A couple years ago I switched to public transportation to get to and from work. It was great because my employer provided a free bus pass and it meant not paying for gas or parking in downtown.
Then they took that benefit away and eventually I moved to a different job. But I still had the mindset of 'Mass transit is way cheaper, I'm going to go that route.'
I did that for a bit and decided to recalibrate. As it turns out, mass transit was both more expensive for me in terms of money but also in terms of time. When I replaced my car back in late 2016, I switched over a much lower maintenance/lower insurance Honda Hybrid. I started crunching numbers a couple weeks ago and decided to see what would the difference be if I started driving rather than taking mass transit and then started the experiment. I already knew the fixed cost in time and money for mass transit.
As it turns out, I can fill my gas tank once every 9 (work) days for roughly $35. The daily transit pass (it doesn't get any cheaper buying it for monthly or yearly) is $5 a day. So I end up saving roughly $10 every 2 weeks on gas by driving. For that difference, I'd rather take mass transit. Except:
I also was measuring commute time. My average commute on mass transit each way was 1 hour 20 minutes in the morning, 1 hour 40 minutes in the evening with mass transit. By driving my average in the morning was 34 minutes, my average in the evening was 41 minutes or roughly 1 hour 45 minutes each day.
The reason I post this is because almost all the frugal tips here are about money, but sometimes it's important to remember to be frugal with your time as well. After realizing how much time I save by driving, even if it was more expensive to drive than to take mass transit, I'd still drive to get that hour and 45 minutes per day back.
February 15, 2018 at 11:16AM
