Get Rich With… Bikes
Hey there.. welcome to the first edition of the new “Get Rich With…” series. In these articles, we’ll analyze a bunch of ideas, both new and old, to see what kind of impact they can have on your life. (Hint: the impact will probably be a huge positive one, since these are all of my favorite moneymaking ideas). And this edition is about the good ol’ fashioned Bicycle.
The bike will probably turn out to be the best thing ever invented for humankind. It is taking us a while to realize this, but I think more people are coming around with each generation. You see, bikes were invented before they were truly needed, when the world was sparsely populated. When cars came along, they seemed like an improvement on bikes, bringing us great speed without any effort at all! Unfortunately, as a side effect they destroyed the whole fuckin’ world.. and made most of us dangerously obese too. With a new understanding of these side effects, the bike seems like an increasingly appealing alternative.
The fundamental reason for the Bike’s status as the Greatest Invention of All Time is its unique combination of simplicity, efficiency, and incredibly good health benefits. Interestingly enough, those are the opposite of a car’s attributes. The Bike is simple with just a few moving parts, simple enough for most people to maintain entirely on their own without paying a mechanic.
It is efficient in many ways: bikes weigh only 20-30 pounds but they can carry ten times their weight in rider and cargo. They convert a slow human with a walking speed of 3.5MPH into one of the fastest creatures on land, with an easy cruise of 15MPH and a top speed of over 40MPH on level ground and 50+ downhill for athletic people. And the side effects are incredible.. vigorous biking can consume 1000 calories per hour, meaning you can burn off an entire pound of fat in one big 3 hour ride. This kind of exertion pretty much fixes up all the rest of your body for free too, clearing your arteries, polishing your kidneys and teeth, and giving you clean stylish hair and a better sense of humour, all after the first ride.
But another side effect is that bikes are good for your wealth. Let’s start with the bare minimum: any mileage you put on your bike instead of your car saves you about 50 cents per mile in gas, depreciation, and wear and maintenance. From this savings alone, doing a couple of bike errands per day (4 miles) in place of car errands will add up to $10,752 over ten years.
But the benefits are greater than that, of course. Once you get into bicycling, it may grow on you. You may be able to go without a car, or you might find, like me, that having an expensive car is no longer useful as a status symbol to you. This would allow you to keep a less expensive car (saving another $30,000+ over ten years). You might find that biking around becomes a source of leisure as well as transportation. This would displace other more expensive leisure activities. Driving to the stadium to watch a monster truck rally with the family ($100) could be replaced by biking along the creek path and wading around in the waterfalls ($0). Replacing even $10 per week of paid leisure with free biking would net you another $7680.
Then there are incalculable things like health and productivity. But we are bold enough to calculate them here. By riding to work instead of driving, you are boosting your mood and your mental focus. This allows you to work smarter and longer. It also makes you better looking. These factors will allow you to earn at least an average of 5% more than your unfit counterparts would after various raises and job switches kick in. For a worker at the $50,000 annual level, this is a $2500/year boost ($37,500 after ten years). Then there is the reduction of doctor visits and prescription drugs which will benefit you when you are older. This is a large future sum, but let’s set estimate the net present value to be about $500/year ($7500 over ten). And we haven’t even gotten into the effect of greater health on your overall enjoyment of life.
I’ve been a bike evangelist since childhood, but only recently did I discover the way to make your bike even MORE POWERFUL – with a BIKE TRAILER! In 2007 when my son was old enough to start riding around with me, I bought a trailer like this one* from the online bike store called Nashbar. This revolutionized my biking life, because suddenly my wife and I could get the little lad to most of the close parts of town with no car! When you leave the kid behind, these trailers can also carry a massive $150 load of groceries, or even a bunch of stuff from Home Depot like a few cans of paint and some light fixtures. I’ve put over 1000 miles on this trailer since I bought it, meaning it has saved over $500 in car costs alone.
The final issue to address is the “But I can’t ride a bike in my city/climate/physical condition/age” excuse that 99% of people over 12 in this country seem to cough up.
The answer is, in 99% of these cases: WRONG! Amsterdam is chilly and rainy, and this is how the bike scene looks there. In Hamilton, Canada, I rode year-round to get to McMaster University, through a dense downtown area in snow up to a foot deep. It was awesome. In Asia, the streets are packed with 90-year-old-ladies zooming along on cruisers with panniers full of chickens and such. If you are too heavy to look good on a bike right now, start biking and you soon will not be. JUST GET THE BIKE and you will see.
So, if you grow a big Money Mustache today and go out and get yourself a good city commuting bike – try one of these – then here’s what you will have in ten years:
- reduced mileage: $10,752
- less expensive cars: $30,000
- cheaper leisure: $7680
- increased income: $37,500
- reduced medical: $7500
Total: $93,432
That’s in only TEN YEARS!! A pretty good return on the investment in that $299 commuter bike from Nashbar, eh??
Footnotes:
* – Except I got my bike trailer on sale for about $80.. check your local Craigslist too
** Note – all multi-year figures are scaled to assume a 7% growth of the savings, if you had invested them instead of spending them on cars. But this effect is fairly small over 10 years. It gets bigger the longer you bike.
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Love, Mr. Money Mustache
Great article and Excellent website! I have just started reading your blog but have been reading FI blogs for several years now, and yours is one of the best that I have seen. If this blog was a stock I would invest all the money I save riding a bike!!
Great stuff. I actually do ride my bike to work most days, but I’m still not 100% — I’ll drive when it’s raining, for example.
But I’m totally open to going for it; I was just wondering what the more hard-core bikers do when work requires professional attire. Take all your suits to work and leave them there, then change on arrival? Or ride to work in the suit (seems like that’s what they do in Holland).
Also, where I live now it’s a totally flat ride to work (and desert climate), but I may move to a city with hills and 99% humidity all summer long. Again, I want to bike 100% if possible, but if I tried riding in that kind of weather I would arrive soaking wet. What do the hard-core bikers do in that kind of scenario (again factoring in professional attire at work)?
I bike to work in France, where I am supposed to be attired in suit + tie.
Since my commute exceeds 20 minutes and I usually build up a sweat after that lapse of time, I keep suit and ties at work and take one clean shirt with me every morning. Of course, when I ride my pedelec, I can ride in the suit since the effort is near nill
Very nice blog by the way
Wishing you a fair wind in your back!
As DP said, but with Ottawa winter climate.
How do you protect your bike from salt and corrosion? What kind of bike equipment (tires) do you use?
What kind of clothing and gear would you wear in winter riding as well, and where would you get it?
Great post. I bike down great bike trails and into DC a few times a week, and it saves me $8/day (the cost of riding the metro). All of your other benefits are also seen–I feel happier and healthier. And the crazy thing? I can actually get to work just as fast as when I take the metro, and faster than I could in a car. Bikes rock.
For winter time I wear bike gloves, a neon jacket, a scarf, and honestly, I just put sweat pants over my bike shorts. Yes it may look dorky, but it keeps me warm! As long as the streets and paths are clear of snow and it’s not pouring rain, I’ll be biking.
And I have saddle bags that fit my work clothes neatly folded inside. I shower and change at work. If I have to wear a suit, unfortunately, I am forced to metro in.
What if I live in a city where it isn’t safe to ride a bike? Bikes are not allowed on sidewalks and there are no bike lanes. Basically bikes are supposed to compete with cars for road-space. Add notoriously bad drivers to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster.
There was a flash mob movement that used to get 40 to 50 riders together to commandeer roads but that seems to have died down recently.
From what I can tell, such a city DOES NOT EXIST IN THE UNITED STATES OR CANADA, except in the minds of non-bikers. As soon as you let go of this expensive illusion, you can start living a much better life. I’ve also heard people say this about every city I’ve ever lived in or visited with bikes – and of course it was never true.
You don’t need a sidewalk or a bike lane to ride a bike. You don’t need a street with no other cars. Drivers are statistically very equal in skill in all regions of the country according to the Insurance Institute and NHTSA.
You just need a bike, and the curiosity to poke around on Google Maps and in real life to find a safe route to get anywhere you need to go.
Still, I would enjoy being proven wrong. If anyone can name an unbikeable city in the US, I’ll study it on the map and read about it on cycling discussion forums.
If necessary, I will travel there myself, strap a camera to my head, and record myself biking between any two points in the entire city just to prove how easily it can be done.
Thanks. I’ll take you up on that offer. I’ll email you the details through your contact form.
If it helps any, I can tell you about a city that statistically has the second worse drivers in the US (http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Baltimore-Have-Nations-Worst-Drivers-102133594.html), stifling heat/humidity in the summer, a reputation for crime, and generally bad roads (pot holes, etc.), and not much in the way of dedicated bike infrastructure. And believe it or not, you can (and I have) happily bike year round, get where you are going fast and safely, and get some scenery and exercise while having fun.
What about us suckers that live in the suburbs? Commuting to work would be a 20 mile bike ride for me……on highways and narrow bridges. Wish I could! I could bike to a grocery store though…so I’ll have to think on that!
Welcome, KB! You’ll get to some ideas for that situation later in the blog:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/28/get-rich-with-moving-to-a-better-place/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/20/mmm-challenge-try-getting-your-groceries-with-a-bike-trailer/
We’ll see if this prevents me from putting our foldable bike on Craigslist. My husband bought it three years ago and never used it. We live on a second floor apartment without a garage and I already bundle my car trips.
However, I did think about it and have made a list of six places that don’t always get in my bundled trip because of their opening times. I will be willing to try using the bike for those places this spring. (9 months pregnant is not going to be the time to try.) I’ll update you in a few months about how this works out.
I’d like to bike my three-mile commute, but safety is a concern.
Not only am I aware of the shocking costs of driving, I am also aware of the shocking dangers of driving. Car accidents are common and will often screw you up forever. If the news reported on car accidents and their consequences like they do on intentional violence, people would drive a whole lot less.
Biking is an improvement on cars as far as cost, but I’m guessing not as far as health, when you factor in that the likelihood of getting injured is even greater than if you were in a car. My friends who bike in DC frequently report tumbles and even broken bones.
So basically, I’m scared. I’d love to be proven wrong, though – do you have statistics, maybe?
Hey Julia – don’t worry! It is safe to start rolling on your bike right now. I’m collecting some statistics on this for a future article.
For now, you should be aware that while biking deaths are slightly higher than car deaths per mile, they are drastically lower per hour. And even more importantly, the health benefits from biking regularly are so insanely large that they greatly outweigh the tiny increase in crash risks. You extend your absolute lifespan by 5-10 years, extend your healthy years of life by much more than that (by eliminating a decade of dementia/wheelchair/nursing home stuff). All at the expense of adding only a few more thousandths of a percent of a freak accident. It’s excellent math.
I can add some anecdotal evidence to counter your friends’ anecdotal evidence too if you like: After 30 years of extremely frequent biking on public roads, year-round, in climates which include snowy winters, I have had zero injury-causing crashes caused by falling, and one collision with a car (entirely preventable and my own fault) where I broke an ankle. Total distance covered: somewhere over 30,000 miles. Total wealth gained compared to driving: somewhere over $150,000. Improvement in lifestyle and happiness: at least $10,000,000 worth.
I biked to work yesterday for the first time! The roads to work have fairly wide shoulders and are frequently biked, but I was still surprised at how safe I felt, much safer than my previous neighborhood.
Driving to clients is sometimes part of my job, but I anticipate being able to bike to work about half the time. Thanks for the encouragement, MMM. :)
Welcome, Julia, to the great world of bicycle commuting! I’ve biked to work for several years, and aside from financial benefits, there are also some very real physiological gains.
First off, you’re going on a bike ride before work! It can be relaxing and a great way to clear your head, while waking up your muscles and getting your blood moving to start the day! Much better than sitting in a car in traffic.
Secondly, you will want to start meandering on your way home. This is one of the best parts of owning a bicycle! Discover some different neighborhoods or markets, or challenge yourself to take a slightly different route home every day for a week. It’s fantastic, the things you start to see. Old parks, a footbridge, a funky antique shop, or a new café that just opened. You never know!
I’ve also noticed that biking has indirectly affected my free time in a healthy way. I’ve found myself spending much more time outdoors, biking down to the park with some friends for frisbee or spikeball, rather than hanging out in front of the t.v.
As a new biker, maneuvering the roads, potholes, signs, and signals can be pretty tricky. You see things in a very different light, and it can take some getting used to. My two recommendations are to get lights and a helmet. They’ve definitely come in handy for me. This is a very useful site, and the front page has some great illustrations of common car-bike collisions and how to avoid them. http://bicyclesafe.com/ Really good things to be aware of.
Welcome, and enjoy your ride!
I really like most of everything this blog has to say, but this just gets under my skin: “Unfortunately, as a side effect they destroyed the whole fuckin’ world.. and made most of us dangerously obese too.” It really is getting old hearing people bashing cars and using them as a scapegoap for the sole reason behind global warming. Now people are blaming cars for their diabetes? Ugh. Have some accountability for your own actions, seriously. Cars are a great utility, source of fun, and more emissions friendly than ever. Be it electric or gas or both, they’ll be around forever in some capacity so we’d better figure out how to avoid letting them trick us into being morbidly obese. Disclaimer: I’m a gear head, my new car is a 1999 that cost about 6% of my annual salary when I bought it, and even though it’s February, the last time I went biking here, around metro Detroit, was less than a week ago.
Whoa there bike friend, we might be more in agreement than you think!
I also think cars are awesome, and fun, and useful, and I’m a car nut too. I even own a couple of cars myself. So it’s not the cars that are destroying the world – it’s our car culture.
The tendency of people in the US to drive even the most ridiculously bikeable errands, and to voluntarily live 20+ miles away from work and then drive back and forth every day by car, and to drive big cars and trucks without really needing them. That leads to a ridiculous amount of pavement covering our cities, and that plus their emissions is the part that is destroying the world.
As for the lack of physical fitness – you’re right again, it’s not the cars, it’s the car culture where people literally won’t get on a bike to save their own lives.
I also agree with your comment: “we’d better figure out how to avoid letting them trick us into being morbidly obese”
So what’s the solution? In my opinion, you’re looking at it right now. We don’t need to ban cars or create red tape.. we need a blog that gets people excited about biking again, so they’ll make that choice out of their own free will. One of the biggest reasons to do that is the fact that bike riding makes you surprisingly rich.
If you can’t (or won’t) bike, don’t forget the bus! I’m living somewhere way too far to commute by bike (saving 100% on rent by living there, so the math works!) and I used to drive everywhere. I save $125 a month by driving only as far as the nearest park & ride (still too far to bike).
When I move out on my own, I am either going to sell my car altogether or only use it when I visit my parents. I will bike, walk, or take the bus everywhere!
Really awesome article. I’ve been reading this blog voraciously for the last few weeks, and just got around to reading this seminal work!
I just acquired (for free) an old Royce Union road bike. It needs some TLC before I start commuting/errand running with it, so I’m taking it to a local not-for-profit bike workshop here in Buffalo, NY. I’m expecting my costs to restore the bike to come in somewhere between $50 and $100. The frame itself seems to be in great shape, so I expect to get many years of use out of it, despite its age!