One unwritten goal I have for 2012 is to drive less to work. There are a few reasons for this:
1) save on gas money since the car I drive gets low 20s mpg
2) fewer miles on car, reduced wear and tear
3) exercise, bike commuting is great way to fit in exercise each week
4) fun, i bought a motorcycle last year and it's fun to ride it and gets 45 mpg
So the basic motivation is health and money. (One of my main 2012 goals is to bike/run 2000 miles, so this could add a lot towards that goal.)
The concept is fairly simple. My daily commute is about 20 miles round trip. My aim is to not drive at least one time a week throughout the year. Last week I started off the year by taking my motorcycle twice. 40 less miles on my car.
At a minimum, if I drive one fewer times a week throughout the year, I'll leave the car parked in the driveway 50 times. This would equal 1000 fewer miles. And 45 less gallons of gas. And $160 (at $3.50 a gallon) in gas money not spent. My real goal is to average 2 days a week and double the above numbers.
And with better weather summer months it is not entirely impossible to go car-less weeks at a time. So my stretch goal is to average 3 times a week for a total of 150 car-free commuter days in 2012.
Do you try to commute without car to save money and get exercise? Does it make a positive impact on your wallet?
4 comments:
We are "car free" and yes, it saves a LOT of money... Hubby's bus pass is $81/month, and I spend about $30/month on bus tickets. We're all used to walking & I'm thankful for no car/gas/insurance payments!
@~Carla~
Way to be car-free. After food and housing (and kids), cars have to the biggest expense for most folks.
Wish we could be car free but we have no public transit system here. Hubby likes to ride his motorcycle into work when the weather is nice, it saves a ton on gas but I HATE that he is in the rush hour traffic on the bike. He works in the city, way more traffic than he should be in on a bike
@Debby
I wish the public transit was more efficient here. I could take a bus to work but because of the winding route it takes and all the stops it would take over an hour.
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