UPDATE: Want $265,000 and 4 months vacation? Move to Saint John.

I met with some friends last night who had all happened to read my recent blog post on the advantages to living in a Saint John suburb versus a KV suburb. We had a brief discussion and one friend questioned the value per kilometer that I used to calculate the transportation cost. "What do you drive? A Hummer?!" he stated. He thought that was a high value that was over-inflating the savings.

He was right to question that value -- I hadn't put much thought to it. I simply picked what I thought to be a generally low number, $0.35 per kilometer, that some businesses (i.e., the Province of New Brunswick) pay their employees on a per-kilometer basis thinking that this adequately reflected the value of fuel plus wear and tear. I certainly did not want to over-inflate my calculations. My friends also brought up the good point that the more you use your car, the less it costs you on a per-kilometer basis given that your fixed costs (insurance, loan payment, etc.) remain constant.

It turns out, I wasn't that far off.

According to CAA, if you drive 30,000km or more per year, the cost to operate a Chevrolet Cobalt is, on average, $0.321 per kilometer. Certainly not a Hummer. If we were to assume that a person in Saint John drove only 24,000km per year, their cost to drive the same Cobalt would be $0.384 per kilometer. AHA! Score another point for KV!

Well, not really. When I ran the numbers, the advantage surprised me and actually increased the monthly savings for living in Saint John by an additional $11. The new savings looks something like this:

• $447.03 per month,
• $5,464.36 per year, or
• $134,109.00 over the life of my 25 year mortgage

Add that to the other $135,000 in additional income that I can make and my total savings are now $270,000!

But wait -- it gets more interesting! Soccer moms everywhere are shouting at their screens right now, cursing me out, saying "You can't cart a family of 5 around in a Cobalt! I'd need two of those! My mini van is far more efficient at carting a family and saves me money in the long run!"

Nope.

According to CAA again, if we both drove a Dodge Caravan it would cost $0.426 per kilometer to operate based on 30,000km, and $0.511 per kilometer to operate based on 24,000km. So the savings for living in Saint John just keep on piling up exponentially:

• $515.53 per month,
• $6,186.36 per year, or
• $154,659.00 over the life of my 25 year mortgage

Things are just looking up and up! I should just change the title of the article to "Want $290,000 and 4 months vacation? Move to Saint John." And if you're a minivan driving soccer mom that works for the Province, ask for a raise.


Data:

• CAA Driving Costs Brochure (http://www.caa.ca/documents/DrivingCostsBrochure-jan09-eng-v3.pdf)