How to Save Money Commuting

Save time, save money – and get some of your life back

This post is about how to save money commuting.

Easing the burden (and cutting the cost) of daily commuting is easy - in theory. You can save money commuting. How much money you actually save commuting depends on the nature of your job and the flexibility of your employer.

Here are four key strategies to save money (and time) commuting to work and back:

1. How to save money by telecommuting: Convince the boss you can work from home

Obviously it’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition, but in an increasingly digital world many of us could save money commuting simply by working from home – at least some of the time. If you have broadband, you can even communicate face-to-face with colleagues over Skype. Writing proposals, reports, etc., editing video, graphic design, admin – many jobs have an ‘e-world’ component that can be done just as proficiently from home as from the office. Working from home is the perfect way to save money commuting.

The key to making this work is to make it a

drivingJohn Cadogan20 November 2011car, commute, commuting, driving, how-to, workComment

Headlight Restoration

Need to Know:

Headlight restoration works on cloudy, discoloured headlights.
Headlight restoration is an easy, one-hour job.
You can do headlight restoration in the driveway at home, with essentially no tools or training. All you need for headlight restoration is a $30 self-contained kit, some masking tape, and elbow grease.
To restore your headlights you don’t need to remove them from the car (we just did that for the video above).
Headlight restoration could save you thousands (think: old European prestige car). It will certainly save you hundreds of dollars compared with the price of two replacement headlamps, even on a basic car.

Here's the detail on restoring those cloudy headlights:

video, DIYJohn Cadogan18 September 2011car, diy, headlamp, headlight, light, money, repair, restoration, saveComment

CO2 & Your Car

French cities seem on the verge of banning SUVs to improve pollution. But is banning 4WDs really such a hot strategy to reduce CO2 in the world’s big cities? Where do passenger vehicles really fit in when it comes to greenhouse?

The big French cities say they’re in the process of banning gas-guzzling vehicles – including 4WDs – in an attempt to curb emissions.

The exact scheme to be put in place – exactly which vehicles, in exactly which neighbourhoods, and exactly what penalties could be enacted – are at this stage still unstated. But the intent to proceed with the project has been

fuelJohn Cadogan27 January 2011co2, carbon dioxide, greenhouse, car, trqnsport, environment, alternative fuelComment

Ethanol as an Alternative Fuel

GM Holden’s release of the so-called ‘flex-fuel’ Commodore a couple of months back might be one of the crucial first steps in positive change for the future of automotive fuel in Australia. The flex-fuel Commodore can run on petrol – but it can also happily consume petrol-ethanol blends up to E85 (that’s 85 per cent ethanol in 15 per cent petrol). E85 is a big step up from E10, which is quickly becoming the default automotive fuel. And that means we’re looking down the barrel of becoming an increasingly ethanol-fuelled nation.

There’s been a lot of controversy about ethanol but the fact is ethanol blends in petrol are here to stay. Here in Australia, regular unleaded petrol is being phased out, to be replaced by E10 – a blend of 10 per cent ethanol in petrol.

Most cars can

fuelJohn Cadogan10 January 2011ethanol, alternative fuel, energy independence, greenhouse, environment, car, transport, energy securityComment

How to Cut Car Running Costs

PLAN YOUR TRIPS

You know the saying ‘time is money’? With cars it’s not time, but distance, that costs you money. And that means you save 100 per cent of the fuel you would have used on trips you don’t make. You also save 100 per cent of the tyre wear, brake wear and other service-related costs.

Most Australians never really consider this – so the car gets used as a yo-yo between home and the next pressing assignment. Instead of going home-school-home-coffee-home-shops-home-school, why not try home-school-coffee-shops-home? You’ll save a significant amount of distance – which means money.

It’s more efficient to get as many things done as possible in the one outing than it is to achieve the same result via a greater number of shorter trips. Same thing applies for businesses.