CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

Commuting: motoring costs

(34 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by Dave
  • Latest reply from Instography

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  1. Dave
    Member

    The car's in for MOT tomorrow so I've just updated our spreadsheet of bills, fuel and mileage. Makes for interesting reading.

    Averaged over four years it works out at a fixed annual cost of £1300, plus 9p per mile, plus fuel (around 13p / mile).

    For our mileage it means if we preferred to hire cars or take taxis, our monthly budget for that would be a hefty £270. (Needless to say, SWMBO convinced that taxi / hire car combo is not suitable).

    More interestingly, it transpires that the marginal cost of driving to work is £3.04 per day, essentially the same as getting the bus, except that the bus takes around 1.5 hours per day longer (equivalent to almost double my annual leave allowance).

    Since we both (mostly) ride to work, we save on all the costs of the second car we don't own (£1300 fixed + 220 x £3 = £660 -> ~£2k) plus the marginal costs for the first we don't commute with (220 x £3 = £660).

    Over ten years to date that's £25k cash. I'm almost certain we haven't spent that much on bikes... scary really.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. Baldcyclist
    Member

    I must admit I never add 'buying' costs for either, because I figure we will always have a car (seriously considering handing leased second car back though), and I will always have a bike.

    On maintenance costs only, bike (in my case) far more expensive than car. I've had my car 2 years now and had to change a tyre, bout £120. Although admittedly I see servicing as 'free' because I bought that at the start (of course it's not). The bike costs (me) hundreds of poundsevery year, last year more than £1000 on bike stuff despite it being paid for. I stopped my bike spreadsheet as I wasn't making a very good case.

    My case is also complicated by the fact commuting involves car and bike, so both £20 p/w on diesel AND £100s per year on bike bits, so my commute probably prohibitively expensive if you were to take a rational look at it. Would be more cost effective to give up both and get the train. I won't be doing that though ;).

    Of course bikes overall are much cheaper overall than cars, £1000 purchase every 3or4 years as opposed to £15000+ over the same period,

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. fimm
    Member

    So is the £1300 stuff like MOT and VED? What else? (Do you include the actual cost of the vehicle, or some kind of depreciation in it?)

    Are you saying that if you did your current milage by hire car/taxi, you'd have £270 a month to spend?

    I'm curious because we have not owned a car for several years now, but my boyfriend would quite like to own one again (if we could afford it, which tells you something....)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. crowriver
    Member

    I understand that as soon as you pick up the keys for a new car it 'costs' you quite a lot in depreciation. Even if you were to sell it on the same day you would lose money on the purchase price.

    That's over and above any financing charges/lease hire/repayments on the purchase.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. Snowy
    Member

    I assuming that Dave meant that 'all in' the yearly cost was 270*12 = 3240.
    I'm assuming this because I came up with a yearly 'all in' cost of about 2.5k.
    Importantly, that did not include depreciation. That was pretty much the same again.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Dave
    Member

    I must admit I never add 'buying' costs for either, because I figure we will always have a car

    But you could spend £1k or £30k on a car... while it doesn't affect the marginal cost of driving anywhere it's presumably still a significant household expense? (Moreso than bikes...)

    Service and MOT cost us £400 on average. Paying that up front (through depreciation on a new motor or as part of an "inclusive" package) and then only counting the bike equivalent costs might be a wee bit lopsided.

    Then again, I suppose if you own a lot of general outdoors kit and use it on the bike, are you 'subsidising' your bike costs?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. mgj
    Member

    Gosh, other folk must be harder on their equipment. My bike is 14 years old next month and costs around £5 a month in servicing and parts. My car is 40 years old and it appreciates in value, so spend on that of £15 a month in insurance and VED (free from April next year) is in the noise. Of course it does eat petrol, especially around town, which is why it is a) a rare treat to do any commuiting in it and b) driven in as fuel-efficient manner as possible.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. Dave
    Member

    So is the £1300 stuff like MOT and VED? What else? (Do you include the actual cost of the vehicle, or some kind of depreciation in it?)

    It's everything we'd have to pay to own the car even if we didn't use it all year. So tax, MOT, insurance, breakdown cover. It also includes 100% depreciation since we expect to run the car into the ground rather than sell it on for a significant amount.

    Are you saying that if you did your current milage by hire car/taxi, you'd have £270 a month to spend?

    Exactly.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    so spend on that of £15 a month in insurance and VED (free from April next year)

    Can you let me know make, model, colour and roughly where in town you are located so I can yell "why don't you pay some road tax!" as you pass? :)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  10. Baldcyclist
    Member

    But you could spend £1k or £30k on a car...

    Of course. Car costs £3300 to buy per year, as opposed to £250 per year for bike over 4 years, but we would spend it anyway whether I cycled or not. In a sense the bike is the 'extra' expenditure. And as such is always the thing which is questioned when it needs something fixed on a monthly basis.

    Easy to forget the car, because it doesn't cost* anything on a monthly basis.

    *Not including buying/insurance/servicing/VED costs which are already accounted for 'bills'.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  11. Baldcyclist
    Member

    And I know all of that stuff seems perverse, but is just viewed in the same way as housing costs. Already accounted for monthly bills.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  12. fimm
    Member

    @Dave thank you.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  13. mgj
    Member

    @kaputnik Its a big red Citroen DS, located in Marchmont.

    Of course this does mean I can no longer say that I do pay VED when I'm shouted at on my bike. Maybe I need to buy a newer car too...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  14. AKen
    Member

    My bike cost £270 in 2005, so eight years old. Since then it has had four new tyres, three new chains, one new rear cassette and hub, one new front chainring, one new set of mudguards and numerous new cables, inner tubes and brake blocks. Wise cycling authorities tell me I should have gone through many more sets of chains-and-cogs stuff but, it seems to have worked so far. I don't know how much all that adds up to, but it's possibly about £460 - which is exactly what one bad car repair bill set me back.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  15. Dave
    Member

    And I know all of that stuff seems perverse, but is just viewed in the same way as housing costs. Already accounted for monthly bills.

    Last night when I came up with £270 a month as our TCO for the car, I was convinced for a wild moment that I could sell SWMBO on just using taxis and hire cars.

    Talk about an immediate shut down of that concept...

    Rationally though, it's almost 90 minutes each way by bus to do the 7 miles from Currie to Kings Buildings and it would be expensive in terms of bus fares - an annual pass costs roughly half of the cost of owning the car.

    Since driving saves ~2 hours a day you'd have to ask whether 220 x 2 = 440 hours of your life is the difference in cost. Unless you price your time under £2 or £3 an hour it would be madness not to have the car.

    At this point I admitted utter defeat.

    (As the WoL isn't surfaced or lit, bike commuting isn't to be relied on.)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  16. crowriver
    Member

    We manage just fine without a car. We used to be members of the City Car Club but never used it.

    Mind you we live in the centre, have our pick of buses/trains and cycle most of the time. If we had done what many seem to do when kids arrive, ie. move out to the suburbs or dormitory satellite towns (eg. Fife, Midlothian) to get more affordable family accommodation then we'd most likely be car dependent, unless we had chosen location very carefully to be near bus services/rail stations.

    If you need a car to get to work/the shops then (with a few exceptions) it's because you chose to live in an area which forced you to become car dependent. That's for urban/suburban living: rural is different.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  17. Dave
    Member

    If you need a car to get to work/the shops then (with a few exceptions) it's because you chose to live in an area which forced you to become car dependent. That's for urban/suburban living: rural is different.

    Great post. This is exactly what we've done - traded the cost of a big place in town for the cost of travelling from the outskirts.

    I went for many years without a car in Edinburgh but in the end our interests necessitated one (hard to go biking or kayaking on the west coast when there's one bus a day and it only gets you within 20 miles of your destination - previously the uni provided a minibus and club for my outdoor fixes).

    Edited to add: the cheapest comparable house ESPC shows around the area of our flat in town is a cool £200k more expensive, or £4k pa for an optimistic 50 year tenancy...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  18. Baldcyclist
    Member

    it's because you chose to live in an area which forced you to become car dependent.

    Not really, don't think there are many places in this country where you couldn't get by without a car. People just chose to have cars because they make certain things easier to do, not that they couldn't do them without a car.

    Of course, some people who were city dwellers before have made that choice. We can't all live in the city though.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  19. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I can confess to choosing to having neither a car, chiddlers or to living outside of town. I don't think

    I can only offer my bewilderment about colleagues who are in a similar state of affairs as me, beyond the car/driving thing, who live closer to work and who drive here then have the cheek to moan about parking (or lack of), the cost and traffic.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  20. crowriver
    Member

    People just chose to have cars because they make certain things easier to do

    That's often what folk say. It may well be true in many cases, but sometimes I do wonder. Not to say that there aren't plenty of things that a car enables you to do, but that's not quite the same as making existing things (pre-car ownership) easier (though we will all be able to think of examples).

    Personally I find it easier to not have to spend not inconsiderable sums on purchasing, maintaining, taxing, insuring and fuelling a motor vehicle. For others, the cost may be worth it.

    I'm not sure that many folk are quite so hard nosed and rational about it though. Car ownership just seems to be expected because 'everyone else' has one (not actually true) which then translates into a 'need' for one. In that sense it is also 'easier' in that the individual fits in with the majority.

    It's a bit like mobile phones. Yes, they can be useful. Whether they are necessary is perhaps in doubt. It seems that most 'need' one. Once 'everyone' has one, does that make it 'easier' to do certain things? Some things, yes, especially now that they're effectively portable computers. Have they made certain things more difficult though? (For example, enjoying some peace and quiet; getting away from work; having face to face conversations; etc.)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  21. DaveC
    Member

    Regardless of costs its all about personal choice. To drive or not to drive. You can make all the arguments about the nessessity of a car in todays society, but in the end its your choice. I can get by without a car, but we chose top own a car as its useful for being able to travel where we want, when we want. Also SWMBO has some say in whether we own a car or not, and she won.

    If your interested, I used to live 30 miles from work in East Anglia, and it cost me twice the fuel costs to run my car. One 65ltr tank of Diesel would do me for 2 weeks of commuting. Thats all in! When I worked it out it was astounding how much I spent over the 5 years down there.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  22. crowriver
    Member

    II don't think it's anywhere near as simple as personal choice. Social and environmental factors limit certain choices and encourage others.

    Access to infrastructure and facilities is a key driver in our transport choices, as we all know: if it influences to a large degree who decides to cycle or walk regularly, then it surely influences who decides to use public transport or drive.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  23. fimm
    Member

    Although I love hillwalking, I have to acknowledge that it isn't the greenest of hobbies, especially when done as a weekend away or a day trip. I think if we didn't do that, it would be harder to argue for car ownership. HWMBO points out that it is the convenience - we can go "the weather looks nice, let's do something" without the faff of getting hold of a car. But at the moment we do fine with hire cars and City Car Club.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  24. crowriver
    Member

    P.S.:- I hope I made it clear what I meant by "environmental factors". I was not referring to awareness of environmental or green issues, but rather the way our surroundings and external factors influence behaviour.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  25. Uberuce
    Member

    I was briefly amused this morning to note that a person doing my 9.9 miles/day would, with wiggle room for holiday allowance and weekend working, break even over the course of a year if he or she spent £500 on cyclocommuting.

    You really don't need a fancy bike to do my commute, so a £300-400 hybrid and the change spent on pannier'n'lights'n'locks would see you very slightly in the black.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  26. neddie
    Member

    the cheapest comparable house ESPC shows around the area of our flat in town is a cool £200k more expensive

    However, people who choose to live in town don't try to buy a 5 bedroom house with garage & then leave 3 of the bedrooms, & the garage, full of junk* (unless they are very rich). Instead they 'make do' with a 2 bed flat & make sure that space is used efficiently.

    * I'm not saying anyone here does that ;)

    So I'd argue that it is still a lifestyle choice whether to live in town or the suburbs & it's not really fair to compare prices of comparable houses between the two...

    As for classic cars, they only very rarely appreciate in value (they may have appreciated in value at some point in their lives), most of the time they depreciate, same as any other car. And I could imagine that treating rust & sourcing spare parts could be very expensive & time consuming.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  27. neddie
    Member

    PS. I think Citroen DSs are very cool cars. I just find it hard to believe they appreciate significantly :)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  28. Baldcyclist
    Member

    So I'd argue that it is still a lifestyle choice whether to live in town or the suburbs

    Of course, and why not?

    Imagine having all that space, large gardens, open views, coastal walks 3mins away, cheaper energy costs (substantially lower, my 4 bed detached house costs a whopping £70 per month in energy bills), lower council tax, less crime. Sounds horrible.... ;)

    Perhaps the greener well insulated, and more efficient 'A rated' homes offset the travelling emissions? Especially if the bulk of that commute is done by bike...

    And agreed, the DS, nice. :)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  29. Dave
    Member

    However, people who choose to live in town don't try to buy a 5 bedroom house with garage & then leave 3 of the bedrooms, & the garage, full of junk* (unless they are very rich). Instead they 'make do' with a 2 bed flat & make sure that space is used efficiently.

    For the record, I was comparing three bed only (which is what we're in), although a garage was indeed essential after living in said 2 bed flat for many years (not having half the hall used up by your daily transport is also a lifestyle choice though, one you pay for).

    I guess eventually everything can be seen as the true tradeoff it is. I have a good friend who lives a stupendous distance out of Edinburgh (4 hours each way by bike, i.e. he drives) who made a convincing case that it was a sensible decision financially based on property prices, travel costs and amenities.

    Personally I think he severely undervalued his time, but then he's only one of a very large family, so perhaps the time cost needs to be fractioned? (I'm not so altruistic... yet!)

    This discussion reminds me that I need to phone our energy supplier and kick them in the head for suggesting we pay £120 a month for dual fuel, when it looks like we're using a tiny fraction of that.

    Previous occupants evidently liked heat.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  30. cc
    Member

    "As for classic cars, they only very rarely appreciate in value ... "

    Yes, but - a Citroën DS! The height of cool!

    Posted 11 years ago #

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