The Simple Dollar
Optimize the value of your commute
Kelly writes in:
For the first time in my life, I have a daily commute to work. I drive about 45 minutes each way to work each day of the week. According to my math, I’m going to be spending about $125 a month just on gas, let alone maintenance, upkeep, and so on. When I look at it that way, my new job isn’t as awesome as I thought it was! What can I do to trim that amount?
Here are ten things I would suggest for anyone who is seeking to optimize their commute and minimize the financial cost of it.
1. Start (or join) a carpool. I wrote an article recently on how to start a carpool, but if you can find one that already exists, join that one instead. It not only reduces the number of days per week that you have to drive, it also allows you to use the more efficient HOV lanes during the commute.
2. Properly inflate your tires each month. Few things damage your gas mileage than poorly inflated tires. Think of a bicycle and how much extra effort you have to exert when your tire is even a little bit flat. The same is true for your car – it might be plenty inflated to make the trip, but if it’s even a bit under the recommended maximum level, your car is working harder to go the same distance, and that eats gas.
3. Find the optimum route. Unless the route to your job is incredibly straightforward, there are several different routes you could potentially take to your job. Spend some time to figure out the optimum route – the one that eats the least amount of gas, in other words. Use Google Maps to help you in this regard. Finding a more efficient route will simply shave transportation costs (and possibly time) off of your daily commute.
4. Identify the low-priced gas stations along your route. Take note of the gas stations available to you along the route and identify the ones that consistently have the best prices (if there is variance – usually, there is). Then, make that station (or stations) your regular stop to fill up your tank.
5. Use a “gas card” for that chain of stations. Once you’ve identified the inexpensive station, sign up for their gas card. Use it just for gas – nothing else – and pay the card off in full each month. The rewards on such cards are often quite nice and can add up to a free tank of gas every few months or so.
6. Examine public transportation options for all or part of your commute. Just because there isn’t a train straight from your home to your place of employment doesn’t mean public transportation isn’t an option. Perhaps you can drive to a nearby station and take a train/bus combination to your place of work. If there is a combination that can strongly reduce (or even eliminate) your commute, you should take it.
7. Use your A/C and heater less. Just use them to get your car to the right temperature then turn them off. You don’t need to leave them running during your entire commute – they just eat fuel. If you find the temperature getting uncomfortable again, just flip the A/C or heat back on.
8. Ask about subsidies at work for commuters. Some places of employment offer benefits for commuters, such as reimbursement for miles driven. Don’t be afraid to ask your human resources contact about it, just to see if it’s available. If it is, it’s cash in hand for you.
9. Leave a bit early to avoid the rush and to avoid the need to speed. In the morning, get in the swing of leaving a little bit earlier. This way, you can avoid speeding (which conserves gas and also helps to ensure you don’t get a ticket) and also potentially avoid the worst part of the rush hour traffic.
10. Look into telecommuting. If your job allows it (and the workplace allows it), consider telecommuting a day or two a week. Those are days where you’re not commuting at all, which means a nice net savings for you.
Beyond these tips (which are things you can do right now), I would suggest car shopping with fuel efficiency in mind when you go car shopping the next time. It’s okay to pay more for a more fuel-efficient car. For example, let’s say your commute is 40 miles each way, which totals up to 2,000 miles a month. Assuming gas is $3 a gallon, if you get a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon, you’ll be spending $300 a month on gas. On the other hand, if you buy a car that gets 40 miles to the gallon, you’ll only be spending $150 a month on gas. That’s a $150 savings each month, more than enough to make up for even a sizeable difference in car payments.
Good luck with your new job!
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Addresses, Corporate Changes, and Paying Attention to the Details
A few days ago, in the mail, I received a notice from my homeowners insurance company notifying me that they were cancelling my policy as of January 18 due to a lack of payment. I was shocked, to say the least.
Back when we first bought our home and arranged our mortgage, the mortgage company offered to set up an escrow account for us. Each month, we would pay a certain amount into that escrow account and, from that account, they would manage the homeowners insurance and the property taxes on our home. After running the numbers and realizing that this would actually save us a fair amount of effort, we signed up for this program.
Flash forward a year later. Our insurance company was purchased by a second insurance company. To us, this seemed like a mere formality. We received a new policy in the mail and similar information was sent to our mortgage company. We kept making our monthly mortgage payment like clockwork, keeping money in the coffers for our insurance.
Then, suddenly, out of the blue, a notice about policy cancellation due to a lack of a payment?
Naturally, I spent the next two hours on the phone tracking down the problem. The problem itself was incredibly simple. My mortgage company failed to convert the records on my escrow account to refer to the new insurance company. Thus, when they received solicitations for payment from the new mortgage company, they checked my records, discovered they did not match, and assumed that there was some sort of error (or perhaps some sort of nefarious activity).
Everything was resolved with three phone calls, however, and everything is in place with no loss of insurance on my home. However, I did learn a few things in the process.
First, when there is an address change of any sort, make sure you contact the relevant people. Yes, others may actually be responsible for this. Yes, they should have already been notified by someone else. But at the same time, people are human and make human choices and human mistakes, which is what the problem was here.
Be proactive. If one of the companies you do business with changes an account number or an address, consider it your responsibility to make sure it is changed everywhere it needs to be, regardless of whether or not it’s ultimately your responsibility. Taking care of it now – and making sure it’s done right – can save you a big headache later on.
Second, read all of your notices. Even though I’m supposedly on the “paperless” plan for several of my bills, I still receive oodles of statements and messages from these companies. Most of them are completely unimportant to me. They inform me of very minor things like changes in terms of service, new “offers” that I can’t live without, and newsletters with articles that don’t interest me.
After a while, it’s very easy to become numb to all of it. Don’t. Open every one, read it over, and handle it appropriately. Yes, most of them will go in the trash can. Yes, you’ll often feel like you just wasted fifteen minutes of your life.
But for every fifty useless missives that you read, one will be very important. This little notice looked like several others I’ve received from the same company and none of the others were important at all. Had I attacked it with glossy eyes, who knows what may have happened.
Finally – and perhaps most importantly – don’t get irate with customer service representatives. Most of the time, the customer service folks you talk to on the phone have spent most of their day dealing with irate, rude people demanding various things of them, often over the top ridiculous things, and are treated rudely in the process. A little bit of honey goes a long way. Even if you’re upset and angry with the situation, remember that it’s not the fault of the person you’re talking to. Almost always, they’re trying to help you out to the best of their ability. Yes, it feels good to vent, but don’t vent at the person who is trying to help you.
Thankfully, everything is in order now, and I’ve learned a good lesson in being proactive.
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Optimizing Your Grocery List
A few weeks ago, I went to the grocery store in the afternoon to take care of grocery shopping for the week. Sarah had written a list for me (in all fairness to her, it was actually closer to a set of notes for a meal plan rather than for grocery shopping; it wasn’t really a complete and finished list), but I hadn’t looked at it very carefully. However, I did know from what she told me that I would have to do at least some of the grocery shopping at a different grocery store than our usual one because there were a few unusual items on the list for special meals. As a result, I decided to pick up most of the stuff at a different grocery store than our usual one, in order to save some time.
After the shopping was over, though, I left the store in a painful daze. It had actually taken far longer than it ever should have – and the shopping list was the big problem.
First of all, the items weren’t categorized well. There were several fresh fruits and vegetables on the list, but they were often separated by things like flour and spices and eggs and milk – items in completely different parts of the store.
Second, some of the items were simply names of complete recipes that we knew well. In a rush to complete the list (which, as I mentioned above, was closer to notes for a meal plan), Sarah simply jotted down two complete recipes by name that we both know cold. Of course, in the store, that means spending the time to think about the items required for the recipe – and also possibly buying extras of a particular item.
Third, the list annotations were unclear. Sarah had included a few notes that would have made perfect sense to her – but didn’t make any sense at all to me. I made some valiant guesses and, in a few cases, made the right guess, but I spent a lot of time puzzling them out and quite often I made the wrong guess.
Why is this an issue worth writing a post about?
First of all, it cost time. I spent a bunch of extra time in the store because of the items on this list, whether it was simply trying to figure out what they are or rushing from one end of the store to the other to find them.
Second, it cost us money. I bought a couple of unnecessary items along the way due to redundancy and also due to not understanding the list fully.
Third, it convinced me to make a few impulse buys. As I spent so much time wandering back and forth in the store, I was continually exposed to shelf after shelf of items that weren’t on my list and I didn’t need. Thanks to that exposure, I bought at least two unnecesary items.
So, how can I solve this problem? My goal, quite simply, is to save as much time and money as possible compared to this shopping trip. Here’s the plan I put in place.
First, I made a bunch of custom blank meal plan sheets. These are basically sheets that enable us to fill in full meal plans for the week ahead. These can easily be stuck on the fridge with a magnet, enabling us to fill in the blanks as we so wish.
Second, I made a bunch of custom blank grocery lists. Instead of just using a blank sheet of paper, I made a sheet that had a few distinct groups on it – “fresh fruits and vegetables,” “dairy products,” “meat counter,” “bread aisle,” and “other,” to be specific. If an item falls under one of the first four categories, we put it there. Otherwise, it goes in the “other” area.
Third, nothing gets added to the grocery list unless it’s out until we’re ready to go to the store. The only thing we put on the list during the week are items that we’re out of (or very close to depleting). This way, there is no confusion about what’s on the list.
Finally, the meal plan is finished (and the grocery list completed from the meal plan) just before we leave to go shopping. By keeping all complete meal ideas on the meal plan and not on any grocery lists, no one will have to stand in the store and piece through what the ingredients are for “jambalaya.”
What I learned from all of this is simple: doing that prep work ahead of time actually saves time in the store, and it certainly saves money, too. I learned this the hard way from that day with the confusing list.
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