The last three jobs I’ve had the opportunity to work from home. I have had, on occasion, travel to the office for certain events or activities but for the most part, I work home nearly 99% of the time.
So let me go through the list of money I save now by working from home:
Auto Related Expenses
- Auto Insurance – Working from home means I don’t need to have a car which means I don’t have insurance payments. Savings: $150/month.
- Maintenance – No oil changes, car washes, tire & battery replacements, etc. Savings: $100/month
- Fuel – Driving to and from the office and occasionally going out to lunch can put a lot of miles on the car and consume fuel. Savings: $80/month.
- Parking/Tolls – Parking was running me $250/month and tolls were another $8/day ($40/week). Savings: $450/month
Total Savings for Auto Related Expenses: $780/month
Personal Expenses
- Dry Cleaning – Not having to get my “business” clothing dry cleaned each week saves $50/week. Savings: $200/month
- Lunches – While I could bring my lunch from home, it defeats the entire purpose of going into the office which is to go out with your co-workers for a meal. 3 meals out x $20 = $60/week. Savings: $240/month.
- After Work Activities – About once or twice a week I’d go with the people I work with to a bar for a drink or two and those things don’t happen now that I work from home. $30/day x 2 = $60. Savings $320/month.
Total Savings for Personal Expenses: $760/month.
Non-Financial Savings (TIME)
As great as all of those savings are the most important thing I save is TIME. My standard commute was about 30 minutes (1 hr per day x 5 days = 5 hours). Saving: 20 hrs/month. With the extra time I have, I now use that to exercise in the morning and at lunch. It has been a great boon to my health to have the time to exercise. I also cook most of my meals and eat a great deal healthier, no more fast food or questionable restaurant calories in my meals.
If I had to put a dollar value on that time it would be $150 so 20 hrs/month results in Savings: $3000/month
Summary
A hard cash savings for me since I’ve worked from home has been $1540/month and a time savings of $3000/month for a grand total of $5440/month.
Businesses are trying hard to get people “back in the office” but no one wants to go back into the office for good reason, there is really no point and it costs employees a lot of money to work in that environment.
What am I doing with the savings? Well that’s another post for another day…