Sunday, January 31, 2010

Our Carpool saves us $1000s every year.

OK, this post has been cooking for about 2 months and it is ready to be served.  I've got numbers.  I've got something I want to share, I'll do my best to put the numbers and the message together here.

My other posts on carpooling shared many of the benefits of carpooling, and I continue to enjoy those benefits.  Apart from the social benefits and the greater environmental responsibility, there are also some very real cost benefits. If you have the slightest financial inclination you know that expenses (like purchasing fuel) come after tax, and that for every $1.00 you avoid spending, its around  $1.40* you don't have to earn.  *OK, I live in British Columbia, Canada, where where we have a sales tax of 12%, an income tax and other federal deductions that eat 27% of each pay-cheque. So if you managed to save $1000, its like getting a $1,400. So that is my mindset and you'll have to forgive me if I jump to the "earnings saved" now and then.  I want to raise my family's quality of life without having to work longer hours to earn more money.  And since my commitment to Jesus precludes bank robbery as a reasonable means of acquiring "extra" money, I'm stuck with the ethical stuff like carpooling.  Financial benefits to carpooling... Today I'd like to start tackling those so that I can let you in on the secret that many (but not all) carpools already know.

So lets start a list of the dollar savings a carpool creates.  If I miss some feel free to add yours in the comments;

  • Fuel costs
  • Regular maintenance costs
  • Wear and tear (unexpected repair costs)
  • Exposure to accidents and damaged
  • Vehicle replacement
  • Insurance?
Fuel costs
OK, so the fuel costs are a no-brainer right?  Of course if only one car is rolling down the highway towards work with 1,2 or 3 carpool vehicles parked, you are saving serious dollars on fuel costs.  So my carpool avoids driving 60,000 KM per year, and with fuel sitting at around $1.00/Liter, and 10L/100KM being reasonably average, we avoid spending $6,000 on fuel each year (and avoids the need for us to earn $8,400.)

Regular maintenance costs
Oil changes every 5000KM are a good way to help your car's engine last as long as the rest of the car.
At 100,000km you probably need to change a timing belt, you should replace brakes before they disappear completely, air filters and other parts deserve replacement.  At 60,000km/year, we displace the need for 12 oil changes.  The "interwebs" suggest that $35 is an average price for a dealer to change oil, so for our carpool, we save ourselves $420 a year

Wear and tear
we have to replace tires, things go "crack" or "rattle".  I needed to replace my tires for$600 at 100,000km,   so $6/1000km seems like the price for tires.  At 60,000km/year, our carpool saves $360 a year on tires.

Exposure to accidents and damage
We get stones in the windshield, people put dents in the car doors.  The point is that leaving your car in the garage is the safest place for you.  Every time that car gets on the road you've got roadside salt and sand abrading the paint, random objects placed in your lane, manholes strategically placed to ensure your suspension gets its daily workout.  

Vehicle Replacement
OK, this is the big one. (I think?)  In Canada, the average purchase price for a light car is about $27,500.  Normal folk drive their cars about 25,000 KM/year and replace the car when it is 10 years old.  This lets us infer that the cost of a vehicle is about  $27,500 per 250,000KM  or $0.11 per km. (Honestly somebody help me out with these numbers)  given our carpool's 60,000km/year, we save $6,600 per year on vehicle replacement.

Insurance & Parking?
OK, my insurance company has a rule that I can insure the car for pleasure use and still drive it to work 5 days a week. Now, if there were zero disruptions in carpool, I'd drive to work 5 times.  life happens, and I'll always be hitting 6-8 days a month, so this one doesn't work for me.  BUT maybe your insurance company allows you a discount based on the percentage of the time you don't drive.  Its worth asking about.  They totally save money by avoiding risk.  They like it when you leave your car in the garage too!
Parking.  We currently pay for parking 4 times, but perhaps you have a better parking situation where sharing a parking pass among vehicles is acceptable (given that you'll only use one parking space).

So lets see what we have in savings given the numbers I could crunch above.
Vehicle replacement $6,600
Tires $360
Oil $420
Fuel $6,000
--------------------
Total $13,380

So there are 4 of us splitting the take on the carpool for a tidy savings of $3,345
Together as a carpool we all enjoyed a standard of living that otherwise would have required us to earn an extra  $18,732

So yes.  Our carpool saves $1000s every year.  You can too.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Exercise vs Blogging.

In trying to figure out why I haven't been blogging, I am happy to report that i HAVE been exercising pretty much every night for 40 minutes.  I guess that removes "excess" time from my life effectively enough to displace some blogging.

I've rarely enjoyed outdoor exercise in the winter because of our weather.
Where I live, it rains from October to March, and being in the Northern Hemisphere with a long commute, when I leave it is dark and raining and when I return home it is dark and raining.  So any kind of outdoor exercise ends quickly in soggy chilled discouragement.  As an aside, I had tried jogging for the better part of the fall a few years ago, but the dark cold wet weather was just making me miserable.  I confided to the man at the "Running Room" store that I'd stopped and he comforted me with the assurance that it really was awful, and nobody was running those days.

I've found most indoor exercise to be extremely boring.
So I'm also not the type to go into a room and exercise while staring at a wall either alone or with a bunch of strangers who don't want to talk.  The idea of indoor exercise by itself is simply beyond boring.  Thats why outdoor exercise (minus the weather and dark) appeals to me.  Watching the seconds / RPM / calories count away is very interesting for about 10 seconds.  The problem is that my doctor tells me I need to exercise for longer than 10 seconds to get any physical benefit.  Enter "recorded TV".  By watching a TV set strategically positioned where I'm exercising I actually "forget" that I'm exercising for brief periods of time.  I've found that watching engaging science fiction like "Stargate Universe" and "Alias" keeps me focussed on the plot of the show and disengages my attention from the fact that I'm pushing 55-60 RPM on exercise equipment.  I've found that educational shows like TED.com talks and Google tech talks while interesting, have no plot and don't keep me engaged enough to forget that I'm really exercising.  Besides there is nothing like a good spy thriller to push up my heart rate a little more and make me run a little harder as Syndey Bristow sprints through the tunnels to escape the bad guys gunning for her.  I know its a pathetically illogical to think that my running faster might save Sydney in a past episode.  I try.

I didn't want to have exercise equipment that would end up with laundry piled on it.
The thought of spending hundreds of dollars for something I might not use was troubling, but when my wife suggested spending the same amount on a gym membership just for her, I could see the POTENTIAL for me to exercise resting in the balance of that choice.  Fortunately for me we chose to purchase some equipment.  The price was too high at $700, but we went shopping and tried them out.  Well a few days later Sears Canada came through with a 50% off sale on their exercise equipment and we'd found an elliptical  machine there that we liked.  It was one of the few machines that had a smooth feel to it. Other machines we'd tried had a bumpy feel to them like walking on snow that would hold your weight for a second only to collapse sending your leg deep into the soft snow beneath.  We ordered it and it came shortly after.  2 hours of assembly later we had an exercise machine that I was compelled to use in order to appear financially stupid.

So why exercise?
No, nothing to do with New Year's Resolutions.  I'm more the type that thinks we should resolve to do better more often that once a year ;-)  I had known for years that my doctor thought I'd be healthier if I dropped 15 pounds or so bringing me down to 170.  Lets put it this way.  I didn't lose 15 pounds despite many half hearted attempts.  I was watching Dr. Oz who has all kinds of health advice on his show and he was interviewing this overweight man with a 52 inch waist.  In the midst of the interview he asked the man for his belt, and proceeded to measure it with a tape measure.  "You have a 42 inch belt and a 52 inch waist.  You are doing what many men in this country are doing.  You are kidding yourself by pretending you have a 42 inch waist when it is really 52 inches."   I sat on the couch in disbelief...  What do you mean belt size isn't the same as waist size!  I seemed to recall some mention on a health website about using the belly button for properly positioning the measuring tape.  So I had some work to do.

So I've been exercising for 5 weeks.  I've lost 5 pounds and that feels pretty good.  I'd like to be losing 2-3 times faster, but I'm not sure how to make that happen.  Here is my formula so far (comments welcome);

  • 40 minutes an evening at 55 RPM on the elliptical machine with resistance increasing as my body adapts.  
  • No second servings of food at meals
  • No huge deserts.  (a cookie or chocolate is fine, a piece of cake is not fine)  
  • Reduce the amount of food I eat that is not nutritionally dense. (buns, rice)
At this point it feels like things have levelled off and I'm looking for pointers from those of you who may have walked this road before.

Cheers,
Greg.