7 Ways Working from Home Saves You Money ...

1. The Commute

One of the most obvious and, at the same time, efficient ways working from home saves you money is the fact that you’ll be able to completely eliminate all the costs associated with your daily commute, whether you used to drive to work or you took the public transportation. There are even a couple of studies that can prove how much money you can save by telecommuting. For example, a SUN microsystems study “estimates savings of more than $1,700 per year in gasoline and wear and tear on [your] vehicles for working at home half the time,” and according to a recent survey from AAA, “if you drive only half an hour each way to work every day, you’ll spend over $9,000 annually on costs such as gas, tolls—even car repairs.”

2. Lunch

This is another very smart way you can save quite a lot of money just by working from your home. I’m sure that just like me, there are a lot of people who often say that they’ll bring last night’s leftovers to work in order to eat them for lunch, but because they’re sleepy or they rush when they leave their house the next morning, they forget about them and later they end up spending quite a lot of money on something to eat for lunch. On the other hand, if you telecommute, at first, you might be tempted to eat even far more than you might have had at the office because your fridge will be so convenient, but with a bit of discipline, you’ll definitely learn how to take care of this problem.

3. Clothes

If you decide that telecommuting would be the best choice for you, because by doing this, you’ll manage to save enough money to spend on other important things, you’ll see that you’ll need fewer expensive and work-appropriate clothes. I love dresses and bright colored shoes (I might say that I even have a problem with that) and it was quite hard for me at first to stop buying all those lovely outfits, but shortly I realized that in fact I didn’t needed so many clothes and with the money I saved, I was able to do a lot of other fun activities that I never could have afforded otherwise.

4. Child Care

If you have small children and you’re working from a traditional office, you’ll have to spend quite a lot of money on child care too. If you’re one of those hard-working ladies who often pull late nights at work and there’s nobody else who can take care of your baby, you may even have to pay aftercare. So, by working from your home, you’ll be able to save some substantial amounts of money each month and you’ll even get to spend more time with your little one.

5. Time

Apparently, a person who telecommutes can save approximately 260 hours each year just by ditching their daily commute. Well, that’s really quite a lot! So just imagine that you’ve chosen to work from your home and you now have a lot of extra free time to spend doing things you’ll enjoy, and since time equals money, you could donate all those extra hours to charity, rather than your money. And, not to mention how much time you’ll be able to spend with your loved ones, something that could never have a price tag placed on it.

6. Health

A lot of people are really stressed out or even exhausted because of their daily commute to and from their office. That’s why, by working from your home, you’ll be able to significantly lower your daily stress levels because you’ll have a more flexible schedule and you’ll be able to take care of your business in your own time, thus you’ll spend less money on medical and therapeutic bills. Although it’s not exactly easy to calculate the amount of money a person could save by ditching the stress caused by their daily commute, you must admit that this is quite a strong argument to start telecommuting as soon as possible.

7. Tax Break

If you decide to start working from your home, you’ll soon notice that deductions abound when you’re telecommuting. You’ll see that if your home office meets certain size standards, it can be claimed as a tax deduction and you can do the same with other things you’ll need around your office like a computer, a printer or even staples. You can even include other costs like utility bills. The IRS estimates that “the average home office deduction is $3,000 which lowers a typical tax obligation by $750.”

Experts say that “the average telecommuter can save at least $4,172 each year.” Well, that’s quite a lot! And that statistic doesn’t even include the cost savings from more vacation time, time overall, or lowered stress levels. So, do any of you telecommute? Will you share your advice with us so we could learn from experience?

Sources: tlc.howstuffworks.com, workathomemoms.about.com, salary.com, mint.com