|
 How far do you commute each day for the
privilege of doing your part to push back the frontiers of technical ignorance and
to boldly go where no engineer - or technician - has gone before (to paraphrase
Jene Roddenberry,
not me). Do you know what the cost equates to you each year? This handy-dandy infographic
by the folks at Streamline Refinance lays out some gruesome numbers. Those with
a weak stomach probably should pass on viewing this one. Here's a hint at what you
will see: See that big $795 in the thumbnail image? That's the average cost per
year for commuting -- per mile! Yessiree, if you live just 10 miles from work, you're
losing nearly $8,000 per year, depending on you automobile type, on gas, tires,
maintenance, devaluation, and loss of your personal time (which is valuable, after
all).
Back in the early 1990s I drove about 45 miles each way to Comsat, which took
about 65 minutes due to miserable traffic, which is 130 minutes round-trip, or 2
hours and 10 minutes (about the run time of an average movie) each day. Figuring
two weeks vacation and 10 holidays, that leave 48 weeks x 5 days/week = 240 days
per year of commuting. 240 days x 130 minutes = 31,200 minutes = 520 hours
per year. That's a fourth of a man-year (2,080 hours) on the road. It was a great
job, but combined with working 60-70 hours per week (no paid overtime of course),
it really took a toll on me. During that period I was writing my world-famous
RF
Workbench cascade analysis software at home, usually into the wee hours of the
morning.
During the Comsat era, I drove a crappy old 1982
Ford Escort
(our only car) that suffered carburetor icing regularly when cresting
South Mountain in the winter, driving from
Smithsburg (Hagerstown) to Clarksburg, Maryland. It was lucky to get 25 mpg,
even with a little 4-cylinder engine and no air conditioning. Devaluation was pretty
minimal since the car didn't have much value to begin with. Gas cost about $1.00
per gallon at the time (vs. about $2.30/gallon now). In 1992, the IRS was allowing
29 cents per mile deduction for business vehicles (for which I did not qualify),
which would be $6,264 for those 21,600 miles per year (90 miles round-trip per day
* 240 days * 0.29), or around $940 at the 15% income tax rate. The actual fuel cost
works out to $864 per year (best case for 21,600 miles / 25 mpg). Clearly,
the deductible amount allowed by the IRS does not really cover anything other than
gasoline costs. My salary was something like $35k per year as an entry level engineer,
with an after-tax net of maybe $30k per year, so that really hurt the bottom line.
After three years, I changed jobs since I could not keep up that schedule and could
not afford to move closer in the much higher cost region north of Washington D.C.
BTW, there were quite a few guys who commuted even farther than I did.
Keep in mind when calculating your own commuting cost that the motivation for
the creation of the poster is to convince you to sell your current house and buy
a new one. That puts money in the pockets of re-financiers like the Streamline Refinance
folks, so numbers are put in the most most shocking terms - yet credible in the
worst case - as possible. In my opinion, the greatest cost is in lost personal time
on the road that could be spent at home with your family, engaging in a hobby, starting
your own business or even getting a little extra sleep. A mere 15-minute commute
consumes 120 hours per year, or the equivalent of three full work weeks per year!
That's a pretty staggering reality. For some people their job is their life, so
commute time doesn't matter. I'm not one of those people.
Since 2008, I have had the privilege of working from home, thereby eliminating
the costs of time and money of commuting. I still put in many hours working seven
days per week, but it is mostly on my own schedule. One of the very few benefits
of the Wuhan virus situation is it has provided a lot of people a chance to work
from home at least part time, and a lot of them really like it. Of course some jobs
require a presence at a brick-and-mortar location for access to equipment, facility
resources, in-person collaboration with associates, and other things. A lot of companies
are realizing they can save money by not needing to provide office space for all
their employees. It will be interesting to look back in a decade to see how the
situation changed the work paradigm.
Infographic source: "The
True Cost of Commuting" on the Mr. Money Mustache website.
Posted July 15, 2020
(updated from original post on 3/15/2013)
|
"