Sitting on the couch last night was chatting with the spousal equivalent (“SE”) about how NextDoor is awful. Cue a recent bus rider shaming post that really bothered me:
We talked a bit and then realized SE has been riding the bus to work, or biking, for the last 10 years. Wow, time flies. Somehow, neither lice nor French whore encounters have been a problem. #praise
There are a number of reasons that transit SE likes to support and use transit:
- Traffic congestion reduction (buses move far more people than the typically single occupant cars common in the US)
- Cost savings
- Reduced environmental impact
- Social unity / exposure
- Etc
On the cost savings front we estimated that over the last 10 years we saw approximately $84,000 of savings for our family.
- $200 per month parking x 10 years = $24,000 (Comparison from co-workers)
- $6000 per year vehicle cost x 10 = $60,000 (About 1/3 less than the average cost per year from AAA since Cali is hella expensive but we’re cheap. Results may vary.)
SE bus cost is covered by employer so if paying the $72 monthly out of pocket would reduce the savings by $8,640 for a total 10 year savings of roughly $75,360.
We took the savings and went on a fat family trip to Vegas and Hawaii which was awesome. Just kidding. We put most of it into index fund investments to grow and throw off dividends until the end of our days.
Wanted to share our public transit savings story in case you’re also interested in saving the better part of $100k every 10 years and putting it to work for you instead of sending it out the exhaust pipe.
