How many % of your income do you spend on transportation?
 

Based on this thread:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...you-19277.html

Calculator

For my 318iS

Been on the road since 1st feb 2011, current figures to 13th Oct 2011

Including

Purchase
Fuel
Tax
Servicing
Repairs

£3039.50 for 13061 miles

That is approx £0.23 per mile ($0.37/mile) (E0.265/mile)

Per annum

£4559 for 19591 miles (not likely to be this high, as the 13061 above includes my 2700 mile european Jaunt)

the sums above fall circa 20-28% of my POST tax income, so I selected 25%

I roughed in a few numbers but I know mine is incredibly low. The calculator said 2%.

~15% for both cars (the other one a non-hypermiled Odyssey) gas, insurance and repairs.

Based on the calculator alone mine came out at 4%. The problem is that it doesn't include anywhere to put the purchase price as 320 mentioned, so I split what I paid for my projected 5 year ownership per month and it rises to 7%.

I did it also for Helga (previous car) which came to 6-11% so I selected that one.

I can afford to write off the £513 purchase price in one year.. based on lots of daft friends and colleagues paying almost that a month for a car:thumbup:

its the fuel that Mullers us Europeans though! I'd probably save £1500-2000 PA at US petrol prices:mad:

For my car the calculator said 4% but when I add the motorcycle its around 7%. If I deduct what I get payed for milage when using my car for business my total would be less than 2% for all my vehicles! lots of money left over for ecomodding!

After adding it up, it looks like about 5% of my income goes to my Civic VX, I don't know how much of my income goes to my electric car, I know that it's a higher per mile cost, mostly because it's a 30 year old car that I don't drive year round, but it also has cheaper insurance, cheaper tires, cheaper wiper blade, cheaper energy source to power it.

They say the average dolt is spending over $10,000/year for one vehicle?!? I'm spending about $9000/year less than average... for a whole fleet.

If the metric was "efficiency of vehicle utilization" as in, does it get used a lot or does it gather dust, I would be the biggest loser. That does drive up my cost/mile but it's ridiculously cheap vs average.

Before we stand and salute, or even answer the poll, lets us look at where it originates and who sponsored this initiative: The New America Foundation.

They claim to be non-partisan, yet if you look at who their major donors are the political ideology in which their policies are rooted is obvious - despite their attempts at distancing themselves from the ideology they promote.

The following article from BigGovernment.com shows some of their agenda and who their influential financial supporters are:

Let's not pretend that there is no political influence involved here.

Depends on your mileage and what car you want to buy. Guys who earn less than I do at work still buy cars which cost 2-5x to insure and would never do more than 25MPG (imp). And then wonder why they don't have any money.

EDIT - It seems a lot less than I thought it would be, maybe because the spend (petrol fillups, servicing, insurance) seems to go in large blocks.

Politics aside, this poll is about how much competent people spend on transportation when they are actually trying to cut costs. (Unlike the people in those stories who are obviously neither.)

Interesting that the poll doesn't take into account how much people spend on paying for public transportation. That too, can be an expensive expenditure impacting one's income.

The assumption is that wasteful spending = automotive ownership and use.

Separate the poll, which is just us on this forum, from the linked calculator, which is something else entirely. And which is over-simplified in any case. It leaves out taxes & registration, assumes your fuel consumption is constant throughout the year, doesn't allow for amortization of cars purchased for cash...

Is "transportation" only about motor vehicles?

Polls are usually run so that someone (or some entity) can gather information that will be used to benefit them or their cause in some way.

Everyone has transportation expenses, be it that of a car, or a horse, or a rickshaw, or public transportation, or a bicycle, or roller skates, or a wheelchair, or shoes (for those who only walk everywhere) or whatever - but everyone still has a 'transportation expense' - whatever it may be.

So what is the purpose of this poll? I understand that the originators of it had a motive for promoting it and running it - and framing it such that it is very narrow in scope, so as to suit their purpose.

What is the motive here? Is this a case of 'trickle down' polling?

Mine is in the 26 to 30 % range. But that includes all transportation (planes, trains, bicycles, etc.). That also assumes the cost of my vehicle is divided equally over the expected 10 year life before I get another.

I also have incredibly low living expenses compared to most people (no mortgage, car loans, cable, cell phone, trash service, electric bill, do almost all my own maintenance and home improvement, build a lot of my own stuff out of others' trash, grow a lot of my own food). So even though my total transportation expenses are less than most people's, my living expenses are much, much lower, making transportation a relatively high percentage.

People who are claiming less than $1000 a year can't be including all transportation expenses. Vehicle insurance alone is almost that, and my insurance is very low cost for my area since I am low risk (college grad, less than 7000 miles a year, no accidents, no tickets, age 55 or over).

Oh yes they can!

Purchase price: 0 (for several of them; far and away the most expensive was $19k in 1994, paid note off in a few months for minimal finance costs. I'd say that one is fully amortized out)
License tabs: $47/year (each, plus several with collector plates @ $0/year. I don't always put tabs on every vehicle, every year)
Insurance: $200/year (usually one active policy, sometimes a couple are active at once for a limited period of time)
Maint. & Repair: <$100/year (Lots of free after rebate oil, junkyard parts, mail order parts, $0 mechanic/stealership payments)
Fuel: assume 15 gal/mo @ $3.65 = $55/mo = $660/year. Assuming cuz it's divided up tween several vehicles and varies greatly for any particular segment of time for me)
So if I've not forgotten something, this totals $1007.

Bicycles = free or so close to free it doesn't count.

No air fares lately. No bus, no taxi, no limo, no train. Shoes? Gotta have those anyway.

If anything I was pessimistic as I included the total cash cost of my car divided over the 5 year projected owning period and assumed a zero value at the end. I also included annual tax which is only £20 a year and overestimated my insurance cost at £200, it came down to £180.

I'm in the same boat as Frank, my insurance for both of my cars together is $442 per year and that includes full coverage on my civic vx (Insurance just for that car is $356 per year) that I bought for $1,100 for three years ago but I have full coverage insurance so if the car gets totaled I get more then I paid for it, it's rust free and has no issues so it should last me another 8 to 10 years and the only work I have had done to it was me installing a new muffler with a life time warranty, a new radio and a new o2 sensor, oil changes are once a year and new plugs and wiper blades are every other year averaging out to $100 or less in upkeep per year.
Registration is cheap, around $75 per year, my electric car has collector plates on it, same with my motorcycles so those are good forever, gasoline to drive 8,000 miles per year comes to $530, electricity to power my electric car that I drive sometimes in the summer is another $25 per year, so I am just up over $1,100 for vehicle ownership for two cars and two motorcycles but if I limited my use to just my one main car I could keep it under $1,000 year.

I don't know. Why don't you ask the person who made the poll, jacobnev?

Maybe the problem is your area? Here (northern Nevada) I'm paying just under $500/year for two vehicles - 2000 Insight and '88 Toyota pickup. Both were bought for cash (IIRC $8500 for the Insight, $2500 for the Toyota). I've had the Insight for going on 8 years, the Toyota for 4, and expect to be driving them both for years to come. My costs may not be under $1K/year, but they are under 5% of my income.

Mine cost £187 for the next 12 months, includes 10K mileage and business use for me and Mrs A and both of us have speeding points. It also includes driving each other's cars (Mrs A's Prius is a company car) and ANY other car which we are driving with the owner's permission - i.e. hire cars.

I guess I didn't realize how expensive insurance is in the Tampa Bay area compared to other parts of the country. I'm a little under $900 a year and that is much lower than most people I know in this area. Maybe that is why so many around here drive without insurance, which is illegal but often done.

Sid, you also own a truck, those tend to cost more to insure because they are more likely to cause accidents and tend to do more damage when they do, it's also a new truck so right there it's going to cost more and if you have full coverage on it that bit of insurance is based off the value of the vehicle and how costly it is to repair.
My parents pay more for insurance then I do because their car is 7 years newer then mine and they also have a Ford Ranger as a 2nd vehicle, other then that our driving records are the same, we both are home owners with good credit the only thing that would put me in a better insurance bracket would be if I was married.

Trucks also cost more to own, tires for your truck are nearly twice as expensive as tires for my civic, truck holds more oil, uses more gas and has more spark plugs.

Yes, a subset of this discussion is: how much do you pay for state mandated auto liability insurance and what percentage of your total transportation expenses is that?

Even if you have no tickets and no accidents (for the past 40 months), and if you are not in an age grouping where your supposed risk is greater, you still will be paying anywhere from $250-500 per year, per vehicle, just to maintain that mandated insurance requirement.

State mandates (which are virtually universal) subsidize those who drive carelessly and/or have no insurance. And it is a significant, large part of your annual expenditure for transportation.

It's easy to whine and b!!ch about "big oil" - namely expenditures for fuel. But nobody ever points a finger at "big insurance" (read: state motor vehicle laws that demand liability insurance) or those government dictates which indirectly benefit "big insurance" by requiring the purchase of it.

And, please, let's not pretend that insurance companies aren't making any profit on government mandated, auto liability policies. :rolleyes:

Not to mention that most states get to issue supposedly prettier looking license plates every few years and recall the old ones, at a greatly increased cost to the licensee.

counting all are equipment\heating oil, its a staggering amount of fuel....
must be something well north of $4,000 just in fuel.

plus being under 30 inshurence dings me on driving 4x4s too about $700 a year, for one auto.
all the one tons are under dads name to cut cost.

having a car that gets 40s and a mid size suv that gets just shy of 30 its not practical to have bolth, do to the added costs....of two autos.
i just keep another suv that gets the same 30ish mpg as a back up, and transfer the bill to it when the normal DDer needs repair.

car tags in OR are $86 for two years are bill is for 3 to 4 autos a year, plus the work trucks below.......at a MUCH higher rate......

do to a VERY stupid loop hole in the law.......timber farms are not seen as a farm by OR law......:mad::mad:
are delivery truck has to have truck plates, GRRRR
there $440ish a year....

also any truck over 10K empty or is pulling a trailer with peanment plates, needs truck plates to be legal. for personal or commercial use.

A kind of interesting side question would be how much % of your income do you spend on energy in total - by which I mean direct energy (i.e. electric, gas (as in heating), coal, wood, biomass etc. - as opposed to energy used in manufacturing/growing/processing the things you buy), for your home ?

My average power bill is about £150 a month, making nearly £2k a year. That matches what I spend on transport easily.

Here anything over 20% on energy is the threshold for "fuel poverty".

Get hit by someone who does not have any insurance (and of course no assets either), and you might think otherwise.

No, I don't think otherwise, because in most states coverage for being hit by an uninsured motorist is NOT automatic. It is optional and it is not part of the mandated requirement for liability insurance.(click here to learn more)

Mandatory liability insurance only forces you to insure yourself, assuming that you will be stupid, careless or make mistakes. If you are a careful driver and never cause a chargeable accident all the money you pay for that coverage is a total waste. Your money goes to fund those who DO cause accidents resulting in damages that they otherwise might not be able to afford to pay.

In effect the state is forcing everyone to pay for the (usually) irresponsible actions of some.

OK, now how do you pick out those "irresponsible" drivers before they hit you? Or maybe no one should be allowed to drive unless they can post a cash bond that's large enough ($50K, maybe?) to cover potential damages.

You don't. If they hit you, you can sue them. In fact, even if they DO have liability insurance and they have a crummy, cheap insurance company that doesn't want to settle the claim properly you will have to do exactly that to get paid.

You have a lot to learn about how insurance works and you are missing the point. I suggest you read the link I posted and digest it. Mandatory liability insurance does not protect you from the actions of others at all! It only protects others from YOUR assumed irresponsibility - and at your expense.

There are a lot of people driving who can't afford it. But if I have $50,000 to post as a bond to self-insure myself, why should I not be allowed to do so? Because the state won't allow it and the insurance companies won't make any profit on it, that's why.

We have been through this discussion before. One of the few states that supposedly does not require mandatory liability insurance requires a cash bond in lieu of it (as I recall it is Virginia that offers that) - but that state cleverly collects a very hefty added 'fee' (read: TAX) for choosing that alternative: which makes just as expensive as if you had bought the mandatory liability policy! That's really not a choice at all, and they know it! :rolleyes:

So who do you prefer being bilked by? The State? Or the insurance industry?

Had someone try and sell me solar panels yesterday. This on the same day that uk.gov decided to ponder slashing the Feed In Tarrifs (FITs) which the sales guy was suggesting would pay for them.

You might be wanting to do some homework before you start typing too.


A lot of states will allow you to post cash in lieu of buying insurance, new york does not appear to be among them though.

Two problems,
1. there are actually many states that allow a cash bond.

2. Virginia actually does NOT allow private vehicles to have a cash bond in lieu of insurance, but they do "allow" you to pay $500 to register as uninsured. Which is "fair" considering that other drivers are paying extra for insurance to use the road. I guess you wind up paying the $500/year if circumstance has you in a much more expensive liability bracket.

Virginia Car Insurance Center - Get VA Auto Insurance Quotes from Multiple Providers at DMV.org: The Unofficial DMV Guide

You need to be careful when reporting on other states that you know little about or are too lazy to research on your own. If you are parroting some other source with an agenda, don't. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you post.

I'm at 22% for all vehicle expenses and electric. Somehow I don't feel impoverished, though. I spent the last few years building up a fund and just purchased a new high-efficiency heat pump / AC unit. That should reduce my total to 20% (conservative estimate, hopefully even less).

I suppose AC for you is like heat for us. We replaced our condensor boiler (hot water heating system / hot tap water) just before last winter, and that cut the bill by about 15%. Added cavity insulation (houses here are brick with air-blocks in between) last spring so hopefully that should help some more. Just need to do my loft space floor but that means emptying everything out, no time so far :)

EDIT - Do you mean 22% each or combined ? I got the stat wrong, apparently it is if you use more than 10% of your income to maintain a reasonable heat regime in your house. Not sure if income is gross or net of tax, or what a reasonable heat regime is specifically.

I already did, as we covered this exact same topic in another thread.

That is incorrect so "(y)ou might be wanting to do some homework before you start typing too." Liability insurance is mandatory in all states except New Hampshire, and there's the bond issue in Virginia and apparently Wisconsin. (Click here)

The only problem here is that you keep repeating something that is not true.

Which is why it amounts to a sham. Its a fee or a tax levy no matter what it is called.

Requiring mandatory liability insurance has to do with LIABILITY. It has nothing to do with road use. In many states there is also a road use fee, and vehicle weight fees, not to mention gasoline taxes that are supposed to be used for road use and maintenance.

I personally am in the lowest liability bracket, yet it is still a large expense because I live in a comparatively densely populated area. However, that's like saying that the suffering is less, so no one should complain about the mandatory nature of it.

You need to read what I wrote and comprehend it. The Virginia fee negates any savings because it equals or exceeds what you would pay for the mandatory liability insurance. You either pay the insurance industry, or you pay the government. Either way you pay and gain nothing for your money (unless you cause a chargeable accident).

And before you lecture and belittle me about citing misinformation, it is time for you to correct your own falsehoods. Go read the link provided that describes New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Then go complain to the folks in New Hampshire about how "unfair" they are.

22% combined. 6% for all-electric heating and cooling and cooking and lights, and 15% total for gas/repairs/insurance for two vehicles.

So what good does it do to sue them if they don't have any assets?

At least with the cheap insurance company, you can be fairly certain that there are some assets there, so suing wouldn't be just pissing away more money on lawyer fees.

As for the irresponsibility, sure, we all know you're Superman, and will not only never make a mistake, but will never suffer a heart attack, stroke, or some other medical problem while you're driving, will never have some part of your car fail...

6% would put you outside the "fuel poverty" limit :thumbup:. Transport costs are high but you guys in the US do more miles than we (in the UK) do. Our European neighbours also do more miles as they can drive most places - we have to cross the channel (aka "the moat") first :D

Most people have some assets. Besides, if you want to buy insurance to be covered for uninsured motorists, no one is stopping you from buying it or forcing you to buy it. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, in most states the coverage for uminsured motorists is not included in the mandatory insurance you must carry!

Your defense of mandated liability insurance is flawed in that it is intended to prevent uninsured motorists from driving. Does it? Obviously not, because they are still out there driving.

You now present a semi-sarcastic angle that is far more unlikely than the way in which most accidents occur. Insurance is all about risk. Freedom is all about choice. Mandating that insurance policies be bought regardless of someone's personal responsibility or ability to pay for any damages incurred is a denial of that freedom. The bottom line is that you are forced to fund accidents that are caused by others.

I can well afford to buy insurance or be self-insured. Even in states where insurance is not mandatory, you still need to be able to pay damages. The link I posted explained that. But as usual, you either still don't understand that or else you ignore such points and bring out a 'straw man' tactic of argument.