Would you charge a friend for travel to work daily?

ellissa

Just wanting to guage opinion really...


My friend does not drive and has recently started working at the same place as me. She asked if I could take her to work everyday then take her back home each evening. I am happy to help. She only lives about 1/2 a mile from me (in the opposite direction to work) so I'm only going about 2 miles out of my way each day - 10 mins or so.

My dilemma is about whether to take money from her for petrol. She has asked that I tell her how much the petrol cost is and she will pay half. I hadn't even thought of taking money from her when I agreed to take her. I should add that that's exactly what I'd offer to do if the situation was reversed - pay for her petrol. However, is it right that I take money from my friend? I spoke to my parents about it and they say it would be out of order for me to take the money as I would have made the journey myself whether or not she was there. They say if she is adamant she wants to pay that I should just consider a token amount of £10 per month.

It's a 25 mile round trip each day obviously totalling 150 miles each week. I have no idea how much this will cost in petrol for a 1.3 car. I've looked into it and if I was not taking her then she would have to walk 5 mins to bus stop, take a bus, walk 15 mins to station, take a train then another 15 min walk totalling approx £15 per day and an extra hour travelling time (we work in a rural village). However I'm sure she would be able to save money buying weekly/monthly tickets.

The bottom line for me is that although I do the journey already, the money would help our situation. I certainly don't want to make money out of her though, if I do charge her then it will be no more than half the petrol costs. However, I don't want to be out of order, she is my friend and I am happy to help her.

So my questions are:-

a) in the same situation, would you take money from your friend? is it right to?
b) how much would you take from her? how can I calculate the petrol used?

TIA
Ellissa

Jedilibrarian

Yes, I would take a contribution for petrol as her being in the car will use more petrol. And if money is tight then every little helps.

Can you work out how many miles you get out of a full tank of petrol and then how much it costs to fill a full tank then from this work out cost per mile?

pandora205

I'd split petrol costs - You both gain. Your friend is getting cheap and convenient travel. You are sharing your costs. That's completely reasonable.

I'd calculate the petrol costs by estimating the miles per gallon (or kilometres per litre if you are so inclined!) that you car does, then working out the distance to work daily and splitting the costs of that.

PHYTHIAN

a) Yes I would and Yes it is. You also have to pay road tax, insurance, mot and all repairs to your vehicle. OK..you're already travelling to work anyway but why not share some of the costs to avoid the extra expense and earlier start for the bus journey? To be honest I would feel too embarrassed to accept a lift everyday without giving something towards it.

b) 150 miles/week in a 1.3 litre car......tenner a week seems fair enough to me.

Snuggles

Personally, I would expect her to contribute to the petrol costs, friend or not. Yes you would be making the journey anyway, but why should she travel for free while you bear all the costs? Also, do not underestimate the inconvenience to you of this arrangement. It may prevent you from doing things you might want to do after work, as you will feel obligated to take her straight home. You will also have to consider her every time you want to take a day off, or you're not well, or you need to leave early for whatever reason.

I used to give two friends lifts and although I know it's the right thing to do both as a friend and in envrionmental terms, it can actually be a real pain! So yes, charge her a contribution!

picnmix

Hi, before I had kiddies and changed my working hours I shared a car with my friend to go to and from work, we split the petrol costs, I knew how much it cost me to get to and back from work so we just halved this, every so often she would also get me a little pressie as I did go a short distance out of my way to pick her up and drop her off. Even though you would be doing the journey anyway I personally think that is would be expected that someone sharing would cover half the costs, it would benefit you both so dont worry about taking petrol money.

Tigsteroonie

I used to charge my friends (well, villagers!) half of the cost of the alternative bus fare. That way they got a discount, and I got some money towards petrol.

Some thought I was mercenary doing this when I would have been making the journey anyway, but it's not as though there wasn't hassle in giving them a lift - sometimes they would ask me to divert past a shop so they could "nip in", and occasional mornings I had to wait outside their house because they had overslept.

MarkyMarkD

I don't see the dilemma. She wants to pay; it's fair that she pays half. End of story.

As pandora says, it's easy enough to estimate your car's MPG and then work out a daily petrol cost like that.

I took people to work for years (without going seriously out of my way) and they paid me something silly like £1 a day for a 7 mile journey which was about right at the time. Given that the alternative was a "once every two hours" bus or a 7 mile walk, they were happy to pay and I was happy to share my costs.

The fact that you're actually going to go 2 miles out of your way each day - so that's 40 miles a month - is a gallon of petrol which is £5. So not charging anything is bonkers!

hurricanewyn

I don't drive, but when I was going to college in the evenings twice a week one of my classmates would give me a lift there and back (he would pick me up from the end of his street as this was easier and would drop me to my house when we were finished) - he didn't want to charge, but I insisted. I wanted to pay because it made me feel more comfortable with the arrangement. I offered 20 a month, which is what bus fares would've cost me, but we agreed on 10 a month as a contribution - this was for 2 evenings a week on a 5 mile journey.
You might find your friend feels better if she is contributing something - it's more like a proper arrangement then and less like she always needs a favour IYSWIM.

fantasia322

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I don't see the dilemma. She wants to pay; it's fair that she pays half. End of story.

As pandora says, it's easy enough to estimate your car's MPG and then work out a daily petrol cost like that.

I took people to work for years (without going seriously out of my way) and they paid me something silly like £1 a day for a 7 mile journey which was about right at the time. Given that the alternative was a "once every two hours" bus or a 7 mile walk, they were happy to pay and I was happy to share my costs.

The fact that you're actually going to go 2 miles out of your way each day - so that's 40 miles a month - is a gallon of petrol which is £5. So not charging anything is bonkers!

Exactly . More than fair x

Sambucus_Nigra

ellissa wrote: »

So my questions are:-

a) in the same situation, would you take money from your friend? is it right to?
b) how much would you take from her? how can I calculate the petrol used?

TIA
Ellissa

a - Yes of course!
b - what you do is to fill the tank at the start of the week; before you do any work journeys, and write down the mileage for all your journeys [work wise] and all your journeys [non work related]. Then, at the end of the week, fill up again.

So - say it cost £20 to fill up; and the work journeys totaled 150 miles and the non-work ones totalled 50 miles - it would have cost you £15 for your work travel - so charge her £7.50.