I am taking a train to work nowadays. The cost of driving is too high for me. The parking will cost me about $21. The Electronic Road Pricing (ERP - First in the world) will cost me about $5-6 (depending on the time I go home), and the gasoline will cost me about $9-10 depending on traffic condition. That is about $36 per day. My train fare is about $3 per day. I figure that if I can save $33 per day, I can have extra $660 per month. The main reason is that I don't save much time driving. The train ride is about 35 minutes. Walking is about 25 minutes. If I drive, I still have to walk about 5-10 minutes (up and down the office & home). Journey time is about 35 minutes, total time is about 40-45 minutes. So, I save 10-15 minutes per trip. So, in one day I may save 25-30 minutes which will cost me $33. That will convert to $66-80 per hour. Do I earn that much now? Ops! I have a PDA that I loaded with some e-Books that I purchased. I can read them on the train.
My car cost me $101,000 when I purchased it. In Singapore, you can use the car for 10 years. After which you will get be about 15% of the purchase price. That will be about $85,000 over 10 years. That is about $700 per month. Road Tax, Insurance, parking etc will cost around $300 per month. So, the car cost me about $1000 whether I drive it or not. Since I am not driving it to work, I think I should sell my car. It makes a lot of business sense. I guess I have to live with the inconveniences of weekends.
Saving $1,600 a month is quite a lot of money even if you are earning $10,000 per month. I think I will go a put an ad to sell it.
Survival Skill #18: Do Your Sums Right!
