By Mr Money Mustache
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.
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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.
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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
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https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/18/get-rich-with-bikes/
Biking in Baltimore