honestly, £625 would probably be taken up by replacement components and clothing but that is mostly because I upgrade rather than simply replace.

okgo

Train to work for me is £2100 per year, or £15 a day.

Hence I cycle more than I should.

Koncordski

Il Principe wrote:

Wandsworth Town to Waterloo + Zone 1/2 would cost me £1,168.00 a year. So, yeah a good saving, but my cycling expenditure (over the 10 years or so that I've had a proper job) outweigh that by a fairly hefty margin. Still, money spent on cycling is never wasted. Money spent on sitting on a train = a depressing waste. I always defend my cycling cost by pointing out that I've never owned a car. F*ck knows how much that has saved me over 10 years!

My OH gets the train from wandsworth town, it's a total bunfight just to get on and even then you are squeezed against every other person. Last time I did that trip it was really warm and I almost had a full on panic attack. Surbiton is zone 6 and the trains are 12 carriage and spacious, waterloo in 16mins but I still cycle every day instead. You would have to pay me to use PT again on a regular basis.

MonkeyMonster

*if* I cycled every say 3 days a week, that is 5.40 a day saved. £800 quid or so and I can given I have one untarty bike be pretty sure I won't spend that much a year on gear. Anymore days and I'd save more obv but you wander into replacement territory but again, its have only 2 drivetrain replacements in 13 years.

okgo

Koncordski wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Wandsworth Town to Waterloo + Zone 1/2 would cost me £1,168.00 a year. So, yeah a good saving, but my cycling expenditure (over the 10 years or so that I've had a proper job) outweigh that by a fairly hefty margin. Still, money spent on cycling is never wasted. Money spent on sitting on a train = a depressing waste. I always defend my cycling cost by pointing out that I've never owned a car. F*ck knows how much that has saved me over 10 years!

My OH gets the train from wandsworth town, it's a total bunfight just to get on and even then you are squeezed against every other person. Last time I did that trip it was really warm and I almost had a full on panic attack. Surbiton is zone 6 and the trains are 12 carriage and spacious, waterloo in 16mins but I still cycle every day instead. You would have to pay me to use PT again on a regular basis.

Surbiton is good, but its just so expensive to travel from.

gbsahne001

£900 give or take

Nik Cube

I've got no real idea. What I notice however is that there is always money in my wallet since I ditched the car

I might buy a bit more cycling gear but always bought some anyway and when I have to put fuel in my wife's car it hurts petrol is just sooooo bloody expensive !!!!!!!!!!!!

Initialised

I'd reckon around £3k per year.

flimflam_machine

I did some sums on this recently and came to 2 major conclusions: 1 - working it out is hellishly complicated; 2 - I probably don't save as much as I originally thought.

I definitely don't save any more than £1168 per year since that's the cost of an annual travelcard. If I cycle one day a week I also don't save any money since a weekly travelcard is more or less four times the cost of a peak PT commute. If I cycle 2 or more days a week I start to save money, but I have to factor in that I then have to pay for any PT at weekends that would otherwise be covered if I had a weekly PT travelcard. Subtract the cost of bike bits and extra cake and I probably save only a few hundred pounds a year.

None of this is a particular blow, since I cycle-commute mainly for enjoyment. I had grown seriously bored of my usual PT commute and it's just nice to have the variety introduced by cycling, over and above the immediate enjoyment of the commute itself.

roger_merriman

My commute is stupidly short at the moment.

so none are exactly expensive!

car costs £400-£500 rather depends how much the car disliked short runs, ie extra garage trips, plus increased fuel from distance and worse MPG.

I don't spend much on commute bikes, the odd brake pad and so on. plus the odd trip to the shop for more fiddly stuff such as Bottom Brackets etc.

even so at best i'd save £200 a year..

itboffin

Pah still have the £5k+ train ticket and that's even with cycling both ends

Think I need another new bike(s)

5milestogo

About £16 quid a day saved on PT from Zone 6. This years alot lighter then last but circa £1500 - 2k a year should be close. Does anyone claim mileage from work for travelling by bike to an alternate destination? I have use of an office 23 miles the other way and am planning a ride to get the stats up!

Blacktemplar

Not as much as I thought. 24-mile round trip, not too much traffic so about £4 a day in fuel costs. Probably about £800 a year or so, most of which gets spent on bike bits and extra grub.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Il Principe wrote:

Wandsworth Town to Waterloo + Zone 1/2 would cost me £1,168.00 a year. So, yeah a good saving, but nowhere near enough to buy even a decent fraction of a wheelset, or gruppo, or frameset ...

FTFY


TBH, cost saving, whether real or specious, is a long way down my list of reasons to ride. It's quick (probably quickest of any means I could use), reliable (PF excepted), it gives me a modicum of exercise, and most importantly, it is something I enjoy, which is in complete contrast to sitting/standing on a train.

I would guess that the day I stop enjoying it will be the day I find an alternative.

iPete

Rail ticket is £243.10 per month or £2,532.00 per annum.

As I try and use the train less than once a month I can pretty much justify anything

Tricycleboy

I probably save about £8 a day. I suspect i average spending way more than £8 a day on gear.

I couldn't care less, as after a month on PT i probably couldn't muster the mental energy to get out of bed and go to work anyway.

And the money that goes on gear is often partially recoverable- at least as you have a physical object for your money, not just the accumulated armpit sweat of the rotund masses who take the train.

aclivity

My annual travelcard (GMPTE County Card) is £950 a year, or it was when I bought it on January 1st, it went up to just over £1000 the day after, covers me for trains, buses and trams, so I could get a bus to the station instead of cycling. Given the right timing, the bus is slightly quicker too. So for me, cycling to the station and back saves me nothing, and actually costs me in terms of needing to get changed (more clothes to be washed each day) and of course the cost of the bike and incidentals like p#nct#re repairs, replaced inner tubes and tyres.

But I enjoy the ride - even this morning in hail, and over the winter on the pitch dark towpath, even when it's windy to some extent, so I see it as being worth my while.

I only do 5 miles a day, sometimes 7 if I decide to go the long way to the office, and have only been doing it since September last year, but I wish I had started cycling to work years ago. I want to up my miles and do the whole 21 miles on a bike rather than bike-train, but I'd need a better road bike than my little Brompton ... N+1 is real for me!

dhope

aclivity wrote:

I want to up my miles and do the whole 21 miles on a bike rather than bike-train, but I'd need a better road bike than my little Brompton ... N+1 is real for me!

You could do the 21 on a Brompton, even if it's just a couple of times a week...

aclivity

dhope wrote:

aclivity wrote:

I want to up my miles and do the whole 21 miles on a bike rather than bike-train, but I'd need a better road bike than my little Brompton ... N+1 is real for me!

You could do the 21 on a Brompton, even if it's just a couple of times a week...

sshhhhhh ... I need to convince my wife that I need another bike - she could read this!

dhope

aclivity wrote:

dhope wrote:

aclivity wrote:

I want to up my miles and do the whole 21 miles on a bike rather than bike-train, but I'd need a better road bike than my little Brompton ... N+1 is real for me!

You could do the 21 on a Brompton, even if it's just a couple of times a week...

sshhhhhh ... I need to convince my wife that I need another bike - she could read this!

Don't get me wrong, you still need another bike. I need another bike and I have 4 and only use 2.