Working at home has many privileges and for me a lower gas expense tally is one of them.
With the rising gas prices, I wonder if more commuters will be realizing that they could keep a lot more of their hard earned money if they could embrace a remote career through telecommuting or launching out on their own.
You can take a look at an image that shows where
people are paying the most for gas at GasBuddy.
I recently moved in order to cut out a daily highway commute (going back and forth between my home in Lansing and my niece’s home in Portland) and have reclaimed about 45 minutes a day and at least a hundred to a 200 dollars per month in gas costs for myself.
I am not the kind of person who would ever enjoy or tolerate a daily commute and even though I’ve taken some ribbing from family members who regularly commute for more than an hour every day – I won’t apologize for wanting to enjoy the majority of my life in a small square mile radius.
Let’s do some quick math.
By making a move to reduce the daily drive I will save 273 hours and $2400 in cash over the next 12 months.
Call me crazy but I like that ;)
Compare that to one of my siblings who commutes at least 90 minutes a day and drives a bigger car than me. If I just guess about their costs I can say that they’re spending $500 a month on gas and losing 7.5 hours a week to the highway, that’s almost 30 hours a month!
Can someone please explain why anyone would choose that?
I know, I know – this opens a whole can of worms. I know why my sibling does it. He doesn’t want to raise his kids in the city that he works in. That’s probably at the core for a lot of commuters. I didn’t want to raise my son in the city either so I won’t be calling that kettle black anytime soon.
I do wonder though… and this is really off topic... what if all that time spent commuting on the highway and all that cash poured into the gas tank were re-purposed and used to support the community that they are fleeing every day?
I love the growing trend towards rejuvenating city neighborhoods and creating new urban communities where a family can live, shop, educate and work in a centralized area. It’s very appealing to me because I like being close to the resources I need.
Ok, enough rambling.
What do you think? Will gas prices drive more people to pursue telecommuting and self employment?
March 11th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Kelly you’re singing my song! I think rising gas prices are definitely driving more people to find living and working opportunities closer to home (or at home).
As a new urbanism advocate I couldn’t be happier! Commuting pollutes, cuts into family time and turns our communities into places where we sleep and not much else.
You’re so right – people choose to commute because sometimes they think they have no choice. This website, your network and the successful businesses you profile prove that there are choices.
As so many of our communities face dismal economic realities I really do wonder about your suggestion re: the cost of commuting. Between city parking, gas and car maintenance, commuting can easily cost between $8,000 – $10,000/yr (depending on the city). These figures are based on real calculations!
$8K to $10K per commuter being invested back into the community and the family – that’s significant.
Great post!
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Work is not a place you GO, but something you DO.
We wish more people would take this to heart and not worry about commuting – we’re with you on that!
We have a work culture in America, though, that puts a high amount of importance on face time and hours worked (in the office).
Until we stop believing that people need to be in an office to do work, people will still commute to and from the office.
Until we stop believing that work starts at 8:00 and ends at 5:00, we will have rush hour and people will sit in traffic.
Once we change our beliefs about work, we’re on the road to more people saying no to their commutes!
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Creators of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
Authors of the forthcoming book “Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It”
March 11th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Hopefully these people will find me and my websites! ;)
March 12th, 2008 at 1:12 am
You guys think you pay a lot, but we pay more here (at least my part of Canada) and I think it’s worse in many parts of Europe and probably elsewhere.
Here it’s $1.14 per litre…quadruple that and you’ll get our price per gallon. Yep, glad I don’t have the commute.
Alice Seba’s last blog post..How Does Your Online Persona Differ from You ?Real? One?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Oh…that site has a Canada map too. Cool.
It shows the lowest in Canada being < $105.60/litre….that’s OUTRAGEOUS and still higher than the highest level on the U.S. map.
Alice Seba’s last blog post..How Does Your Online Persona Differ from You ?Real? One?
March 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I do not understand why people are willing to commute. It seems to me that after calculating the gas and car expenses, it would make more sense to take a pay cut by working in the area where they live. (Or as you and Sharon brought out, living where they work. This has been happening for years here in Atlanta and is such a nice trend to see – urban areas once populated mostly by junkies and prostitutes are now the hip spots for young families to live.)
When you add in the additional stress and impact on family time… yea, I don’t get the appeal of the commute.
Carrie’s last blog post..Making Your Ebook Even Better
March 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Just one of the reasons why I love working from home.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Great post Kelly! This all really sucks, I hate having to pay more at the pumps. It’s a huge amount of savings and time like you say for those who work from home, I think people just need to break that barrier and work from home already!
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March 12th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
We have lived in one area where my DH had to commute – it was horrible. He had to leave an hour before work to get there and of course deal with traffic. Meanwhile we had friends who lived a 10 minute drive away! Talk about a gut check.
My Dad has a diesel truck – he filled it up before prices raise again and it hurt to see that total!
Tsoniki’s last blog post..Craft Pad Review
March 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
This is hitting home w/ me as my husband who works for the state has been driving a state vehicle, gas and everything paid for by state for almost 4 years now. Now they are saying that they may have to leave their state vehicle at their office and drive their personal cars to and from work. This will significantly increase our gas bill not to mention the fact that his personal car is not in working condition at the moment, which has not been a problem since we have a van and hubby rarely goes anywhere but work without us. UGH
I don’t want to fork out $200 plus a month for gas! My husband’s commute is 25 miles 1 way.
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March 12th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Yeah, these gas prices are ridiculous. Here it is about $3.45/gallon, and I mean that had jumped about $0.45 in just ONE week.
I am so glad I don’t have to commute, but I do a lot driving around town doing errands and going to the gym, but I have even cut back on that, it’s just not worth the exspense.
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March 13th, 2008 at 12:19 am
I about died when I saw the gas prices reach $3.45 the other day! Just one more reason that I’m reminded how much of a blessing it is to work from home
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March 14th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
We live really close to all of our shopping and errand places, which is so nice for day to day things, but my family lives 45 minutes away which is really becoming a problem lately. We’re planning to move closer to them to help alleviate the travel issue, and with gas prices lately we can’t move soon enough! There are weeks, with working from home, where I don’t leave the house for five days at a time simply because I’ve started pooling all of my errands into one trip one day a week to save time and gas. And we put off buying an SUV…my husband and I both drive Saturns (his a sport coupe, mine a four-door sedan) which thankfully are easy on the gas.
Gotta love working at home though….at least one of us is parking the car most of the week.
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