This guest post from Tammy Strobel is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes. Tammy blogs about simple living at RowdyKittens, and is the author of Simply Car-Free and Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself.
Five years ago, my husband and I lived what most would consider a normal middle-class lifestyle. We were young professionals renting a large two-bedroom apartment in a suburb, had two cars, and $30,000 in debt (a majority of which came from student and car loans).
At the time, I worked in investment management and talked to clients about the importance of long-term investments, creating an emergency savings fund, paying off credit-card balances, and being aware of expenses. Yet, I wasn’t doing these basic things in my own life. Something had to change. Our excess debt was creating too much anxiety and stress. Rather than spend so much time on the hedonic treadmill, we wanted to restructure our lives around solid relationships and community.
So, we decided to take a step back and reflect on our behavior and budget. One of our biggest expenses — other than rent — was our cars. We’d never seriously considered selling our cars until we analyzed the cost. The numbers were shocking! Car payments, interest, insurance, gas, and maintenance added up to a total of $10,000 per year.
I’d love to say that we sold our cars to benefit the environment, but the decision was based solely on our financial well-being. For us, it was the best way to pay off our debt quickly.
If you’re able-bodied and live in a city, it’s possible to go car-free. With that being said, going car-free in a rural area can be very difficult. However, it may be possible to sell one of your cars to save money.
To make our car-free transition easier, we decided to move closer to my work. We rented a small one-bedroom apartment about a mile from my office, and that decision allowed me to bike or walk to work.
If the idea of going car-free or car-lite appeals to you, consider the following.
Do a cost/benefit analysis
Even if you’ve paid off your car, do you really know the true cost?
American Automobile Association (AAA) puts out an awesome publication every year to help you assess the true cost of your car. The cost analysis will help you calculate the true cost of car ownership. These costs are direct costs to you as a car owner, but don’t include the societal and health costs of owning a vehicle.
According to the AAA study, the average American spends over $9,000 a year to own a vehicle — that’s about $750 per month. The figure includes car payments, insurance, gas, oil, car washes, registration fees and taxes, parking, tools and repairs.
Bikes at Work, Inc. points out that “car ownership costs are the second largest household expense in the U.S. In fact, the average household spends almost as much on their cars as they do on food and health care combined for their entire family.”
Talk to your partner
If you want to go car-free and have a partner, you need to talk with them about your idea. Not all couples will be able to find a car-free solution. Before discussing the idea, create a budget and a list of pros and cons. This wil help you discuss the proposal more effectively.
Take a test ride
If you don’t want to do something as drastic as selling your car, try going car-free for a week — or a month. Park your car in the garage, and don’t use it. And at the end of the test period, evaluate how you felt and whether or not living without a car is best for your life circumstance. Again, going car-free isn’t for everyone, even some who really want to make it happen.
Consider health-care costs
Going car-free is a great way to get your move on, to keep your mind and body healthy. These economic benefits go beyond just vehicle costs. You can reduce your short-terms expenses by ditching your gym membership, and decrease your long-term health care costs by reducing your risk for heart disease.
By selling our cars, my husband and I gained a significant amount of financial freedom, improved our health and decreased our stress levels.
Further reading
There are a lot of resources online that will help you go car-free, including:
- How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
- How to Bike Commute with a Baby
- Ecovelo
- How to Make Biking Mainstream: Lessons from the Dutch
I once considered car ownership a necessity; I “needed” a car to get to and from work. I never imagined that I’d be commuting by bike, going bike camping, and having so much fun without a car. Making the decision to structure our lives around biking and alternative forms of transportation has changed our lives.
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Ride On!
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As someone just about to buy a (business) car, but also considering a bike – this was a great read.
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Good for you!
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This sounds awesome! It must be very satisfying and exhilarating to ride a self-powered vehicle everywhere you go! I would love to do this, but my wife and I just work too far away from home to make it happen.
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I love this post. I live in Chicago and take the el (that’s the subway here) to work every day. I am trying to make the transition to a car-free life. To test it out, I went 2 months this summer without driving and figure I would save $150 month in maintenance, gas and insurance. I’d get another $150 a month in rent for my parking spot.
But a car also has meaning in freedom and independence and its harder than I thought to actually pull the trigger and sell it. Anyone out there using a car-sharing service like zipcar? How often do you use it? Are they usually available when you need them?
PS I ride a bike in the suburbs for exercise but don’t think its safe as a vehicle for commuting in the city. At least not in my neighborhood.
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@Suzanne. I moved to Boston from the suburban Midwest a little under a year ago, sold my car, and rely on walking, the T, and ZipCar. ZipCar is completely reliable, and I was delighted to discover there are actually three ZipCar vehicles that “live” behind my apartment and many more in the surrounding blocks. (One’s a truck, which was very handy for transporting furniture.) I do all my grocery shopping on foot and basically use the ZipCar only when my boyfriend and I want to get out of town or do an errand in the suburbs. It’s very affordable–we’re saving hundreds of dollars per month this way. I also love not having to worry about car maintenance or insurance. You can check on the ZipCar website to see exactly which cars “live” in your area. I realize this sounds like a paid endorsement–it’s not, and I don’t work for ZipCar. I’m just very happy they exist. When I lived in the Midwest, I used my car only once or twice per week and mostly for grocery shopping. That’s a silly waste of resources. Sharing cars and living close to work/friends make so much more sense, if you can manage it.
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Anonymous #5 beat me to it. I have to commute to work via car right now, but when I lived in the city I totally relied on Zipcar for any major weekend Target trips or big grocery runs. It’s so convenient and you only pay for the time you need the car. Also, GAS AND INSURANCE ARE INCLUDED IN YOUR RENTAL. I repeat, Gas and insurance are included. I seriously can’t say enough to praise this service. It’s great.
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It is certainly much easier to be car free in a metro area than in a rural area. When I lived and worked in DC, my apartment was five blocks from my office and the food store (albeit small) was only a few blocks in another direction. The Metro got me to most anyplace I needed to go. If not, there was always a nearby cab.
Now, years later, I live in rural NH. My workplace is 17 miles in one direction and my wife’s is 25 miles in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, not conducive to car free or even to being a one car family
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Count me as one of those people that would really like to make this work but can’t right now for a variety of reasons (location in a suburb of a suburb, complete lack of any sort of public transporation, two kids etc. etc.). However, my husband and I intend to move in town to a historic and very walkable neighborhood in time. At that point we are going to drop at least one of our cars. In the mean time we do what we can to keep our car costs down – drive paid off cars until they fall apart underneath us, keep on top of regular maintenance, combine errands, don’t drive someplace if we don’t absolutely have to etc.
I applaud you making the shift and hope to join you sooner rather than later.
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I would love to live a car-free life, but it is just not practical for us. We live in a suburb with 0 mass transit. With 3 kids and such, I would never get to see their sports events or anything. Not to mention that grocery shopping for 3 teens would probably kill me if I didn’t have a car!
Glad you found a great alternative that is good for you and saves some money. Maybe someday…
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Love this post. This spring/summer I biked to work for about 2 months (a large project requiring crazy long hours forced me off the habit by mid summer sadly), and it was wonderful. I only wish I lived in a slightly more temperate climate so I could continue the habit longer into the year.
One of the biggest benefits I found to biking for my daily commute was the peace of mind it gave me. What would normally be a drive listening to the news, grumbling at slow moving traffic and generally rushing into the start of my day turned into a 30 min period of mental meditation while my legs furiously worked the pedals.
At the end of the day, it gave me time to mentally reset and decompress from the workday before I got home. This way I wasn’t carrying the baggage of a rough day home with me. My wife commented on several occasions how much she liked it when I biked to/from work because I was in such a better mood.
While going car-free isn’t an option where I live (Michigan, the only state that is likely, by policy, against alternative forms of transportation), in warmer months I am trying to go car-low, using it only to grocery shop, or travel to events. I look forward to some day living somewhere that it’s possible to get rid of the car altogether.
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Thanks for this great article! And kudos on joining the bike commuter ranks.
I too was one of those people who clung to my car: I always said I kept it because it was paid off and because I have 2 big dogs. But really, I relished the sense of freedom and didn’t want to give it up. Then my car died and I realized that it made NO financial sense to replace it. I’ve been car-free for nearly a year now.
I use my bike as my primary form of transportation. I commute about 10 miles round-trip each day (in crazy, downtown Washington DC traffic), plus do most of my shopping and errand-running by bike. And I’m no crazy daredevil–I’m a 34 year old lawyer.
Zipcar is a godsend (I don’t work for them either!). It’s far less intimidating to be car-free when I know that I can rent one so easily anytime I need to. I use Zipcar when I need to haul the pups around, pick up their food (in 40 lb. bags), or take longer trips.
As for getting more comfortable on the bike: there are a lot of great resources on the web. Plus, see if you have an advocacy group in your area. Here in DC, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) offers Confident City Cycling classes for aspiring bike commuters and/or urban cyclists.
My year of bike commuting has been delightful. I was so anxious about trying it the first few times and I remember full well how daunting the logistics seemed. But now I can say that none of it turned out to be that complicated.
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Don’t set this up as a false dichotomy; either being car-free or using a car all the time for everything. You can bike (or walk, or use transit) to the greatest extent possible and still save money on transportation.
I ride to work most days (in Seattle, yes, even in the dark and wet of winter) but use our car for grocery shopping and on weekend trips. By reducing the amount we drive, we save on insurance rates and obviously gas. This has the added benefit of keeping my money in my pocket rather than going to Middle Eastern despots who fund terrorism, ExxonMobil, or corrupt dictators who happen to sit on huge reserves of oil.
You can also raise your insurance deductibles to the greatest limit you’re comfortable with and save money that way too.
Readers might also want to check into something called Location Efficient Mortgages that have been piloted in a few cities. The idea is that you get more money from the bank for a home purchase because you don’t need money for a car. This can make home ownership in an expensive city a little more tolerable.
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I lived car-free for several years in my late 20′s and early 30′s, when I lived in an urban area with a relatively mild climate. I was lucky enough to score an apartment a half-block from a grocery store, a good Vietnamese restaurant, and a bus stop. (What more do you need in life, really?) I biked most places, including my job about 7 miles away. In another stroke of luck, my office building had a shower in it. I would have been OK doing a quick sponge bath after my commute, but I have to say that shower was very nice.
This was before ZipCar, so my husband and I would rent a car every month or two to run errands, go on short trips, etc. This was much cheaper than owning a car. And, considering the quality of car we would have been able to afford, the rental cars were nicer and more reliable too.
Now we live in a very rural area with an extreme climate, and being car-free would be quite difficult. Even though I live in a beautiful place with abundant hiking, riding, and cross-country ski trails right out the back door, I got *much* more exercise living in the middle of a city than I do now. Biking and walking, even (actually, I would say especially) at a leisurely pace and wearing street clothes, is fantastic for your physical and mental health!
I think the car-free life would be most difficult for suburban or rural people with children, or anybody with multiple little ones. My sister, her boyfriend, and their two-year-old live in an urban area and do fine with the bus and ZipCar. But I don’t think they could do it with two children.
Still – most people only have little children at home for a small percentage of their total lifespan. So even if being car-free doesn’t work for you now, it might still be possible sometime in the future!
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I think that climate really only matters if you don’t have good public transportation. I don’t think the weather in Chicago is really that much of a hindrance. Digging my car out from the snow, driving on the perma-layer of ice, and waiting in the cold for it to warm up is no incentive to keep my car. Besides, there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. ; )
@Anonymous, there are a couple of zipcars at the end of my block. They cost about $10/hr, but I’m not sure they’ll always be there when I need them. There are others nearby though. I walk to the grocery store (even in winter).
Someone just say “Suzanne, sell your car for pete’s sake!”
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We own 4 cars. We are a large family. We live in an area that is widely spread out with too many people, too many cars and zero infrastructure for bikes. In fact, biking around here will get you killed. It is therefore unfortunately not an option. Our employment (and college for the kids) is also too far away from home for a bike to be an option. Oh, the things we realize when it’s too late! We should’ve bought a house near our job years ago and stayed there instead of moving around 5 or 6 times LOL because here are my car expenses for the past three years which do NOT include insurance, gasoline, car payments or registration expenses. These expenses are purely maintenance and repair expenses:
2008 $6206
2009 $1392
2010 $5831 (so far)
Here I was thinking we were saving money by driving cars that were paid off long ago as we haven’t had an auto loan in years. Add another couple of thousand dollars a year for insurance and gasoline and I am sitting here feeling rather foolish.
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My car recently died and I’m trying to decide what to do about a replacement or going without so thanks to you all for the Zipcar endorsements. I’ve wondered whether they were as great as they sound. There are about 5 within 1/2 mile of me. I could probably manage with a Zipcar once a week but I have the same “loss of freedom” concern written about by other posters.
For November I have rented a car by the month. At first I thought the price was ridiculous – $650 or so for the full month – but when I consider a new car payment, registration, taxes and insurance it’s really pretty close to the actual costs to buy.
Renting has really helped me think about the actual daily cost of a car. I regular ask myself “am I using this car enough to justify $21.50 a day?” When I don’t use it all for a full day, I feel as though I just shredded a $20 bill.
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#16 –
You make a great point here.
Nice tie in to William’s question yesterday too. He pointed out that moving further out of town (as many posters recommended) would require him to buy and maintain a car and that would reduce the cost savings of the cheaper location.
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It is really interesting how some countries in the world really embrace cycling and others don’t.
In most of the Netherlands, Japan and China, cycling is a way of life. Near train stations you can see thousands and thousands of bicycles. Other countries like the U.S, Canada and even Turkey, Switzerland, etc. don’t really have that culture. There is a natural assumption that cars are the only way to commute but they are not.
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Great post! My husband and I eliminated our second car a few years ago and haven’t missed it. And sometimes our current vehicle sits in the garage for a week without use (we work from home).
Zipcar may be a possibility for us–I’m off to check it out!
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I love biking to work! Now I live too far to bike alone, but I bike to the central bus station and take the bus to the town I work in. Luckily Denver has good public transit.
I think people in the US with kids assume they can’t use biking as a form of transit. My officemate when I worked in Germany would bike farther than me with his two kids to take them to their day care before coming to work. And that is in Germany, where the weather is not so great, in my opinion. If you don’t want to bike your kids around, fine, but don’t shift blame to the kids.
It is scary at first, but I think biking has made me a more alert driver (we still have one car). I just keep my eyes constantly scanning for someone trying to kill me. But, considering that I drive an economy car on the highway full of SUV’s, I should probably always be this alert. So it is good training. I’ve been a bike commuter for 8 years and have never had an accident. But don’t forget to wear a helmet! Unless you don’t really like your head that much…
As another reader said, snow and cold are not a problem for biking, if you have the right clothing. I get easily cold, but I’ve managed to find the right combo of clothes for different weather conditions.
Ditto on the fact that, unlike driving, biking can be a lot more relaxing, depending on what your route is like.
This is something I really think we should get more people to do! It would help with our overuse of oil, with our obesity epidemic thus lowering the cost of health care, it would help combat global warming and make us a little less stressed out. If you can possibly try it, even once a week, give it a shot and see how you like it.
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I work on a military base in a city. It was nice to commute to work via a bus since there is a stop right outside my house. I was saving all kinds of money and loved the convenience; I also valued the safety as well since I wasn’t on the road constantly in the city. Last year, they closed the gate I used to get on and off the base and now I have to walk several miles to get to where I need to work. I have complained, but nothing has been done.
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If you are into biking you’ll get a kick out of the following statistic from Holland (where I am from) there are more bikes overhere than people. Currently there close to 17 miilion inhabitants.
I myself have three so that helps I guess !
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I would recommend as a resource:
http://www.bikeleague.org/
http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/education/course_schedule.php
The League of American Bicyclists was founded in 1880 (yes, 1880) to support the creation of better roads for bicycling.
They have a great education program, which can help people feel more comfortable riding with traffic.
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Super post, Tammy!
We are a family of five, living in the suburbs and have one sub compact car that we drive about 10,000 miles a year. Most of the car miles are used picking someone up late when buses don’t run, or involve visiting our aging parents. My husband commutes via bike and train. The kids use a combo of city transit, bikes and walking. I run most errands on my bike.
While carfree may not be possible for everyone, carlite is definitely something most people could consider! http://www.ecovelo.info
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I am another carshare user (not Zipcar, but City Carshare, a Bay Area nonprofit that provides equivalent service).
The thing I’ve learned since joining is that it *feels* really expensive to rent a car for $10/hour or so, even know i know that it saves me lots of money on a monthly or yearly basis. We are so used to feeling like each individual car trip is more or less free, that $40 to rent a car to go to the beach for a few hour seems expensive. This is, overall, good: it makes the costs of car use more visible, and therefore allows me to respond to the price incentives more appropriately. But it’s easy to feel like it would be cheaper to own a car, even though I know that’s not the case.
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We’ve had two cars for only 9 years of our 30 year marriage. Except when we lived in Portland and then one of the suburbs (we used the bus system in Ptld. and Lake Oswego), we made it a point to live close to one person’s work. We took preschoolers to a daycare located near work or on the way to work. I walked to work and back for four years in Colorado (except when it was 20 below–then I got a ride from a neighbor) where public transportation was not available in the town where we lived. Our kids were 9 and 14 when we got the second car, which we gave up when the youngest left for college. We managed to go to all their school activities even with one car. It does take planning, especially when you have children, but it’s certainly doable. Our best years for transportation expenses were the five where my husband telecommuted. I wish this option were available for more people because it’s certainly better for the environment and for the wallet.
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I wish this story had a stronger ending. I think the resources she suggests and ideas are great, but I would have liked to learn more about the end product. Do they have emergency savings now? Do they like their new lifestyle? Are the out of debt fully? I feel like it needed more of an ending.
I also did appreciate how she talked about this being more difficult in rural areas. I read so many stories like this that don;t account for this issue.
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I love biking. I studied abroad in the Netherlands, and I biked/took the train everywhere there. Right now, I live in hour from school, but I actually got a small apartment where I go to school so that I only have to drive back and forth twice a week (I bike to campus the other days).
My life goal is to live in an area where I can go car free or be a one-car family. My boyfriend and I are discussing, but it’s both hard for each of us to think of giving up our cars, especially since we’re not yet married.
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Great post and interesting comments!
When I bought my appartment I chose to buy one in the historical center of my town. It costed a bit more than in the suburbs but had bus and tramstops right outside the door to use in winter, great bicycle paths for the warmer months and work was in walking distance all year round. For me the extra investment in this property was a long term choice. Financially that excluded also being able to buy a car, but then again having good public transport there was no need… Now I live abroad for awhile and rent it out for a fair but good price, having been very lucky with tenants as it is a very attractive area.
So, perhaps one solution if one want to try to go car free as much as possible is to search for an area to work and live in which has good public transport even though you get less square meters for your money? Might not be for everyone but just give it a thought…
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I love riding my bike and use it to run errands in my neighborhood, but the only major obstacle to use it as a major form of transportation are idiot drivers. Especially the ones who are constantly sucking on a cellphone to quell their oral fixation. Horrible. If you are one of those people, shame on you– please hang up and drive. I’m sure your chatter can wait until you stop the car.
There is also a fair amount of drunk driving in New Mexico, so that’s another fear. On the plus side, the city of Albuquerque has bike racks on its buses, so you can potentially use the bike for long commutes. But somehow I find the traffic to be very bike-unfriendly, except for some very specific routes in very specific neighborhoods.
So while biking is good for the heart, the benefit (for me) is offset by the risk of a deadly accident. As a result, I get my cardio endorphin kicks at the gym every morning.
Having said that, we are a one-truck couple, the beast is paid for, the insurance is cheap, and it gets little use (mostly just for weekend shopping or work projects). I work mostly at home, my wife walks to work, I bike in safe areas, and there’s even a zipcar nearby–we have a zipcar membership in case of emergencies (e.g., wife goes to visit her parents and I need a car for some reason), but we haven’t used it for a year– mostly we ask friends for a ride when we need to (e.g. truck getting maintenance).
I wouldn’t want to live with 2 cars–taking care of one is enough hassle! And I’d rather be shot than have a commuting lifestyle– I love to drive, but I DETEST traffic. Except in New York– Iove driving in New York, for some reason– everybody is quick and alert.
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I have had two different experiences with bike communiting. About ten years ago when I lived in Tuscaloosa, AL, I tried bike-commuting to work, which was farily close to where I lived. Tuscaloosa at that time had no bike lanes and car drivers treated me like an inconvenience and annoyance. After multiple attempts at bike commuting, I opted to drive my car. I was not safe on my bike in that community.
I currently live in a college-town in Oregon that sports many bike lanes. Bike commuting is much more feasable for me now.
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We have two cars, but hardly ever use them- I would say the average is about 1-2 car trips per week, and the 1 is for groceries (I could easily get my groceries by bike, but my boyfriend eats too much to do that!) We bike to campus pretty much every single day and if the weather is bad, we have good busses. On-campus parking is prohibitively expensive (75 cents an hour.)
We should really sell one car. The problem is that each of us is attached to our cars and we’re not yet attached enough to each other to consider the other one’s car “ours.” Someday.
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Some interesting comments here. It makes me think about how our society will function when we see an end to cheap oil. Many experts suggest that we’ve already passed peak oil production. From here on out, it’s going to be much more difficult (and expensive) to extract oil…which will mean an end to such luxuries as commuting. James Kunstler suggests that suburban life as we know it today will simply collapse as a result of a lack of cheap fossil fuels. I’m inclined to agree. It will be interesting to watch things play out over my lifetime. We’re in a phase in history where we are going to see a lot of change, and I’m not sure all of it will be for the better.
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Great Read! I have been wondering if it is worth going down to one car. We think we are dependent on 2 cars, so I will park mine for a week to see how it goes walking to work even in the blustery MN winters!
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Great post. Thanks for sharing. I think this brings up a great side-point: many people claim they can’t go car-free because of where they live — in an exurb, no transit, etc. This is probably the truth now, but it’s the result of active choices these people have made. People don’t just suddenly wake up and find themselves living in the suburbs.
Nobody expects someone to use a bike everywhere if they live way out in the sticks. Part of embracing a lifestyle that is car-free is making complementary decisions about where to live. The next time these people move, they can consider entering the possibility of a car-free lifestyle into their calculus.
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If you’re a couple it’s good if you both could add more exercise though ’cause your savings will go out the window when only one gets sexy and the other gets wide
Only partially kidding unfortunately 
If you’re able to walk/bike/take public transportation you’ll save a lot of money.
Money that can be used on car rental. I knew some people when I lived in big cities that never owned a car. Whenever they needed a car they would rent one.
Weekly shopping trip? Rent a car on weekends and go to the market the mall etc.
Need to transport a lot of stuff, rent an suv.
Need to pick up some new plants, shrubs and a mountain of mulch from the nursery? Rent a pick up.
It gives you a lot of flexibility compared to buying one big SUV because once in a while you buy big stuff, and it’s usually cheaper if you find alternate ways to commute daily.
This is a good way for a 2 car household to cut down to 1 car.
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Tammy,
NIce post!
-Katy
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My husband and I are retired and have had only one car for the past year. It has worked out fine. We sold two old cars and bought a new car to keep maintenance costs down. We don’t live close to mass transit and are too old to bike places, so we keep a close eye on the calendar to know when to schedule appointments, lunches with friends, etc. The big surprise when we sold one car is that our insurance did not go down. We were getting the multiple car discount, so that was gone when we only had one car. But, of course, we got rid of the other expenses related to keeping a second car.
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I really enjoyed this post.
We’re in the process of going down to one car. My husband had a new opportunity in more bike friendly/mass transit friendly city than the one we live in now. He’s been walking most days or taking mass transit when it is too cold/rain. He has lost at least 15 lbs since August. He has only been using his car to go to the grocery store. I haven’t fully moved to the new city yet as I can’t find a job. The plan is once I get moved over there we’ll sell his car and keep my car (both cars are paid for, but mine more full efficient). Depending on where I get a job I might be able to take mass transit and then we won’t need to use our car much. Both our parents live in rural areas so we have to keep 1 car so we can still be able to see our families or if we want to go on any camping or road trips.
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This is a cool story but its not very practical for me. I live in the midwest and we don’t have the best bus service here. This only works if you have friends and family who are willing to help each other out, my friends and even my bf we’re all on different schedules so its not like they could help even if they wanted to.
In the midwest everything is so spread out, even if I wanted to bike to work, I would end up stinky and there’s no gym that’s close to my job where I could shower and bike back to work. I also like having my own car and driving it, does this make me evil? I don’t think so.
One time when I had a Chick-Fil-A craving, the closest location was in Iowa and my bf drove 2 hours because he wanted me to have it since I haven’t been there in over 6 months. It was so nice to have that road trip and we could have only had that with a car, it was spontaneous too.
You can’t really do that with biking or with zipcar. Sometimes its nice to have a car of your own. I don’t think people who have cars are bad people. Sometimes I get the feeling that the simplicity movement is trying to make us feel bad for owning them. Its nice that Tammy Strobel loves biking and that it works for her, to each his own right?
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$9000 per year to own a car? Wow, that sounds a lot. I know I do not spend that much on my car. Then again, I drive toyota corolla. I guess people who drive $30,000 cars would probably pay over $9000 per year. Either case, it does seem a lot and people don’t usually think of it this way.
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I’m curious – for those who do NOT own a vehicle, how do you manage visiting family? I’m thinking of during the holidays – are you only an hour or two away, where someone can come get you? Are you thousands of miles away, so that taking public transit to the airport is the only feasible option?
I sit in the “sweet” spot of 700 miles away where a drive takes 10 hours, but flying would require a connecting flight, take 5 hours of flight/wait time (the time inside the airport security), be hundreds of dollars more than auto fuel, and relying on family to drive the hour to the airport to come get you, often in poor winter weather that could cause air travel delays!
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Maybe some time someone could review “Zip Car”. Might be an interesting read for those of us who can’t imagine how it actually works.
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@Tyler: I live about 600 miles from my nearest family. I take transit when feasible, but driving is often the best way to get there (esp. if I’m taking my pups along). In those cases, I just rent a car or take a Zipcar for a few days. As Sarabeth was explaining, it can hurt to shell out as much as a few hundred $$ in one fell swoop, but it’s still less expensive for me than owning a car.
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@36 Well we chose Boston and dropped to one car partly because of the fabulous public transportation. It’s truly fantastic.
Then I found a job after 25 months of unemployment–in Portsmouth, NH. Good thing we kept my car because the commuter train going from the South End in Boston to Portsmouth isn’t so great (far better if you do the normal commute).
Then my husband (thankfully) found a job but it’s in Lexington, MA and there’s no way he can take the T to work without walking like 5+ miles. So now he has a car too.
You could argue this is our choice but I don’t see it that way. Our condo association is embroiled in a lawsuit and until it’s settled, no one can sell.
So we drive
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I currently commute four hours a day to and from work, but only sixteen minutes of that is driving.
I wish I could take the bus, but to get my six fifty am train I would have to get the five thirty am bus as it goes all around the world before getting to the station, then in the evening the bus would get me home at seven thirty pm, whereas the drive gets me home at six thirty pm.
But the plus side is that I am not paying any rent while I do this commute and am saving money for a second house…
I am growing to love the train trip to work, I sleep in the mornings and read in the afternoons. I could drive to work, but to be honest I prefer the time to myself to relax and destress!
S
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What an awesome post, thank you!
We’ve never owned more than one car. I’m a wussypants – won’t ride in snow (and we live in Minneapolis) so when we bought our house we chose to be on a bus line. But I know a lot of people who commute more than 10 miles each way, all year, even in our cold winters. My partner has always bike commuted year-round.
To me, *not* depending on a car is very freeing. It’s terrible to be completely car-dependent and have your car break down – every time we have a winter storm half my coworkers are late because of bad traffic/slow plowing. The buses only run slow a few times a year, and bikes never do!
But it is nice to have the one car – both for out of town trips (both sets of grandparents live 300+ miles away) and for the occasional large/heavy haulage items. Still, I think most people who say they “need” a car, even when they can’t afford it, don’t really go out of town that much – we go about once a month and I don’t know any families with little kids who travel that often.
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Google “Interurbane/trolly/Iowa” to see what was once possible for public transportation in the midwest. Its sad that 70 years ago you could travel about anyware in the continental U.S. and not have to have a car. Now its almost impossible unless you are in a large urbane area.
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Great post. I too cycle everywhere and don’t own a car.
However I think some people romantise the bike lifestyle. Whilst I *love* cycling, it’s not all sunshine and fitness. It’s risky (not been hit by a car but I’ve had close calls), and you get wet and cold quite regularly!
That said, it does save me lots of money, keeps me fit and I love it. In fact my latest blog post (click my name above) is all about this topic.
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