Being frugal on the bus.

I use travel 10s. I walk as often as I can, partly to save money and partly because I just generally walk as much as I can. I rarely use a MyBus 1 at all. I walk a MyBus 2 distance once or twice a week, so I usually manage to carry my MyBus 2 travel 10 over into the next week.

When the opal card comes in the cost works out differently. You get 8 rides at the full price ($3.50 each) and then any trips after that are free until the end of the week (cos it's capped at $28p/w for the MyBus 2 distance). So it won't save me money if I walk once a week, in fact if I walk I'm increasing the cost per trip. That's bad. I'll be able to get better value by taking as many bus trips as I can. To bring the cost under $28 a week I'd have to walk to work 3 times and then anywhere else I go on top of that as well. I've thought of one sneaky trick though, to go a MyBus 3 distance such as city to Maroubra I can get off half way (eg Kingsford) and get on the next bus to come along (they are very frequent), which makes two free bus trips instead of one paid trip.