Frugal or Safety?

Should I ride my bike to work?

After reviewing our monthly family budget results for May (2008), I was looking at how much we had budgeted for gas expenses for our two vehicles compared to the amount we spent. We budgeted $200 for the month of May (2008) and spent 182.69. The remaining $17.31 was put into a Gas “Expense Fund” for future months to help offset the rising prices. Understanding that we will see no relief in gas prices during the summer months and more than likely $5 gallon gas on the way, I was looking for ways to cut.

One option that I have been considering is riding my bike to work. I came across a good post on Fighting Foreclosure, where Dawn discusses how she purchased a bike at a flea market and is learning to ride again. The post inspired my thinking about the possibility of riding my bike to work. I currently drive 12.6 miles to and from work 5 days per week for a total of 126 miles per week. Now I know there are other people who drive a lot farther than that in one day, but I think it is an opportunity to save on gas. Using some very rough figures, I have calculated that I use about 1 gallon of gas each day I drive to work. Assuming that gas is running around $4 per gallon, that would be a savings of $20 per week or around $80 per month. Not bad! This would more than offset the gas expenses we would incur from our second “family” vehicle.

While the thoughts of saving $80 per month sparked my interest, I also realized that there were some downsides to riding my bike to work. One of the downsides is the “time factor”. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to work in the morning and about 25 minutes to drive home. If I ride my bike, how much additional time would I spend each day in my commute? I would actually use a different route which would be 10 miles each way instead of 12.6 miles each way. This alternative route is more of a direct path between my home and workplace and avoids any highways. I haven’t ridden my bike in some time, but I think I could ride my bike 10 miles within 1 hour (given that I often run 8 miles in 1 hour). Another and more important factor is the safety aspect. Unfortunately, all of the roads around our home and on the way to work have no shoulders, are very narrow, curvy, and a little hilly. The speed limit is mostly 45 mph on these roads, but people drive at least 60 mph. Luckily, the cops pull people over all the time on these roads who are speeding.

In the end, I have decided not to ride my bike to work in the short term because of the safety issue. I am actually terrified of riding on the local roads. Maybe it is me getting older, but I am often worried driving in my car on some of these roads with all the crazy drivers. Maybe if gas prices push above $5 and move closer to $6 I will re-consider. Instead of saving money on our monthly gas budget by riding my bike to work, we are going to take the following steps (see list below) to help offset the rising price of oil.

• Hedge against gas prices - I read a very interesting article yesterday on Dividend Growth Investor about hedging against gas prices by purchasing shares of UGA (United States Gasoline Fund). I will be reviewing this idea and possibly use it to help at least offset the expected rise in oil.
• Cut back on non-essential driving - Nothing new here really, but we plan on cutting back on any extra driving we may be doing. My wife stays at home with our children, so she is planning on doing her errands once per week instead of multiple times per week to help cut back. We also have cancelled a summer vacation trip out of state and instead plan on taking much shorter mini vacation trips to much closer destinations.
• Take different route to work - While it may not seem very significant, I will be experimenting taking that alternate route I mentioned earlier. I will start driving the non-highway 10 mile route to work instead of the current mostly highway 12.6 mile route to work. This will reduce my driving by ~5 miles per day. This translates into a potential savings of $4 per week or $16 per month. As I stated, I am experimenting with this as I am not sure how much of a difference it will make driving the local roads vs. the highway roads in gas mileage.

What steps are you taking in reducing your gas budget? Would you consider riding your bike or buying a moped to drive to and from work?

© 2008 Passive Family Income.