So today, Brigitte graduates from Uni. It's a bittersweet day--because it was only yesterday that she was five-years old, dressing up for Halloween as a fairy princess, etc, or sitting on my lap along with her brother as we watched Star Wars movies and stuff like that.
After getting let go from Satan's School for Boys and Girls, we had the kids go to a different school for a couple years, but unfortunately (and it is a different issue) the academics available to our oldest children, weren't up to snuff--and the attitude of the administrator at the time was unacceptable. That's how we wound up with the commute to Uni.
People've asked for a long time about the cost and everything--but Uni doesn't charge tuition. The real cost came in time and gas money (we can never replace time, just make sure we invest it wisely--and Uni was a wise use of time...) When Erick graduated, I figured out the mileage, but I've forgotten since then...so why not calculate the whole shebang?
IMPORTANT INFO FOR THIS:
Distance from home to Uni: 66 miles
EIU to Uni 35 miles
32 weeks of school/5 days per week = 160 days
Absences due to illness cancel out weekend days added due to sports = 0 days
Extra days such as prom, Homecoming, and Theatre = 5-10 days/year
For nine weeks/year (45 days)--I do the driving. (28.125% of miles)
For three weeks/year (15 days)--I drive but have to go SPFLD->Champaign->home (9.375%)
For twenty/ weeks/year (100 days)--Julie did the driving. (62.5% of miles)
My mileage = up+back = 132 miles. 132 x 45 = 5940
The spring practice schedule = 156 x 15 = 2340
Eight years total = 66240
Julie's drive = 66 + 35 + 35 + 66 = 202 miles x 100 days = 20,200
Eight years total = 161600
So the total mileage = 227840, not including extra trips to sporting events in the evening and such.
Cost: My car gets 25 mpg/hwy, so 66240 / 25 = 2649.6 gallons of gas. If we assume a rate around 3.40/gallon (ballpark estimate over past eight years), gas cost = 9008.64
Julie's car gets 44 mpg/hwy, so 161600 / 44 = 3672.7 gallons of gas. Cost = 12487.27
Totals now:
227840 miles
$21,495.91 (gas)
Oil changes...if done every 4,000 miles, I needed 16 oil changes due to the drive, Julie required 40. 56 oil changes at $45/visit (trying to factor in wear on other components, etc). This is another 2520.00 of cost.
227,840 miles
$24,015
Ok--before including "time" into this--the financial cost of this is $24,015 in maintenance on the car. We should then add $30,000 to it--because once you get over 200,000 miles on a car, you're looking at ultimately needing another. Erick went to Uni from Fall 2006 until Spring 11. Brigitte graduates now, so there were two years of overlap (thus the eight years).
Cost per year (basic): $3001.87
Just on that--is it worth the education they received? Absolutely. Heck, count the overlap as double-value and the cost drops to $2401.50/year. Even better.
Now lets add that new car on. That makes the 'cost' $54,000 (we'll round it off).
Cost/year now: $6750.00
Cost/year (doubling up): $5400
Think about the tuition rates at private schools (Lutheran, Satanic, or whatever). If you do not practice that same faith--those numbers are well within the range of tuition costs. The cost at Sacred-Heart Griffin in Springfield is $7,925/year. Davenport Assumption is $6,910 (with a subsidy if you are Catholic). ..and remember, we've built a $30k car purchase into my cost-assessment!
But what about time? Two adults driving. If we presume 60mph, it is a total of 3797 man-hours behind the wheel. We can value that at $15/hour--so the money-cost of that time is $56,955.
That expense would add:
+$7119/year to costs, so that we'd be looking at:
Cost/year: $13,869
With doubled-up years: $12,519
$12,519/year x 8 years = $100,152 total expense.
Of course, adding in those man-hours is unfair. It's 500 hours/year...but it was time in a vehicle with my children (or for Julie), time spent talking and discussing and listening to music together--not time staring at a TV or isolated from one another. Think about families you know--do those families spend 2-3 hours together actually talking, etc every day? That's why including that cost is unfair. I enjoyed those hours--whether talking about movies, music, or our attempts to go the entire drive while only using one syllable words AND discussing issues like Whorf's Linguistic Hypothesis as we do it. Yeah, there's a cost to spending that time driving to/from school, but those hours with the kids...priceless.
Whew. Glad to have calculated that.
Maybe next time I'll calculate my OTHER driving for Lincoln Land....I swear, I'm in the wrong life--I should've been a long-haul trucker...
No comments:
Post a Comment