{"id":5260,"date":"2012-10-09T11:40:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T18:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/?p=5260"},"modified":"2013-02-16T13:02:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T21:02:59","slug":"bike-expenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/09\/bike-expenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Bike Expenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I sold my car <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/21\/rip-my-chrysler-sebring-convertible\/\">5 1\/2  \u00a0months<\/a> \u00a0ago and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/30\/new-bike\/\">got a bike<\/a>. Did it pay for itself? Jump to the last paragraph for the money shot.<\/p>\n<p>One Time Bike Expenses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$630 Bike<\/li>\n<li>$80 locking skewers<\/li>\n<li>$80 bike pump<\/li>\n<li>$30 bike theft registration<\/li>\n<li>$150 large backpack<\/li>\n<li>$20 fancy bungie cords<\/li>\n<li>$70 Shimano PD-A530 clipless SPD pedals (SM-SH56, silver &#8211; multiple release mode cleats)<\/li>\n<li>$100 \u00a0Keen Austin Pedal Bike Shoes<\/li>\n<li>$40 bike stand<\/li>\n<li>$60 nice front and rear lights for city riding<\/li>\n<li>$40 bright headlight for dark roads<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>\n$1300 Total One Time Bike Capital Expenses<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ongoing Bike Expenses<\/p>\n<p>Clipper Card<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>5-12 $90<\/li>\n<li>6-12 $90<\/li>\n<li>7-12 $185 (daily summer school at College of Alameda)<\/li>\n<li>8-12 $117<\/li>\n<li>9-12 $45<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>\n$517 total Clipper Card train &amp; bus fares in 4 months<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$30 two flat tires fixed in 4 months<\/li>\n<li>$400 eating 500 extra calories day for 4 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>4 Month (May 1-Oct 1) expenses while on a bike from above<br \/>\n$1300 + $517 + $30 + $400 = $2,247 \u00a0\/ 4 months = <strong>$560\/month<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Until I sold it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/14\/switching-to-zip-car\/\">my car cost $610\/month<\/a>. Amortizing my capital expenses \u00a0over 4 the last months, the bike cost about the same ($560\/month) as a car.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t figured in the bother of not having a car at the ready, having to occasionally rely on Megan to pick me up at the BART station, or the freedom of not worrying about maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>In future months, the bike should cost:<br \/>\n$100\/month transit expenses, or less as I slowly become able to ride longer distances.<br \/>\n$100\/month extra food, I am eating a lot more while biking more!<br \/>\n$20\/month misc expenses, a wild guess.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Curiously, I haven&#8217;t found good occasion to use my Zipcar membership at all in the year I&#8217;ve had it. I&#8217;m going to cancel my membership. Granted, I&#8217;ve gotten help from Megan and others with the occasional grocery store run.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Going forward, it looks like the bike will cost $220\/month ($2640\/year) where the car used to cost me $610\/month. ($7,320\/month), a <strong>savings of 64%, $390\/month<\/strong> ($4680\/year). Hmm! That&#8217;s not as much savings as I thought, but it&#8217;s good. Or I can think about it another way&#8230; I now have a $390\/month travel slush fund to do with what I please!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I sold my car 5 1\/2 \u00a0months \u00a0ago and got a bike. Did it pay for itself? Jump to the last paragraph for the money shot. One Time Bike Expenses: $630 Bike $80 locking skewers $80 bike pump $30 bike theft registration $150 large backpack $20 fancy bungie cords $70 Shimano PD-A530 clipless SPD pedals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5268,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions\/5268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}