Biking for selfish reasons

Tom is riding his homemade Office Chair bike for bike to work day.

Let’s face it. I’m no goody two shoes altruistic do-gooder. I’m biking to work because it improves my life.

I like the solitude, gentle exercise, thinking time and money savings.

Biking to work will give me 10 more years of retired living compared to driving to work.

Retiring 5 years earlier than drivers
We are a 3 person household with only one car. Getting rid of the second car saves about $4,000/year. Putting the saved $4,000 into a retirement Deferred comp account lets you add current income tax savings (an extra $1,600 per year) The $5,600/yr savings deposited annually into an account earning 8% over 27 years grows to $528,000 and can provides a retirement payout of $47,000/ year for 30 years. That should be enough to let me retire 5 years earlier than if I drove.

Living 5 years longer than drivers
Biking keeps me healthy and is a low cost way to extend my life about 5 years beyond what is normally associated with my otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Also the biking improves my quality of life making all those retired years much more enjoyable.

Indulge yourself via biking.

Tom Kabat

p.s. To use an environmental analogy:

If everybody biked everywhere, it would be the equivalent of taking all the cars off the road. Simply scale that to what you are willing to do and start living the dream.

This post was submitted by Tom Kabat.