One of my two flatmates caught her plane this morning for her vacation overseas, ending our time together as flatmates. Our 3 bedroom house now has one empty room, which is proving hard to fill. I’m hoping this is a temporary situation. Neither of us want to pay the extra rent on the empty room, the fixed bills – split between 2 instead of 3, nor have just the empty space that’s left over. With my pending trip home, we’ve got one week to get this sorted. Unfortunately, this is a horrible time of year. Being summer, the bulk of the imported students have left the city, emptying a large number of rental bedrooms behind. There’s just not enough people looking for rooms right now. At the worst case scenario, the two of us would have to pay for the room for the remainder of the lease – nearly 3 months. On the plus side, there’s an empty room in which I can do paid massage…

December is always an odd month. With the holidays and events going on all month, it’s hard to know in advance how it’s going to go. Which is why it’s hard to know if I should buy a bus pass or not.

There are two alternatives for busing to work – or, at least, paying for it. I can either buy a full-month’s pass for $165 or I can pay for daily tickets. With daily tickets, there are still options. I can either get a $10 full-day ticket or pay by zones, which works out to $10.40, going from home to work and back. So, the question is whether I’ll travel enough during the month to warrant a bus pass? At $10/day, I’d have to work 16 days to cover the cost. I’ve got 12, before my flight back to Canada. On the other hand, there are some trips that I’ll take during the week or on the weekend – short trips, but great if I’m running late. Those begin to add up once I actually have to pay for them.

I think I’d rather have a bus pass, but at a quick calculation, it’s about $20 more expensive that I’ll use this month. It does leave me wondering, though, if utilisation would go up if they priced bus passes more competitively.