Oh, how I wish I lived in an area where I could walk to work, or at least ride my bike. I had to fill the tank today and gas cost me over $3.00 per gallon. Since I drive a Toyota Tacoma, I only get about 19 miles to the gallon. I’ve been driving for work a bit and get paid mileage, which is helping to offset the fuel costs. I haven’t calculated what kind of costs I incur to drive a mile, but I know I’m not getting rich off of the mileage.
On a separate, but somewhat related note, I think a great strategy to offset fuel and car costs is the Flexcar. A friend of mine was telling me about how he uses Flexcar when he needs a pickup truck. Because he has recently been in college, he gets a rate of $7 per hour. He said it’s been extremely handy to be able to schedule a truck and just use it for the few hours he needs to haul something. He’s certainly getting off a lot cheaper than what it costs me to have a truck. If Flexcar placed any cars near my house, I’d definitely use them. Unfortunately, I live out farther where it wouldn’t be economically feasible for them to store a car. Oh well. I guess that is one more reason to move in to the city.
I feel your pain. My Ridgeline gets 17-18mpg in the city, but I take the DC metro (subway) to work each day. I live a little over a mile from the metro station and my wife drops me off most mornings, and I walk home in the evening. Not sure how it will work out in 80+ degree weather as I don’t want to wear out my business garments.
As for flexcar, I never see any trucks parked at the metro stations for flexcar. How consistently are trucks available, because we’ve considered selling the Ridgeline to get out of debt faster. I know we can rent a truck from Home Depot or Enterprise for those rare times we actually need it for alot less money than financing one. Our current payments are $450 a month with $25000 left on the loan. I’m sure I can rent a truck for much cheaper than that!
I’m not sure if all the regions have trucks but you might want to look in to it. At least you are minimizing how much gas you use by taking the subway. I’m sure that is a huge savings all by itself!
If I had to drive my truck from MD into DC, and then pay $20 a day for parking, I’d be broke! Taking the metro is definitely cheaper AND healthier.