Working From Home Vs Commuting To Office. A sort of financial comparison.

From Guerrillainvestors.com…

Even though I left the corporate world only last year, I stopped commuting into an office at the start of 2013.

The five second commute (coming downstairs from my attic, or prior to that from a wooden office in the garden) can be tricky in terms of no chance to clear your head after work stuff before getting straight into family stuff, but it has other benefits. Mainly in terms of cost saving.

WFH: (Working From Home)
Average of about 50p for lunch
No need to pay for before or after school childcare
No rail fares
No petrol costs over and above evenings and weekends
Only need one car (could get away with no car if we had Uber in the area)
Never miss the kids’ events at school/nursery
No traffic/train delays impacting on meetings

CTO: (Communte To Office)
Call it £4 a day for lunch on average
It’s not the easiest to manage, but it saves £27 a day.
Season ticket of £x a year (London to Swindon was in the news recently as it will be £10,000 for an annual ticket starting in January)
My personal finance 101 guide estimates the cost of running an average car at just under £5,000 a year (including additional petrol for commuting)

Your ability to make the school nativity or sports day could be at the discretion of your manager. I definitely don’t miss those.

Now a bunch of people reading this may like commuting to an office, it’s a lot more sociable than working on your own from home for a start.

But when you start reducing your outgoings you realise you might need to bring in less a month.

With anything over and above this, you can invest it and start to realise the magic of compounding.

Something to ponder perhaps.

The Personal Finance 101 guide is just one of three you’ll receive immediately upon becoming a Guerrilla Investors subscriber. Details are here: 

All the best,

Stephen Wallis