re: Company car w/ gas card OR $1k monthly allowance + fed mileage rate

You not getting 3k in work miles. I drive my arse off and get 1800 a month. I doubt you are getting 1 k a month also

I get 800 a month car allowance and work from home.

I don't know how many days you work a month but 20-21 work days in a month. So it's well over 100 miles a day. Also you can't claim commute miles if you are getting fed rate. Realistically drive 3600 -4000 miles a month. Businesses will only give Fed rate instead of company car because they don't wanna pay insurance and upkeep. So it makes little sense that they would give 1k on top of mileage

Your comment about most people get that on commute tells me you don't really know what you are getting into. It is federal law that you can't claim commute miles

If they pay insurance and change oil and fix it like us take the car.
Run the numbers at 36000 miles a year how often do you need another car?

Maybe I am an anomaly bit my change oil on my Ram 1500 hits at around 8300 miles and i rotate my tires everother oil change. I go an easy 3 years/65k miles on a set of tires.

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I’ve had both. Currently have a Ram 2500 Laramie 4x4- Cummins. Really nice truck. I can drive it like I own it, tow my camper etc. I do have my own insurance on it to cover me on personal time, that’s about $160 a month. Don’t have to pay for maintenance, tires, fuel (unless I leave the state for personal trip). If it breaks I bring it to our in house mechanic. I’d prefer this set up over an allowance any day.

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Yeah I guess it just depends.

If I had no need for the truck I’d take the allowance and get a Toyota hybrid with 50mpg. You will never get close to the .67 per mile in gas costs. Can max out a Roth if you aren’t already and still have cash in pocket left over.


This would also depend where in my life I’m at. Don’t need to start saving, need the bigger vehicle and travel a lot with family, take the truck.

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I don't know how many days you work a month but 20-21 work days in a month. So it's well over 100 miles a day.

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I quoted and was responding to this part of your post:

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I drive my arse off and get 1800 a month.




That is less than 100 miles a work day, some people put more than that on just on their commute.

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Last time I checked 1800 is fewer than 2000-2100.

I understand the confusion about commuting my point was not that commuting is deductable (only in very specific situations like setting up your home office as your principal business address) but that people commute that much and don't think of it as driving their arse off.


The funniest thing is you said this:

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You not getting 3k in work miles.

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and then post a screen grab that shows you got within 200 miles of that 3 months running.

My point is 1800 miles is not "driving your arse off" as you suggested. Again that is less than 100 miles per work day.

A car allowance benefits the company, not you. Whoever is on the hook for providing the vehicle gets the short end of the stick. That is why so few companies provide a car these days.

Take the company car, and set aside $500 in savings a month you're not payying towards a vehicle note. In 60 months you will have $30,000 in a savings account.