Owning a car cost (on average) $7,823 per a year in 2007 according to AAA. That's figuring in gas, repairs, insurance, car costs, etc.
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This is up from $6,890/year on average (according to this article back in 2004. Wow. Costs are rising quickly.
Here's a website that calculates your personal expenses - telling you how much you're paying a month for the privilege of owning a car and how much you'd be saving if you didn't have a car:
bikesatwork.com
(This site includes the little factoid that, if I did NOT own a car and invested that savings instead - beginning at the age of 25 - that I could have saved $1 million + by retirement age. Or I could easily pay for my children to go to college.)
According to that last website, my wife and I are spending a little under $7,000/year for our car.
Let me go ahead and say $7,000 for the purpose of my following illustration.
Now, if we work 250 days (5 day workweek x 50 weeks) a year, that means we're paying $28/work day for owning a car (7000/250). That means, if you make $9/hour, you have to work 3 hours every day to pay for that car. if you make $14/hour, you're working 1 1/2 hours to pay for it.
I bring this up because I want to make the case for walking/biking/busing places instead of driving. Some people look at me and say, "You're spending 1 1/2 walking to work and back home! That's great if you can work it out, but how do you have the time to do so??!!"
The answer is, because I'm not working 1 1/2-2 hours to pay for a car. In fact, by the time you figure that if I drove, I'd be spending 1/2 hour to get to and from work, then I'm coming out with at least 1/2 hour MORE free time than the person in my situation who drives. More still, if that person also later drives to a gym (where they pay MORE money) to exercise.
Want a million dollars? Want to pay for your kids' college? Want to SAVE time?
Sell that car. Or, at least consider it. It's not the time saver you might think it is. And for folk working at minimum wage (where paying for a car might take closer to HALF your workday!!), give it a serious consideration.
8 comments:
I'm no defender of the automobile but averages be hanged! It doesn't have to be that way.
For example, my vehicle is a 1985 S10. I bought it seven years ago for $800 and since then I replaced the brake lines with $38 in parts (did the labor myself) and a set of used tires for about $60 (total). Oil and filter twice a year for about $14 total for the year and tag costing $18 a year. I don't commute. The truck is used to haul compost and manure and gravel and such onto the farm and to fetch lumber for my business. It goes off the farm an average of twice a month so let's make that 25 trips. It gets 18 mpg (average since it is carrying loads part of the time) and so it takes an average of 2 gallons of gas per trip, or about $6.
Cost of the truck, tires and repairs comes to 35 cents a day over the time I've had the truck. Insurance (liability only) is about $160 a year and add the tag into that, it comes to a little under 50 cents a day. Twenty five trips a year at $6 gas per trip comes to about 40 cents a day.
So I've had automotive transportation at my disposal for the past seven years for about $1.25 a day total costs.
Just wanted to illustrate that even WITH an automobile, it doesn't have to be that way.
By the bye, the truck is still going strong and the longer I run it, the lower the average cost.
Of course, but not most citizens do such.
I spend far more then 7823 a year on my cars but still I would like to ride my bike to work. For health reasons as I am not at all an environmentalist. The problem is the disappearance of bike trails of any kind. For me to get to work on my bike I would have to ride down a busy state HWY or add about 15 miles to the trip.
Great post Dan. I know we try to cut down on our car time. Even to the point where we hope to sell one of two of them. With the internet connections, its making it easy to telecommute too. Anyway, love the breakdown.
Thanks, Parklike.
Edwin, the advantage to bike lanes and paths is the cost: Whereas a mile of highway might cost $2 million (I don't have the figures handy, but it's something like that - a bunch), the price of a mile of bike path is closer to $50,000.
Parklife, I mean...
We are definitely in agreement on this one.
Personal note: my college days have taught me that bike lanes can be very dangerous as drivers sometimes see them as temporary passing lanes. That is why I prefer the dedicated bike paths, my favorite is the rails to trails project, http://www.traillink.com/.
Funny you should post this now. I'm in the process of putting up our second car for sale. It's affectionately called an ornament for our driveway as it rarely moves. Kind of pointless to keep it for as little as I need it!
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