I recently had to choose between 2 gyms. One was located in town (20$ a month) and the other gym was just outside of town was $10 a month so it seemed like a no brainer. However after looking up the distances and factoring in my MPG it looked like this:
Gym A (20$ Monthly) Distance .9 Miles MPG 15 Cost Per Trip: $.36 (There and back) Trip a month to Gym: 20 Total Fuel Cost $7.20 Total Monthly Gym Cost: 27.20
Gym B (10$ Monthly) Distance 4 Miles MPG 15 Cost Per Trip: $1.40 (There and back) Trip a month to Gym: 20 Total Fuel Cost $28.00 Total Monthly Gym Cost: 38.00
So it looks like I'd actually would have saved over $10 a month going to the more expensive gym. The MPG can be misleading, especially on older cars. For my Honda Pilot (06) the MPG stated is 18 city. However after recording my odometer reading between fill ups and doing the math, it looks like I closer to 15 city. But once you know your true MPG you can really see if traveling that extra 20 minutes to Wal-Mart is worth it, or if paying more rent monthly is worth it to live closer to your job, etc.
If you'd like to toy with the numbers, I like Calculator.net as it lets you input your MPG and distances.
January 25, 2017 at 08:31PM
