To wonder how long I'll be able to afford to drive to work for?

[Octomingo]

I drive 40 miles a day, there and back. I do a childcare drop on the way. I don't always know what time I will finish. Public transport would take me 3 hours one way. No one to car share with. Can't move closer, as that would take dh even further away from his work and can't afford to move anyway.

Those of you with similar issues, what are you planning to do? I can't find any jobs the same level closer to home. The thought of spending so much money just on travelling to work is freaking me out.

No solution OP I just wanted to say how sorry and disappointed I am.the some of the responses havr been unhelpful to the point of sarcasm.

I’ve had to reassess my working pattern and commute that’s for sure. I’m on a public sector salary and our office is in the city centre. My commute is 18 miles there and back. Public transport is really unreliable so I have to drive or cycle. My subsidised parking is £7.50 a day. If I had to go in every day it would cost me around £250 a month. I normally cycle from the end of April until the end of October, because of dark nights and frosts, but we are now allowed to wfh two days a week so I serviced and cleaned my bike yesterday and I’ll be riding in as of next week.

So you should be getting over 50miles to the gallon

50mph on and A road behind a lorry will be good fuel consumption as 50s a decent speed for fuel and a lorry is breaking your 💨 so it’s a double whammy

So 200 miles per week, that’s 4 gallons of petrol at £6.75 each x 4 = £27 each week

Prices will go back down again, they always do.

As a pp said, even at current prices you are probably paying around £27/week now, up from around £21 when prices were at rock bottom in May 2020.

You've said you're well paid but you're panicking over £6/week extra? It's annoying, sure, but you seem disproportionately worried about petrol, especially compared to how electricity bills are going just now.

For many people a smaller car would be the option I would suggest.

meant to include this.
Yes prices are high - but (despite the media scare stories) not much higher than previous peaks.

Source: www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time

Trade in car, hybrid or electric sorted.
Would love to drive, can , brain to eye issues and recently retired ☹️, nice car, hoping all resolved soon, phyatrist soon, optically ok

It’s not a permanent solution, of course, but Morrison’s currently have 7p a litre off when you spend x amount with them. The supermarkets all usually follow each other, so you might find other offers come along behind.

@Nsky Electric cars are ridiculously expensive, they’re also more expensive to insure (as are most automatics). The infrastructure just isn’t there for them either; we drive to see my ILs - it’s about 400 mile round trip, could do it on one tank in my petrol car and DH’s diesel would have about 200 miles left in it.

Electric just can’t compete.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network

I sympathise completely. I just filled up my c4 and it cost £80 and I don't have a job.

However I wonder when the tipping point is going to come - when are we going to be able to break free from our dependence on oil (and plastic). I know when - when electric cars and hydrogen cars and so on come down in price. When they find a solution for the lithium battery issue. When we are 100% fossil fuel free.

But what would really be ideal is if we really could all live close enough to the workplace that we don't need to commute for so long.

I used to be a teacher and couldn't ever get a job in my hometown. They just never came up. I was commuting 35 miles each way to another town. I always thought it was crazy, and I wished someone at my local school who lived closer to my job school would swap jobs with me.

I've just left a job where I was doing 50 miles a day. It was a huge bugbear for me. I also counted the time spent on the road as an inconvenience as it was eating into my cleaning, cooking, rare and time and enjoyable time with DC. Time is money etc.

I used to take the motorway instead of the backroad. This saved about 10 mpg as my average went from 43 to 53mpg. If you have a golf, make sure you put it in eco mode. No harsh events - braking, accelerating or cornering.

Posted too soon.

It would be great if companies could seek to recruit locally- at least some of their staff.

My golf is quite good on petrol i can get 50 mpg quite regularly and imnot a very slow driver

you can use e5 if yu want to try and see f that makes any difference

@Shaynatalie

£150 a month seems fine? My bus fare used to be £5 a day/£105 a month and that was taking ages often had cancelled and delayed services. To pay £50 more and have flexibility would have been amazing!

Not the point but petrol isn't the only cost of a car - you have the cost of the car, MOT, tax, insurance etc probably cost a fair bit more than a bus pass.

I did mention hybrid cars too

THREE HOURS to go 40 miles on public transport? WHY? HOW?

@Nsky

Trade in car, hybrid or electric sorted. Would love to drive, can , brain to eye issues and recently retired ☹️, nice car, hoping all resolved soon, phyatrist soon, optically ok

Hybrid and electric cars are v expensive to buy.

@BearOfEasttown

THREE HOURS to go 40 miles on public transport? WHY? HOW?

Ohh I can totally believe that. I work 17 miles away from home but if I had to do it on public transport then it would take over 4 hours. Even if I got the earliest bus I would be late for work, and I would have to leave work early in order to meet connections for the last bus home (and I work normal office hours). Public transport in rural(ish) areas can be awful.

In terms of petrol costs, have you checked prices at different ends of your commute? Some towns are fractionally cheaper than others. Costco membership is a good suggestion if you have one nearby.

Also, don’t fill up every time. Just fill the tank half full, otherwise your paying to drive around with the weight of extra fuel. Empty anything heavy / unnecessary out of the car too.

Otherwise I think you just need to think of commuting costs in the same way as childcare; yes it’s an expensive pain in the neck, but if you don’t pay it, then you can’t work, then you’d be even more skint.

I would consider an electric car, but do the maths first! Could you keep going until a sale is more viable? I'm not in the U.K. but I swapped to an electric car last summer. At 5 years old, it cost slightly more to buy than a similar petrol car. Insurance was less than the smaller 17-year-old car I replaced. I rent the battery so that is extra but I would still save on an 40-mile round trip every day (I charge at home on a domestic socket on overnight electricity). DH still has a petrol car but we use the electric one for as many local trips as possible, so it all adds up.

@BearOfEasttown if I wanted to take public transport to my job 15 miles away….. to get there on time I’d have to leave home at cycle 40 minutes to the train station ( bus don’t run early enough in villages) train and then another 20 minute bus ride ( get a bike space on a train is near impossible these days) it would take in all at least 3 hours one way…..

Those of us who live in the country petrol/diesel is a necessity, as public transport services are pure luxury!

And no not everyone who lives in the country has loads of money to spend on a electric or hybrid new car……

@BearOfEasttown Easy, towns that are relatively close together and have no direct link, meaning a journey to a main town/city, then back out again. My friend used to live in Maidenhead and liked shopping in High Wycombe. It’s 10 miles and takes 18 minutes to drive (according to Google). By train, the fastest journey is 1 hour 23 minutes and the slowest 1 hour 56 minutes and it requires going into London to change trains.

There are lots of places similar, easy to drive and close together but no direct service by public transport.

Sell your car - 2nd hand car market is very good at the moment and buy a second hand full electric. Even with rising electricity costs it's far cheaper to commute on home charging.

Obviously that's not going to be a solution for everyibe but it worked for us. I was spending £200-£250 a month on fuel and spend about £25 now on electric.

I think that’s just an average commute cost, tbh. And if you can’t find a job closer to home, can’t work from home, and can’t move closer to work, then you just have suck it up.

Commuting by public transport would probably cost more. And as you say (and PPs) in plenty of places it’s non-existent or so infrequent or inconvenient as to not be viable.

Accept you can’t change this element of your budget easily - it’s a cost of doing business, as they say - and look for other economies elsewhere.

@BearOfEasttown

THREE HOURS to go 40 miles on public transport? WHY? HOW?

I can believe this. Public transport takes ages, that's why people tend to have a car if they can afford it. I dread to think how much time I waste waiting for and sitting on buses over thr average year. I can't afford a car though so I'm stuck.

One of my weekly journeys that is a 30 minute drive takes 1 hour and 40 minutes on public transport. And I don't live rurally, it's just that the journey involves getting two buses.

It's the same for a lot of bus journeys. Another regular journey that springs to mind is the 20 minute drive that takes 1 hour and 15 minutes by public transport.

I’m worried about it too op. I topped up my car on Monday using 7p off a litre at Morrisons and it still cost £50 for three quarters of a tank. Dh spent £70 on diesel today. If things really kick off with Russia and Ukraine and fuel and heating costs go up much further we’re going to struggle. There’s no public transport at all where we live so that’s not an option either.