What's it worth?

 I live in Chicago and make frequent trips to Northwest Indiana.  The trip is pretty straightforward, expressway nearly all the way.  I have two options--use the Illinois Skyway and Indiana toll road, or use the Dan Ryan and Bishop Ford expressways (note that now that I live in Chicago I no longer use highway numbers, like 94 or 90 or 80, that's just not how we do it here!)  On a good day, the trip on either route can take as little as 42 minutes.  On a bad day, it can easily be 90 minutes or more.  Generally, the toll route is faster, but costs about $8 one way.  Before leaving either Chicago or Indiana I use my map app to get an estimate of the time for each route.  If the non-toll option is less than 8 minutes longer, I will take it.  If the difference is more than 10 minutes, I take the toll route.

                                                 

 

What to do in the range of 8-10 minutes?  Clearly, my time is worth somewhere between $1.00 and $1.25 a minute and , but exactly where?  I've found that in that range I begin to consider the time of day, the amount of daylight, the weather, and how likely I am to run into an unexpected delay once I start on my route. Occasionally, I have even taken the longer, non-toll route if I'm not in a hurry, it's a sunny day, and I feel adventurous.  But, even there a limit exists. I can think of no situation where I would take the non-toll option if the time difference was 20 minutes or more.  

                                     

 

Similarly, I work out a few times a week at a gym located about a 20 minute drive from my apartment. Within 2 blocks of the gym there is free on-street parking.  Right in front of the gym is metered parking which costs about $3.00 for an hour.  Generally, I park on the free parking street, but if the weather is bad, I'm late or tired, or just cranky, I pay to park.  

The moral of this story, everyday we make minute economic decisions which make very little economic sense.