aircooled wrote: Maintenance is very low though, not much to do there, oil is only one quart and even good motorcycle oil is only about $4 / quart.
Yeah, the tires are what kill you on a bike...fairly expensive AND they wear out fast compared to car tires, double whammy! The Soyburban, on the other hand, would cost as much to change all of the fluids (engine, trans, diffs, coolant, etc.) as a set of bike tires.
Bryce
Nashco wrote:aircooled wrote: Maintenance is very low though, not much to do there, oil is only one quart and even good motorcycle oil is only about $4 / quart.Yeah, the tires are what kill you on a bike...fairly expensive AND they wear out fast compared to car tires, double whammy! The Soyburban, on the other hand, would cost as much to change all of the fluids (engine, trans, diffs, coolant, etc.) as a set of bike tires. Bryce
Depends what you ride. Some of the cruiser tires last quite a long time...
My cars are always riding on ST* level tires, so they don't exactly last that long anyways :( Definitely longer than my bike's rear tire though.
Bike tires wear quick, but quicker when you're aggresive. My tire consumption has quadrupled since I moved to CO. But I started buying race takeoffs at $50 a set, yeah I replace them about 6 times a year, but I have buddy that does it in his garage pretty cheap.
83.65/ month 1003.80/year
traveling an average of one week a month on the company dime makes it cheap
$33 a month, ~$400 a year.
But then, I live within 5 miles from work, I drive a 45 mpg car that I own in full and pay very little to insure. Plus, extremely few repairs.
Actually that figure is probably a bit high, since I bicycle to work much of the summer.
And Bryce, these numbers are only counting wear based on commute to work, so you only factor in how many miles you go to work. My cost per mile for insurance is about 1 penny, and at just 2400 miles a year to commute, that's only $24 annually in insurance. I drive a heckuva lot more than that, but not to work.
Negative $10. I work from my home office and earn .55 per mile to run to the post office once a week.
bastomatic wrote: $33 a month, ~$400 a year. But then, I live within 5 miles from work, I drive a 45 mpg car that I own in full and pay very little to insure. Plus, extremely few repairs. Actually that figure is probably a bit high, since I bicycle to work much of the summer. And Bryce, these numbers are only counting wear based on commute to work, so you only factor in how many miles you go to work. My cost per mile for insurance is about 1 penny, and at just 2400 miles a year to commute, that's only $24 annually in insurance. I drive a heckuva lot more than that, but not to work.
I guess that's another way of looking at it. I figured insurance as a set price for my commute, whether I drove more outside of that or not, since I'd HAVE to have that same insurance price no matter what. If you only drove to work, then your maintenance costs would drastically decrease due to the reduced miles (in theory) but insurance costs are the same either way. Technically some companies do reduced rates for shorter commutes, but in my experience there's a magic number that is an over/under number (not variable).
Speaking of how much I hate auto insurance, I've been trying to find an insurance company that will insure me with whatever vehicle, similar to what a dealership has, except for a personal account and not as a business. I have enough vehicles that at this point I don't drive any more than I ever did before, so IMO basic liability insurance shouldn't cost me any more whether I've got 3 vehicles or 7. State Farm doesn't see it my way, and after 2 vehicles that's all the discount I can get, so they claim. I need to find a company that doesn't penalize me for having extra cars that I drive. Just as long as I drive the same amount with 6 vehicles or 2, I don't see what difference it makes for basic liability. To make matters even worse I buy and sell them all the time, so I can barely keep track of my payments/policies and they won't even make my billing cycle on some sort of consistent date (ie. the same day every month) so I get statements, cancellations, new policies, bills, credits, etc. about once or twice a week. What a waste of paper and postage! Oy..sorry for the threadjack!
Bryce
'Cause I'm an enginerd, I have a spread sheet for just this kinda thing. The past year since I bought the '03 Protege has car expenses at $686/month, including insurance (~100/month), payments (~200/month), fuel (341.67/month) and maintenance.
Distance is ~50 miles each way.... Yeah, I'm considering moving closer to work.
I made a spreadsheet to calculate all this a couple months ago.
Counting insurance, payment, repairs & gas, my Miata costs me $0.23/mi with gas at $4/gal.
Anyway: $28.75/day or $7187.50/year(calculated on 50-weeks).
$850/month. And that's with my new closer to home job (110 miles per day vs. 130). At least this one makes it worth my while.
Nashco wrote: Speaking of how much I hate auto insurance, I've been trying to find an insurance company that will insure me with whatever vehicle, similar to what a dealership has, except for a personal account and not as a business. I have enough vehicles that at this point I don't drive any more than I ever did before, so IMO basic liability insurance shouldn't cost me any more whether I've got 3 vehicles or 7. Oy..sorry for the threadjack! Bryce
What you are looking for is broadform named operator insurance. Some states don't allow it, as the insurance is tied to the car's registration. I had it back in Washington state, however, as I was in the same boat as you, with multiple cars, and named operator coverage is legal there. I can only drive one car at a time, so insuring me as a driver was more important than insuring the car. Check wth an independant insurance broker to see if it's legal where you live. My policy was through Dairyland Insurance, out of Wisconsin.
96 miles a day, 4 days a week, 26 MPG in the Suby Just titled the Yamaha Radian and now need to rebuild the carbs to get that thing running.
Mine costs me a shamefull $3000 per year (5 tanks/month at about $50 per). About 40 miles round trip and I drive a WRX; combined mileage is always 24-25mpg. And that's just in gas, I don't want to calculate the wear and tear costs :(
But I'm working on finding something much closer to home.
$19.68 per week $1023.36 a year for me Driving an average of 144 to my 2 schools and work.
Lucky for me my one school is 1 mile away but I have to drive since I have equipment and bags to bring. My 2nd school is 50 miles round trip. Both schools I teach at 4 nights a week.
My work place is 10 miles round trip, but I only work there 3-4 days a week.
$3569.64/yr ... $382.80/month
NJ Insurance is killer. 29 mile commute @ 30MPG ... Luckily NJ gas is cheap! (4.09 yesterday, could have saved a few penies/gal if I drove around).
Jeff
My commute costs a lot. Most of it is a function of how far out we have chosen to live, and we deal with that. Here's my (very sad) breakdown of what my Mazda3 costs me.
My car costs me ~$10/day whether I drive it or not, that's the payment. Gas at $3.95 gallon is about another $10/day for the 65 mile round trip at 27mpg, and that may be generous. Insurance on the car is about $5/day, depending on how you divide it up. Depreciation? Who knows, but I'm depressed enough already. Maintenance? Likewise. I'm getting pretty serious about doing our own work on our cars- even though I don't have much extra time to spend on it, paying $40+ for an oil change is a little nuts. Also, as EVERYTHING you pay money for is getting more expensive, I am finding that coming up with $40-50 for an oil change and tire rotate is just too hard/ too much of a convenience charge.
That, conservatively, is $500+/month in expenses for what (by just about any reckoning) is a relatively economical car. No wonder folks driving Tahoes/Exploders/Suburbans/F150s/Tundras/etc to/from work by themselves every day are slowing down.
Started carpooling several months ago because I live in the same neighborhood with a lady who works in my building. Saves me $100 a month in gas, we trade weeks driving. I bet it saves her $150 or more, her Hemi-powered Chrysler 300 is a nice car to ride in, but it can't be good on gas.
About $10 a week on the bike, $20 a week in the car. So not counting the two weeks of vacation I get, that's $500 on the bike, $1000 in the car. I ride to work every day that it's at least 50 degrees and not pouring rain.
Oh yeah, and all my E36 M3 is paid for. Insurance for the car and bike is about $550 a year for both. Liability on the car, full coverage on the bike.
Insurance is what kills me. I'm paying $150/mo. But I have full coverage on both cars. Apparently I have told my insurance company that I drive about 5k miles/year more than I actually do (said I drove 13k/yr in the BMW; bought the Miata, said I would drive it 4k/yr; didn't lower the mileage estimate on the BMW). I need to call and change that.
My commute is costing me dirty feet.
I walk thru my garage, usually barefooted, to my office. Sometimes I'm even in my skivvies.
I own a mortgage company and recently built a new home with a nice office attached. I realized I didn't need my 3000 square feet office since rarely do I come face to face with customers anymore so I decided to build an office section to the new house. When I sell it will be listed as a 2 BR appt.
Since December I have only seen 2 people face to face, we do everything by phone, fax or email.
So not only have I lost my commuting costs, I have also lost the costs for my office - SWEET!
I take the train to college so its $140 a month but I only have college for about 7 or 8 months. Probably about $1150
I retired so I could save the money and invest it in GM stock
On a normal day my commute consists of:
Putting on my slippers and walking to the spare bedroom/office.
Once a month or so, I have to make a 200 mile (one way) drive for some meetings and such. For which I get way more in mileage/hotel/per diem payments than I spend.
I'm pretty sure my commute "costs" me about -$150/month.
According to that calculator, a whoping $1,728/ mo, $20,736/ year 
wreckerboy wrote: $850/month. And that's with my new closer to home job (110 miles per day vs. 130). At least this one makes it worth my while.
Congrats on the new job and the shorter commute.
My train ticket is $359 a month, and I use about $40 in gas so $399.
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