Part of becoming Self Reliant is taking a close look at the money you are spending and downsizing certain luxuries if they are just downright wasteful. Stefan and I had an eye opening moment a few months ago when his company presented him with the new monthly parking fee once his office moves to a new location this summer. Parking was previously EUR160 per month, already an atrocity when you consider you can get a 1 bedroom apartment for that fee in some parts of Germany. Now it will be EUR220 and that’s just street robbery. On top of that, since we usually use the Defender when we have to go somewhere together, Stefan’s car doesn’t get much usage beyond the daily commute. His commute is 36km (22 miles) round trip and after his office moves it will be even closer – about 32km (20 miles).

So, we finally sat down and calculated accurately how much his commute was costing us every month. Let me tell you, it was rather shocking. Taking into account pro rated down payment, monthly lease payment, insurance, gas, registration and the robbery style parking fee, we were staring at the princely sum of 900 Euros. Yikes! I mean, we do have good jobs but we are not necessarily Rockefellers either.

We began talking about alternatives and I suggested to Stefan that he should get a scooter to commute in. Research began. After talking to a few friends of ours that commute by motorcycle and reading all we could find on the internet, the idea of a scooter was eliminated and replaced by a touring bike from BMW. Meet the BMW F650GS

I must say it is very cute – and also just about as safe and perfect for commuting as motorcycles get. It isn’t very fast in top speed (kind of like the Defender) but comfortable and equipped with luxuries like ABS and heated handlebars.

Here is the calculation for this commute, assuming BMW’s Leasing example of EUR2000 down payment and EUR57 for 18 months (which is not necessarily the most economical solution of paying for this – but this is just an example). The calculation would look like this:

Monthly Payment: EUR168
Insurance & Registration: EUR20
Gasoline: EUR30
Train ticket: EUR90
Total: EUR308 (or a whopping 66% discount)

You might ask, “If he gets a monthly train ticket, then why doesn’t he do that all the time?” Truth be told, the train doesn’t run that frequently but at least would get him there at a decent time and not take too long. But the bike will give Stefan much more flexibility to get to work and take a much shorter amount of time from A to B. T, that is one luxury he is not willing to give up – at least when the weather is good 😉

Anyways – if we assume that we still need to work for another 25 years (God forbid…) the EUR600 a month saving at a 5% annual return adds up to nearly 358k Euros . At 10% (hey, our finance degrees should give us an average return like that) a whopping 800k. Still not Rockefeller, but close enough.

So, let’s see..1where can the downsizing continue?