Moving costs and benefits

Our current home in mid-Gloucester County has its perks. We’re at the cul-de-sac of a lovely little neighborhood where the neighbors are wonderful, the nights are quiet, and the wildlife is abundant, in that we back up to a beautiful tract of woods. But, we want to move.

An arboreal view of our back yard


We want to move mostly because of the commute. For me it’s only 12.5 miles to work, but for my wife Adrienne, it’s 19. That doesn’t sound like much until you look at the time and fuel. Round trip, I spend 42 minutes a day and Adrienne spends one hour. That's about 8.5 hours per week. The fuel costs also adds up, even though, by U.S. standards, we get good fuel economy (25mpg for my S-10 pick-up and 33mpg for her Civic).

When I crunched the numbers, for time and gas, but not the increased risk of injury, stress or vehicle depreciation, I concluded that we will save over $7000 a year by moving to our target neighborhood in York County which lies between our works, (4.5 miles for me and 2.9 miles for her).

Also, not in the analysis, is our reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. I was astonished to find that we will put 8560 pounds less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year! I doubt we could do that if we bought a Prius and carpooled together (which would be impossible due to our different schedules).

Sounds like a lot of carbon dioxide, right? From saving 428.3 gallons of gas (2697 pounds), how do we save 8560 pounds of carbon dioxide? Well, gasoline, being the hydro-carbon that it is, combusts and the carbon atoms are liberated from the light hydrogen atoms. These free carbons bind to the much heavier oxygen atoms in our atmosphere and create CO2. Clear as mud? Check this out: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml

So even though our new home will have a higher sticker price than our current place, I can sleep easier knowing that we will actually save money and CO2 over the long haul. More importantly, we get to spend an extra two weeks per year together. That's an extra vacation!

I’m looking forward to our new home. Now if we can just get someone to buy our current one.