uke

If you still have a gas/diesel-combustion vehicle, how much do you save per week when using the bike(s) for errands you'd have used the vehicle for before making a conscious decision to minimize its use?

For example, since my campus is two miles away, at 20mpg, with four dollar gas, that's 80 cents per round trip. At five trips per week, that's a savings of four bucks per week. How about you? When you opt to bike places you'd have driven or motored, how much, if any, do you save per week?

Tom Stormcrowe

I never really figured it up, but I have gone from $130.00 a month at $2.50/Gal gas to $30.00 a month +/- at $4/Gal gas, so it's substantial, especially if adjusted for price.

ATAC49er

Been car-free so long, I have to think back about it....

Got 27mpg in my last car, drove to work maybe half the time, did grocery/fast food runs, probly did $20-30 every 2 weeks...at about $1.40/gal.

So I'm saving about...oh, ZERO, since I have to pay the extra for utilities & food! But I WOULD be saving about $150.00/month!

Newspaperguy

Last year, I averaged a fill every month. That's between one-quarter and one-third of what it was a few years ago.

VeloBusDriver

I save about 1/4 gallon when I don't drive my Prius to work and 1/2 gallon when I don't drive the Subaru. More importantly, since the trip is only 4.5 miles or so, I save a relatively short trip for the car which is hardest on the engine and the most polluting. I frequently commute twice in a day so you can double those numbers per day that I'm not lazy. (I'm not fessing up how often I'm lazy...

ericy

That's about where I am right now. And it isn't so much that I am riding my bike all *that* much (it is August in DC, after all). But I can telecommute more or less whenever I want, and on those hot days that 30 second commute down the stairs starts to look pretty good .

CliftonGK1

24mi r/t 4x weekly for work
2x errand runs of 10mi r/t each

116 miles saved / week

The Jeep gets about 15mpg city, so that's around 7.75 gallons per week I'm saving myself.

Tabor

Depending on the week, I shave off 132 miles of commuting. My car gets approximately 36 miles/gal, so that is ~3.667gal of fuel. Right now gas by my house is $3.899/gal, so that is ~$14.30 saved (on gas) per week. I don't, however, same any of that money. It all goes back into bike repair, bike upgrades, bus tickets, or extra calories. I commented once on the commuting forum that I think gas will need to get to $6~8/gal before I actually save money by commuting.

Nightshade

Living a rural county with nearest city with medical and shopping services 45 mi away forces
me to own two trucks. A 96 Chevy k1500 4x & a 93 Chevy suburban. I filled the truck ,at
1/2 tank, in Dec 07, in Mar 08 and again in Jun 08 till late fall.

The 'Burb gets used more so I filled it (1/2 tank) in Jan 08, Mar 08 and Jul 08 the rest of the
year is still open to be determined by need. I use the 1/2 tank mark as empty to keep
the tanks full as a guard against excess moisture collection in the tanks since the vehicles set
so much.

To be fair I'm able to go car light 'cause I'm retired now. I feel for the working stiffs that
have to 'filler up' every week.

sbhikes

I think I used to fill up my tank every two weeks. I can't remember the last time I filled it. I think I fill it about 4 times a year.

77midget

We save about 150/month, since I bike every day, and my wife used my car instead of the van. my car gets almost 30 combined HW/City, whereas the van is around 18-19 combined.

Now, I had to have 135 in repairs made to the bike, so no savings for this month, in total.

cutman

I telecommute and the lady bikes to work (3 miles round trip). Apart from the occasional day trip (like a concert in western MA yesterday) we hardly ever drive. Certainly saving quite a bit more than we were two years ago when she was driving 45 minutes to work in an old Bonneville everyday.

dynodonn 

I've been car-lite for years now, but I recall, some years ago, that I was traveling somewhere close to 400 miles a month, and at fifteen miles to the gallon, that's over twenty five gallons of fuel. Since pressing the pedals on my bike requires more energy than the pedals in my SUV, I've reduced the number of miles even more so by consolidating or eliminating unnecessary trips. I forgot to write on the calendar when I last bought gas for my SUV, but I believe it was some time back in February or March of this year, no matter, since it's still a delight to my pocketbook.

Gudeman

50 miles (my commute) @ 25 mpg (my van) = 5 gallons per week

VeloBusDriver

Don't forget: Wear and tear and depreciation are far more costly than gas. Biking, especially for most of your short (<3 miles) will make your car last much longer, and thus, save you buckets O money - not to mention angioplasty, cholesterol, and blood pressure medications.

evblazer

Between my work moving further away requiring me to commute less by bike and getting involved more in brevets and such I think my car usage might have gone up since i've gone back into bicycle for as much as I can mode. One of the reasons I skipped a ride this past weekend and probably the one next weekend is they are 70-80 miles away and I am going to put a limit on how many of those rides I do.

TriPhill

Sold my Jeep last week. So, yesterday we filled up my wife's, and usually on Sundays we would fill up both. So that was 65$ in one week. I biked 130 miles last week, just commuting, but it was not nearly as busy as most weeks so I figure it will be around 180-200$ per month now that I am biking everywhere. Of course I am eating 50% more, and having to add things to my bike to make this work, but it will still put up in the black in the end. I am very happy about that.

dynodonn 

I priced out some new SUVs, and the monthly payments range in the area of what my mortgage payments used to be. I could buy an quality entry level bike every few months with monthly payments on a good used SUV. My current SUV, though tired, still can deliver the goods for the bulky/heavy short trips

Tabor

I agree, but I also drive a 1991 Geo Prizm (toyota corolla) with a salvage title. It has pretty much depreciated as much as it is going to.

sykerocker 

As I'm the overly anal bookkeeper type, who spreadsheets EVERYTHING, this is a real easy question.

Last year I was running 70% motorcycle, 30% pickup truck during the week.

This year, I'm averaging 60% scooter, 20% motorcycle, 15% bicycle, 5% pickup truck. My monthly gasoline costs (I use one credit card for gas and vehicular repairs, nothing else) have dropped an average of $100.00 a month over the comparable month last year.

I'm not complaining. Ten more months of this, and the scooter has been paid for. The truck and one of the motorcycles have depreciated to the point where their value is as transportation only (12 years old - 135K and 13 years old - 99K, respectively). The scooter is Chinese, so resale value is a questionable concept to begin with. My Harley's worth some bucks should I need to sell it.

Sammiches

Up until two months ago I commuted by car exclusively, now I've finally worked up to biking the 39 mile R/T. Depending on the week I work 3 or 4 days, biking 2 or 3 or those days. I think I'm saving about 7 or 8 gallons of gasoline every two weeks, but I've spent the money I would have saved - buying tools and stuff for my bike. The real benefit is my to health.

Gustavo

For me it's not about money, it is a but saving time, and frustration. Because biking is so incredibly convenient and time efficient within the city, I can do many more things than I could if I only used the buses and metro, good as the are by international standards. During a lunch break, I can go to the bike shop, the bank, the second-hand book store and eat lunch, something that would take 3 hours if I had to look for parking spaces or wait for buses.

turkdc

My commute is 2 miles each way. I figure I save about $.50 per day that I ride my bike to work! As someone mentioned earlier, the short commutes are the hardest on the car and do lead to an early death.

I have no solid proof of this, but I suspect that the amount of energy required to produce a new car far exceeds the amount of energy that it consumes over the course of its life. Therefore, we could save energy if people would just keep their old cars longer.

uke

A good point. Even with a parking decal (which costs close to $100), the nearest parking to the buildings I frequent on campus are still a block or two away. It's infinitely more efficient to just ride directly where I'm going, and lock the bike at the rack beside the building. The downside is the much greater possibility of said bike being stolen than a car in a lot, but the benefits make it worth it.

Exactly. For a 2 mile trip, it takes <15 minutes to get from point A to point B. Combined with the convenience of not having to search for lots, it makes a bike an awesomely efficient form of transport. And yes, this is another reason to never buy new cars; besides the massive savings to be had by buying used, one also does less harm to the environment. It's recycling on a larger scale.

cyclezealot

With our new work situation, I figure my cycling has caused us to save 3 gallons a week. / Before with a 26 mile commute and the use of bikes to complete errands, I figure in the course of 8 years I saved pretty close to 1600 gallons of gasoline.