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Several years ago I asked my mom why she lived so far from where she worked (Vallejo, CA to San Ramon, CA), and she claimed they were saving money on cheaper re

Several years ago I asked my mom why she lived so far from where she worked (Vallejo, CA to San Ramon, CA), and she claimed they were saving money on cheaper rent. Five minutes of napkin paper math later I pointed her and her partner were spending roughly $700/month commuting in gas, bridge toll, and basic wear+tear on their vehicles (based on ~$0.45/mile). It seems like most people don't account for vehicle costs when accounting for cost of living. Why I'm not positive, though it seems to just be the general abstractness of the cost spread out over time, and the assumption in America that you're going to drive everywhere anyway so it doesn't matter. Even worse we see this with numerous Uber/Lyft/delivery "contractors" who are putting endless miles on their personal vehicles without accounting for the inevitable cost of replacing them.

bluGill 7y ago
Why $.45/mile? Is that real? I keep track of all my expenses, so a few years ago I was able to calculate my real lifetime costs at $.15/mile, asymptotically approaching $.10. Of course when I travel for work the IRS says I charge $.50/mile, which is pure profit. The IRS numbers assume a newish car (more expensive) that gets poor fuel mileage. It is probably correct for the average car, but there is no reason you need to be average - unless you want to.
- testis321 7y ago
  In my country (EU, so gas is a bit more expensive) the government calculates* transport costs at 0.37eur/km. So $0.45/mi would be in the right ballpark. You have to account everything, not just fuel, from car depreciation, servicing (oil changes,...), normal wear (brakes, tires,...), occasional replacements (batteries, wipers, ...), etc. If you drive 20.000kms per year, and a yearly service (oil, filters,...) costs 200eur, just that adds aditional 0.01eur/km. Two sets of tires (winter/summer) are ~2300eur + 8 changes (8~40eur) adds an additional (almost) ~1k eur in four years, 1 more cent. Insurance, registration.. 3, 4 cents. etc. *that's the untaxed amount you get reimbursed for if you use your own car for a business trip.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    There are two different calculations here. One is, what's the total cost of vehicle ownership amortized per mile? That's what the government and most popular types of accounting use. The other is, given I'm going to own a car already, what's the difference between a shorter commute and a longer one? That's going to be a lower number per mile. A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles, insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more, the registration and tax isn't any different etc. The second one is how a lot of people end up all the way out in the suburbs. They can't afford to live in the part of the city that makes it viable to not have a car at all, but once you have a car as a sunk cost, another ten or twenty (or thirty or ...) miles in exchange for saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on housing starts to look like a good deal. Though the huge factor people commonly forget is their own time. If your time is worth $25/hour then a half hour each way on your commute is $6500/year. And that's assuming you're only further away from work and not also further away from whatever you do on weekends.
    - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
      My insurance company has asked me to confirm my miles per year on occasion, especially the commuting part.
    - daurnimator 7y ago
      > A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations: - usually more years = more miles - cars < 5 years are usually in warranty and fetch a premium > insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        > Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations But the warranty period is a huge amount of value, and there are others, e.g. newer cars are safer and have whatever other improvements so older cars aren't worth as much regardless of milage. Then many repairs are age related rather than mileage related, e.g. a car exposed to the elements will rust or experience day/night thermal stress even if you don't drive it. > Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia) Let me rephrase this. The insurance cost does not scale linearly with miles driven.
- jeremyjh 7y ago
  If you buy a $30k car, and manage to get 120k miles out of it before you scrap it, you are paying $.25 a mile just in capital depreciation expense. That's before fuel, insurance, property taxes, maintenance and repairs.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    What about a $10,000 used car you buy with 50,000 miles and run until a good 150,000? That's just 10 cents per mile. Depending on the make, the repairs may not be much, either. I've bought $500 cars before. Didn't last too long (it was a nice car, but it was an interference engine and broke the timing chain), but averaged 10 cents per mile. People who spend 45 cents per mile are the type who lease their cars or buy new cars regularly. Lots of us out here make do happily with far less.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Mister Money Mustache estimates "very cheap" driving costs to be around 17 cents per mile: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-... Now, I will admit that it is possible to bring your cost per mile down somewhat. That’s one of my own specialties, which is why I still keep a car of my own around for affordable family roadtrips. If you buy the right car for $5,000, you might be able to squeeze 100,000 miles out of it with no major repairs. In this case the car depreciation is 5 cents per mile. Gas, at $3.50 per 35 miles (assuming 35MPG), is 10 cents/mile Tires, at $300 per 50,000 miles are 0.6 cents Oil, at $25 per 5,000 miles is 0.5 cents Miscellaneous things like wipers and occasional maintenance visits: $200 per 20,000 miles = 1 cent So the ultimate cheap driving in a paid-off economy car still costs at least 17 cents per mile.
      - Robotbeat 7y ago
        It's possible to do even better... I bought a used electric car (Volt) for about $9600. It had about 65k miles. It does about 85% of its miles electric (meaning oil changes and brakes are super rare), so over the next 100,000 miles, we're talking about 14 cents per mile total, roughly.
- ImprovedSilence 7y ago
  Yes, that number is very real. Especially if you start including non obvious costs like insurance, on top of ones like gas, maintainence, license and and registration, etc. I’m near $.90/in my current car. (That number is skewed high because It’s paid off early and I now have a 2 mile commute to work, so there was a lot of money upfront and I don’t pack on the miles anymore) but I would wager $.50 is right near the mean. But buying cheap used and running it 200k miles will bring your costs down for sure, but $.10? At 30mpg and $3.00/gallon you’re looking at $.10 cents a mile already!
  - KingMachiavelli 7y ago
    How is including the fixed costs at all fair? Even if someone lived clothes enough to use public transport some some activities; work during rush hour. People in the US often still need a car to get to everything else in a timely manner such as doctor appointments. Groceries are a big one as well, how are you going to carry 2 weeks of food for 2-4 people on a bus or rail? A lot of public transport users still need to drive to the station. My estimation is that a large portion of public transport users only use it for part of their transport needs thus making the fixed costs of car ownership a sunk cost. Therefore, the variables costs; gas (or electricity) and maintenance make the most sense to use in living cost estimations. Even at the extreme end where you can live in the middle of a city and use public transport for mostly everything, you'd still need a car or a friend with one to go skiing.
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      The fixed costs still depreciate. You still have to either pay upfront for the car, finance it and pay interest, or lease it, and the car has a fixed lifetime. Repair/maintenance should go in there as well. I'd be curious how many miles the grandparent has on the car though. My per-mile costs are also sky-high (because it's 10 years old and only has about 40k miles on it - I think it works out to $0.75/mile or so), but the flip side is that if this drives like a normal Honda it should be good for another 150k miles and, if I don't get into an accident or change my driving habits, I will never need to purchase another car.
logicallee 7y ago
out of curiosity, did you account for her time in the car as any sort of expense? I assume it's downtime she can't use to do something else. (though some people enjoy driving, listening to music or podcasts, etc, so for them maybe it doesn't matter.)
goguy 7y ago
As a family living in a rural area with a large commute (driving) to a major UK city I still see it as a net benefit even if you factor in large cost for vehicle maintenance etc. I get to live away from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle for one.

bluGill 7y ago

Why $.45/mile? Is that real? I keep track of all my expenses, so a few years ago I was able to calculate my real lifetime costs at $.15/mile, asymptotically approaching $.10. Of course when I travel for work the IRS says I charge $.50/mile, which is pure profit. The IRS numbers assume a newish car (more expensive) that gets poor fuel mileage. It is probably correct for the average car, but there is no reason you need to be average - unless you want to.

testis321 7y ago
In my country (EU, so gas is a bit more expensive) the government calculates* transport costs at 0.37eur/km. So $0.45/mi would be in the right ballpark. You have to account everything, not just fuel, from car depreciation, servicing (oil changes,...), normal wear (brakes, tires,...), occasional replacements (batteries, wipers, ...), etc. If you drive 20.000kms per year, and a yearly service (oil, filters,...) costs 200eur, just that adds aditional 0.01eur/km. Two sets of tires (winter/summer) are ~2300eur + 8 changes (8~40eur) adds an additional (almost) ~1k eur in four years, 1 more cent. Insurance, registration.. 3, 4 cents. etc. *that's the untaxed amount you get reimbursed for if you use your own car for a business trip.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  There are two different calculations here. One is, what's the total cost of vehicle ownership amortized per mile? That's what the government and most popular types of accounting use. The other is, given I'm going to own a car already, what's the difference between a shorter commute and a longer one? That's going to be a lower number per mile. A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles, insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more, the registration and tax isn't any different etc. The second one is how a lot of people end up all the way out in the suburbs. They can't afford to live in the part of the city that makes it viable to not have a car at all, but once you have a car as a sunk cost, another ten or twenty (or thirty or ...) miles in exchange for saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on housing starts to look like a good deal. Though the huge factor people commonly forget is their own time. If your time is worth $25/hour then a half hour each way on your commute is $6500/year. And that's assuming you're only further away from work and not also further away from whatever you do on weekends.
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    My insurance company has asked me to confirm my miles per year on occasion, especially the commuting part.
  - daurnimator 7y ago
    > A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations: - usually more years = more miles - cars < 5 years are usually in warranty and fetch a premium > insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations But the warranty period is a huge amount of value, and there are others, e.g. newer cars are safer and have whatever other improvements so older cars aren't worth as much regardless of milage. Then many repairs are age related rather than mileage related, e.g. a car exposed to the elements will rust or experience day/night thermal stress even if you don't drive it. > Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia) Let me rephrase this. The insurance cost does not scale linearly with miles driven.
jeremyjh 7y ago
If you buy a $30k car, and manage to get 120k miles out of it before you scrap it, you are paying $.25 a mile just in capital depreciation expense. That's before fuel, insurance, property taxes, maintenance and repairs.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  What about a $10,000 used car you buy with 50,000 miles and run until a good 150,000? That's just 10 cents per mile. Depending on the make, the repairs may not be much, either. I've bought $500 cars before. Didn't last too long (it was a nice car, but it was an interference engine and broke the timing chain), but averaged 10 cents per mile. People who spend 45 cents per mile are the type who lease their cars or buy new cars regularly. Lots of us out here make do happily with far less.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Mister Money Mustache estimates "very cheap" driving costs to be around 17 cents per mile: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-... Now, I will admit that it is possible to bring your cost per mile down somewhat. That’s one of my own specialties, which is why I still keep a car of my own around for affordable family roadtrips. If you buy the right car for $5,000, you might be able to squeeze 100,000 miles out of it with no major repairs. In this case the car depreciation is 5 cents per mile. Gas, at $3.50 per 35 miles (assuming 35MPG), is 10 cents/mile Tires, at $300 per 50,000 miles are 0.6 cents Oil, at $25 per 5,000 miles is 0.5 cents Miscellaneous things like wipers and occasional maintenance visits: $200 per 20,000 miles = 1 cent So the ultimate cheap driving in a paid-off economy car still costs at least 17 cents per mile.
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      It's possible to do even better... I bought a used electric car (Volt) for about $9600. It had about 65k miles. It does about 85% of its miles electric (meaning oil changes and brakes are super rare), so over the next 100,000 miles, we're talking about 14 cents per mile total, roughly.
ImprovedSilence 7y ago
Yes, that number is very real. Especially if you start including non obvious costs like insurance, on top of ones like gas, maintainence, license and and registration, etc. I’m near $.90/in my current car. (That number is skewed high because It’s paid off early and I now have a 2 mile commute to work, so there was a lot of money upfront and I don’t pack on the miles anymore) but I would wager $.50 is right near the mean. But buying cheap used and running it 200k miles will bring your costs down for sure, but $.10? At 30mpg and $3.00/gallon you’re looking at $.10 cents a mile already!
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  How is including the fixed costs at all fair? Even if someone lived clothes enough to use public transport some some activities; work during rush hour. People in the US often still need a car to get to everything else in a timely manner such as doctor appointments. Groceries are a big one as well, how are you going to carry 2 weeks of food for 2-4 people on a bus or rail? A lot of public transport users still need to drive to the station. My estimation is that a large portion of public transport users only use it for part of their transport needs thus making the fixed costs of car ownership a sunk cost. Therefore, the variables costs; gas (or electricity) and maintenance make the most sense to use in living cost estimations. Even at the extreme end where you can live in the middle of a city and use public transport for mostly everything, you'd still need a car or a friend with one to go skiing.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    The fixed costs still depreciate. You still have to either pay upfront for the car, finance it and pay interest, or lease it, and the car has a fixed lifetime. Repair/maintenance should go in there as well. I'd be curious how many miles the grandparent has on the car though. My per-mile costs are also sky-high (because it's 10 years old and only has about 40k miles on it - I think it works out to $0.75/mile or so), but the flip side is that if this drives like a normal Honda it should be good for another 150k miles and, if I don't get into an accident or change my driving habits, I will never need to purchase another car.

logicallee 7y ago

out of curiosity, did you account for her time in the car as any sort of expense? I assume it's downtime she can't use to do something else. (though some people enjoy driving, listening to music or podcasts, etc, so for them maybe it doesn't matter.)

goguy 7y ago

As a family living in a rural area with a large commute (driving) to a major UK city I still see it as a net benefit even if you factor in large cost for vehicle maintenance etc. I get to live away from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle for one.