Now if I said you could save money, lose weight, and feel better about yourself, would you ask me how to do it?
Of course you would! Well, one of the best ways to achieve all three of these outcomes is to go back to your pre-16-year-old self, rub the dust off your bike, and go for a ride. But your mom gave your bike away when you moved out of the house? Don’t worry, you can get a great bike for $400 by going to a local bike shop, searching Craigslist, or buying one from Fortifiedbike.com.
Does $400 seem like a lot of money for a bike? Well, consider that, according to the IRS, the actual cost of driving a car is 54 cents per mile. So to fully get your money back, you would need to ride your bike less than 750 miles. This comes out to around 2 miles per day to get your money back in one year. Now we all know bikes last longer than one year, and I’ve seen bikes last 8-10 years with regular use. So let’s be conservative and say you can get 5 years out of your $400 bike, and you pay another $125 over the 5 years for tuneups and replacement parts. To get your money back on your bike over its 5-year life, you would need to replace 975 total car miles, which comes out to 195 miles per year, or less than 4 miles per week. If you make your weekend date nights within biking distance from your house (say within 2 miles), your bike will pay for itself over 5 years.
And while we aren’t a fitness podcast, biking is obviously a very easy and enjoyable way to lose some lbs (which also makes riding your bike on date night a win-win for both parties). A 170-pound person biking very leisurely (10-12 mph), will burn 46 calories per mile. If you bike 10 miles per week instead of driving, you will burn approximately 460 calories. Bike 10 miles every week and you will burn almost 24,000 calories for the year, which is 7 pounds!
Plus, being outside and enjoying nature can have a huge psychological effect and make you a happier person in general. Studies have found that being outside in nature can improve your mood. It’s good to get out, give your mind a break, and relax a little and enjoy nature.
Oh yeah – biking is also way better for the environment, but that’s a topic for another day.
To sum it up – biking will save you money, keep you from getting fat, and improve your mood. So go out today, make an investment in yourself and start replacing auto mileage with bike mileage. Your wallet, waistline, mental health, and mother nature will thank you.
Side note: I know most of the people listening aren’t likely to give up their cars completely and switch solely to bikes (I’m not doing that either), but obviously the more you ride your bike the more money you will save. If you did happen to give up your car and switch to a bike and bus pass for your daily commute and a rental car for your vacation, you could save well over $6,000 per year per car (this calculation can be found on our blog).
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please let us know your thoughts at drunkenmoneypodcast@gmail.com. Check us out on Facebook @drunkenmoneypodcast, Twitter @drunken_money, and online at drunkenmoney.com.
This episode was hosted by John Ackerman and is a presentation of Speedy Macie, LLC.
Blog calculation:
Giving up your car? How much you could save is calculated below:
Per AAA, the average cost of driving a sedan 10,000 miles in 2014 was $7,678! This factors in the cost of insurance, licenses and taxes, gas, maintenance, and depreciation.
If you purchased a bicycle for $500 for city commuting, a bus pass ($50 per month in my city), and used a rental car for one vacation each year ($170 for one week from Enterprise as of this writing, plus $75 for gas), you would spend a total of $1,345 on transportation for the year.
That is a savings of $6,333 over one year!
