What Is More Appealing – A Raise Or Telecommuting?

The amount of money and time that drivers can save via telecommuting is astounding! SkipTheDrive’s Telecommuting Calculator calculates the amount of money employees could save by telecommuting as opposed to driving to the office on a daily basis. It also calculates the amount of time you could save per year. Remember, time is money! Curious as to how current telecommuters feel about salary versus work flexibility, SkipTheDrive conducted a survey in November 2014 to see if they preferred telecommuting over a 10% salary increase. Our survey results can be found here.

Suppose John Doe is making $80,000 per year while living in L.A. (commuting to and from work every day in a midsize car). A salary of $80,000 per year is approximately $38 per hour (given a 40 hour work week).

Let’s assume the following commute scenario:

His round-trip mileage each day is 40

His round-trip driving time is 90 minutes

He drives a midsize car

Gas is $3.50 per gallon

No parking or toll costs

No additional food and/or beverage expenses

No daycare expenses

Based on these figures, John could save $1,456 in gas expenses, and could save 390 hours of driving if telecommuting full-time. If you factor in John’s hourly rate ($38) with regards to the amount of hours spent driving each year (390), that’s a total of $14,820 of ‘commute time.’ Adding the values of gas money and commute time will total $16,276.

In order to make a salary of $96,000, John would have to receive a salary increase of 20%. So, is a pay raise more appealing than telecommuting?

* Calculated based on fuel economy data from cars.com; Assuming 52 weeks per year; Deductions based on simplified method from IRS