Some years ago, a movie was released in India. It was called ‘Life in a metro’. Now the movie addressed a different set of issues. But life in a metro is indeed different from any other. One of the biggest challenges of living in a metropolitan city is the cost of travelling to work and back each day.
Every day you spend hours of your time and hundreds of your money just to get to the office and back. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could save on both?
Here are some great options to save on office travel cost
Metro, local trains, buses
One of the key indicators of development in some Asian and most western countries is their robust public transport system. India also has a fairly widespread public transport system, but under the sheer pressure of population, the infrastructure has not fared well. So buses and local trains had been largely sidelined by the white collared young Indians.
Over the past decade, however, things have changed. Metro and luxury buses have changed the way commuters can get to work each day. Even local trains in Mumbai have undergone a facelift and are clean and quite comfortable.
If you have easy access to any of these means, you could be saving thousands of rupees each month. You would definitely be saving a lot of your time travelling by metro or a local train. For example, in Mumbai, it takes 2-3 hours to get from North to South of the city by road. Instead, if you took a local train, you would reach your destination in just over an hour. The ticket would cost you just Rs.6-40 rupees per person, which is negligible compared to hundreds you would have spent on fuel.
Work from home option
In today’s age of technology, many firmly believe the geographical location of employees does not matter at all. If you are working for a company that allows you to work from home, you are at a great advantage. You save time, money and the effort lost in travelling every single day through heavy traffic and pollution of the city. This is also a fantastic option for parents who need to be around their young children.
Buy you should know, working from home does come with its challenges too. You have to carve out a niche as a work area, stick to timelines and handle the people at home all at the same time. Since you don’t physically go to the office, you have to make an effort to create a routine and have fixed working hours.
Flexible hours
Some jobs like technology, teaching, marketing etc could offer you flexible working hours. If you have the option, then you could save a lot of time and money by choosing your travel time wisely. Cab services offer cheaper fares during off hours. Metro and local trains are less crowded during off-peak hours too. In most cities 11am – 4 pm are hours when you will find roads less crowded and fares less expensive. If this works well, you may never want to step out during peak hours ever again!
Carpooling
Carpooling is a fantastic alternative not only to save time and money but also to do your bit to save the Earth. So if you can find people in your apartment or in your office taking a similar route as you, you could work out a convenient carpooling system. If there are 4-5 people in the same car, the cost of fuel is shared by that many. You can also take turns for who would drive and who would bring their car each day.
Public carpooling
If you don’t know anyone around travelling the same route as you, try a public carpool. You can find out about a public carpool in your area through WhatsApp or Facebook or through applications in your city. Some such apps are – Pool My Ride, Chalein, Wunder Carpool, Orahi, Quick ride, sRide, W’heal Our World etc.
Cab hailing services like Uber and Ola also offer to carpool as an option. How about you try one today? Saving a few hundred a day may not seem like much. But when you put the numbers down, Rs.500 saved a day add up to Rs.1.5 lakhs a year. In ten years, even without adding any returns, this would work out to a savings of Rs.15 lakhs!
Imagine what you could do with so much money, time and energy at hand!
No Comments