LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With QuoteWizard, its not worth it! dont even think about going there!you have 34,000.00 reasons to not go anywhere near the bike!
stay strong... + the bike is much more dangeropus that your car, does your spreadsheet factor in medical expenses?
a few months ago, I posted a spreadsheet that would help people decide whether or not to sell their current car and buy a more fuel efficient vehicle. The national average at the time was $2.30, and I was paying about $2.15 because I was still living in Starkville.
Gas here has jumped 18 cents this week, so I thought I would revisit this little problem. As you all know, I am trying to get out of debt with a quickness. I have been pondering purchasing a Kawasaki Ninja 250 because they get about 55MPG, and my saturn gets about 26 in town (33+ on the highway, though
Well, I went back into my spreadsheet and made some new fields that allow you to see how much money per week/month/year you would save by buying a more efficient vehicle. I had been telling myself that when gas hit $3/gallon here (it just hit $2.50 today) I would buy a bike. At $3 a gallon, if I bought a bike and drove the same 200 miles per week I am currently averaging, my savings would be...............$10/week.
If I paid $2000 for the bike, and my insurance and other transportation-related costs didn't change (HA!), I would have to drive the bike 38,000 miles before I actually started to save some money. Now I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a sportbike that had more than about 17,000 miles on it, so I'd probably never see any of that savings. Also, given my current driving habits, it would take me over 3 1/2 years to get to that point.
The spreadsheet doesn't account for days when weather conditions would prevent me from taking the bike, so that break even mark is probably much further out than the 3 1/2 years.
For me, it appears that the motorcycle (which I have wanted for many, many years) does not start to become economically feasible til gas hits the $10/gallon mark.
:sigh: I REALLY wanted an excuse to buy a sportbike
Debt as of 1/1/05: $34,354.48
Debt as of July 4, 2007: $0.00 explanation
Total spent on wedding so far: $3885.79
Thanks to everyone for your support.
I'M DEBT FREE!!
Wizard, its not worth it! dont even think about going there!
stay strong... + the bike is much more dangeropus that your car, does your spreadsheet factor in medical expenses?
Roy
2005 Range Rover 4.4
Any ideas for putting a PC in this? :)
Ah, see, I thought it was going to be cheaper to get the bike and save on gas. Now, after doing the math, I see it's not going to be cheaper in the long run.
And its 27,000 reasons, not 34,000
Debt as of 1/1/05: $34,354.48
Debt as of July 4, 2007: $0.00 explanation
Total spent on wedding so far: $3885.79
Thanks to everyone for your support.
I'M DEBT FREE!!
its always got to stay at 34000, cause if you consider it 27000 now, when it reaches 0 you would potentially have no reason to stay out of debt...hehehehe
Roy
2005 Range Rover 4.4
Any ideas for putting a PC in this? :)
I guess i shouldnt start talking about how much fun I have on my CBR F4...
Get a scooter (average 100mpg) And a tank last for hours. My old scouter, I bought it 100$ it had 50 000km on it(speedo was broke so It had even more), was 10 years old, I put 150$ in it to fix, than I rode it until the odo went back to about 5000km(I fixed it, the cable was broken) and sold it 250$(with minimum 105000km on it). And the guy that bough it from me blew the engine (strap came loose, engine reved very high , crank seized.....) LOL Cost me nothing compared to a car and enjoyed driving it. But get something newer, that will last a long time (if you threat them well they will last long) I didnt threat it well, and it didnt run very well at the end.
Motorcycle vs Car
The spreadsheet was a good idea but the logic was flawed, not taking into account monthly payments and insurance costs. Florida motorcycle insurance is cheap compared to cars so that makes a big difference. But for me, the cost savings are SIGNIFICANT. And I've been driving bikes for years, they are safer than cars if you use your head and don't drive drunk. Not to mention saved time in traffic... as for the weather. Invest in a good rainsuit... Oh, and ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET. (If your concerned out the HEAT, The Sharper Image Personal Cooling System works great!)
Yeah, they are dangerous. Mostly because of getting run over.
http://www.channelcincinnati.com/new...9/detail.html#
Check the sky footage. That's what happens when you lay the bike over and a caddy runs over you severing your head and blood shoots all over the wall... but that doesn't happen every day.
I didnt take monthly payments into account because.......I don't DO payments. I realize that many people do, that's why there is a "savings per month" field. If your shiny new payment is more than that, you can't use efficiency as a reason to buy another vehicle.Originally Posted by lranger2
The spreadsheet was a good idea but the logic was flawed, not taking into account monthly payments and insurance costs. Florida motorcycle insurance is cheap compared to cars so that makes a big difference. But for me, the cost savings are SIGNIFICANT. And I've been driving bikes for years, they are safer than cars if you use your head and don't drive drunk. Not to mention saved time in traffic... as for the weather. Invest in a good rainsuit... Oh, and ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET. (If your concerned out the HEAT, The Sharper Image Personal Cooling System works great!)
The only way you would save time in traffic on a bike is if you were driving like a maniac, thus defeating the "safer than cars" arguement. That, and I'm pretty sure I'd be safer in my saturn if someone ran a red light and t-boned me than if I was on a bike.
Your insurance will go up, regardless of whether it's cheaper than a car or not. Why? You still need something to go get groceries! In any event, this is something I came up with in 10 minutes, and if you don't like it, well, do what you did and make your own!
On that, your formula is flawed somewhere. At $3/gallon on your 13mpg truck, you're saying it costs $4.56/mile. That's not 13mpg, that's a gallon and a half per mile! I zeroed out the monthly payments and insurance, but you're saying that by buying a 50mpg motorcylcle I could save $2000 on gas in only 592 miles. Something is seriously flawed there.
Debt as of 1/1/05: $34,354.48
Debt as of July 4, 2007: $0.00 explanation
Total spent on wedding so far: $3885.79
Thanks to everyone for your support.
I'M DEBT FREE!!
What do you mean : "ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET" ; Its against the law to not wear one.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks