One of my all-time favorite blog posts is about how much I hate commuting—both because of the cost of the gas and the time spent on the road that basically counts as unpaid worktime. I felt this most painfully back in 2011, when I was working an office job and driving 46 miles per day round trip. When I did the math, I found this was costing me $33.50 in gas per week, which came out to 84 cents per hour, or 7% of my total paycheck. Yikes!
There was also the matter of time: because I was going in early to beat rush hour, my 8 hour workday turned into a 9.5 hour day total, adding an extra 7.5 hours per week that I could have spent on other things. Double yikes!
Though I’ve also spent time commuting by train and bike, the experience made me think more about where my time and money were going, and how much more efficient it would be if I didn’t have to spend so much of both on commuting.
Though I wrote this post back in 2016, in the post-pandemic age, I and a lot of other people work from home and don’t have to commute at all. This has given me a lot more time during my workweek while also drastically lowering how much I spend on gas, which should mean Continue reading
