Stay at Home to Save the Economy: How WFH is Becoming the Ultimate Oil Shock Shield
As workers are trying to squeeze in their daily budget to accommodate the rising cost of goods and other necessities, here comes another battle. Needless to say, inflation is already a reality, resulting in increased costs for everything tangible. And with the escalating US-Israel-Iran war, the rising cost of fuel can strain everything.
Everything is going to be expensive.
Think of everything that you can touch, and even everything that you can’t. With such a serious dilemma, workers have to adapt to the simplest solution that can somehow ease this burden. And working from home is one of them.
How it works
Here are several angles on how opting to work remotely may be the ultimate economic shield from what we are experiencing right now.
Immediate financial relief
You don’t have to spend money to commute to work. You don’t have to drive to and from the office, which saves gas. This immediately saves money that you spend on fuel.
You can calculate how much or how big a percentage of your income is spared by refraining from travel. The rising fuel cost can be as much as 114-116 dollars per barrel of oil as of this writing.
Now translate the number of hours that you can save from the travel time. Whether you commute or drive to work it can be quite significant. You can instead use this free time or reinvest these to higher value activities or projects that can generate income. This can help strengthen your household’s shield against the rising cost of living that is further aggravated by the oil crisis.
Helping nature heal
As with lesser vehicles traveling the road, there will also be a drop in the CO2 emissions. Remember during the pandemic when WFH in situ became a norm, nature was able to breathe better since there were fewer cars running on the roads.
Let’s try to look for a wee bit of silver lining in this dire situation that we are in. This can make car and travel reductions more sustainable rather than a very painful one.
This may trigger the transition to more renewable energy sources, one that has been an idea before but was being pushed back by certain circumstances and comfort. Ready or not, we have to face the reality of having to shift to more renewable sources of energy.
Employee retention
Instead of massive layoffs, a WFH strategy can reduce the rising expenses of offices due to utilities , especially for massive office towers. Thus, reducing office footprints can reduce the expenses incurred. This can help with employee retention since workers will be using their own resources.
How to maximize savings
Working from home, or at least initially shifting to a hybrid system, can indeed make a full throttle back. Instead of the virus, it’s the rising cost of fuel that might force everybody to open up their working nook at home once again.
Whether you bring your own car or commute to work, there will be that increased cost that is very significant compared to the regular inflation that we have to experience.
The cost of travel is covered here. But how do you make it the ultimate shock shield if you are still using energy at home?
Here’s how you can optimize your home energy and indirectly save fuel.
Make use of natural light
Instead of having to turn on the light for the entire eight to nine hours of work, why not make use of nature’s abundance to at least lessen your utility cost?
Position your desk in a nice, comfy little nook by the window where the morning sun drips in. This will not only replace the light that you can turn off to save electricity, thus fuel, but it is also a nice way to get some sunshine to boost your mood. We know all too well what prolonged WFH can do to your mental health and body. And getting enough natural sunshine is one way to keep those issues at bay.
You are hitting two birds with one stone on this. Save energy whenever possible, and bask in the sun’s light to get your daily dose of Vitamin D. Your body and mind will thank you for it.
Zoning strategy
You should consider this if you live in warm regions. Come summer, when everything starts to get a bit more icky and warm, instead of ramping up the AC to cover the entire house, use a single unit AC designated for that specific room where you are working. You also use a fan instead, if that would suffice.
This zoning strategy can help you save the most. We don’t want you to save money on gas, but your efforts will go down the drain with excessive use of coving.
Designate an errand day
While you will be spending most days of the week or even an entire workweek inside the comforts of your own house, there will be days when you need to get out.
One is when you have to do errands. So to maximize your savings, make a checklist of which errands you can still do at home, so you do not have to drive and use expensive fuel needlessly.
Accomplish the digital errands first. These are the things that you can do virtually. Say you need to do banking services or you need tech support. Check if you can do these via online consultations.
If you need to do groceries, why not check what you can buy online? Otherwise, designate an outing day where you have to do these all at once. Of course, keeping an updated and easy inventory of the things you need is the first driver here. You have to have a clear and updated list of that to make a system that is more efficient.
Route optimizations
So now that you have picked a designated outing day, it is time to do route optimization. Plan your entirety so that you have a continuous loop of stops rather than going back and forth. This helps avoid an unnecessary splurge of fuel.
It can indeed be the ultimate oil shock shield
For a WFH system to be the ultimate oil shock shield, you have to be aware that fuel cost can trickle down to everything. Once it surges, there will be a surge in everything tangible and intangible. Everything that you need to live, either decently or in comfort, will be affected.
That is why it is crucial to sit down and consider making these changes to your routine. WFH is just the beginning of saving. It entails a lot more to make it the ultimate oil shock shield.
So it’s time to make that little bit more comfy for work. Make sure you have your ergonomic chairs and standing desks in optimum condition too.
