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One Car Family |
12 Comments |
| By Steve Balogh in Green Living | June 4, 2006 | ||
We are now a one car family. I signed over my title to my beautiful car to its proud new owner yesterday. Gone is the convenience, and flexibility that a second car provided, but also gone is the debt. We felt a large weight lift off of us after we drove away from the final sale. One less debt payment to make, less insurance due, 1/2 the gas bill, and 1/2 the maintenance. All this money will now go to our other debts, as we strive to become debt free (more on this in future posts).
Two things allowed us to make this decision: 1. My supportive wife and her preference for public transportation over driving to work, and 2. A bus stop minutes from our home and steps from her work.
A second car is considered to be a “necessity” by most families living in the U.S. today. The thought of having to share an automobile would make many cringe. To be fair, some suburbs are not condusive to walking, many areas have limited to no public transportation, and we tend to live miles from where we work. However, we kept many of those things in mind when we bought this home. Being less than a mile from the grocery store and many local business, and being on a downtown bus line were all things that we looked for when buying our home – and made this decision possible.
It is a big step, no doubt, to live with one car in the burbs. We will face inconveniences, and frustrations. However these will be limited. Perhaps we will cave in when the winter months are upon us. Maybe we’ll be used to it by then, and can continue to “walk the talk”.
*aside – How much does your car cost you?
Let’s do a quick example.
$378/mo (average car payment) +
$80/mo (insurance payment) +
$120/mo (gasoline = 1000 mi @ 24 mpg @ $2.89/gal) +
$30/mo (maintenance, car washes, fuzzy dice, etc.)
= $608/mo total
$608 x 12 = $7,296 after tax dollars. Pre-tax dollars = $11,882 (at 31.6% avg tax rate) This means that you need to earn over 11 thousand dollars a year to keep old matilda on the road. At $15/hour you are spending 38% of your income on your car, at $20/hr it’s 29%. Obviously the more you make, the less of a percentage that the car takes up, but considering that you spend somewhere around a 1/3 of your time earning the right to drive your car – do you work for your car? Does owning a car work for you?
Some questions for our readers: What would you do with an extra $10,000 per year? Have you ever entertained going to one car in your family, or abstaining from a car altogether? What things limit your ability to reduce your driving?
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aaron said,
congratulations!
Anonymous said,
One Car Family…
We are now a one car family. I signed over my title to my beautiful car to its proud new owner yesterday. Gone is the convenience, and flexibility that a second car provided, but also gone is the debt. We felt a large weight lift off of us after we dro…
Phoenix said,
Congratulations! You’ve touched upon so many important things to consider when buying a home/working… proximity and availability of public transportation. It’s unfortunate that some people don’t have the public transportation of their city-dwelling brethren… more people should be upset about this and either decide to make a commitment to NOT contribute to urban sprawl and/or push their public officials to stop spending money on road expansions and, instead, place those tax dollars in reliable public transportation. Good luck!
Rebecca Carter said,
I too am part of a one car family! I guess we have it easier than some:
We live downtown.
My husband works 4 blocks away.
I work from home.
The car doesn’t even leave the parking lot at least a couple of days a week.
Lauren said,
That’s great! We only have one car, and it was easy for us to get by while living in Boston. I took the subway to work, and my husband worked from home. Now we’re about to move to a rural/suburban area in Pennsylvania to do some small/tiny/microscopic “homesteading” and I worry about how to manage with one car. I’m going to take the regional rail system into work, but my husband will have to drop me off at the train station in the morning. Proximity to a train station was a key consideration for us. It’s funny how many people found that surprising! Anyway, congrats on making the move!
Mike said,
thats awesome! I wish I had that conveniance I live miles from the nearest bus stop and there are no central downtowns where I live so car pooling is next to impossible. As a result I am actually going another way and becoming a two car PERSON haha I am buying a small car for daily driving and keeping my larger car for trips
GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow : Blog Archive : The Savings of Car-lessness said,
[...] Puke Green has a good write up of the amount of money that you can save by going car-less. (I did some of the same calculations when we decided to become a one-car family.) It’s amazing when you consider how many of the hours you work in a day, or paychecks in a year that you dedicate to paying for your wheels. I’m convinced that a lot people could probably improve their lives and finances by doing the same, but most never seriously consider it. Giving up a car is often seen as a bizarre drastic step backwards. Society teaches us to view car ownership as a sign of growing up, a rite of passage on the way to becoming an adult, and we hesitate to cross back over that threshold. Many see cars as a status symbol to show off their monetary “success” and could not bear the loss of face they might feel from not having a car, no matter what it costs them. These old-fashioned views keep many people from looking at car ownership objectively. [...]
Sustainability, Environment, Progressive Politics, Peak Oil, Being Green. - The Good Human » One family gives up one car and saves a ton said,
[...] GroovyGreen.com – Start Today :: Save Tomorrow ? One Car Family June 5th, 2006 [...]
nicole said,
I am so excited, my husband and I finally decided to become a one car family!! not to mention all the money we’ll save. But you can’t watch anything or read any newspaper without hearing about the problems that cars are causing to our wonderful earth. I am happy that we will be helping and doing our part to reduce our “footprints”.
Single Car Family: Surviving in the Suburbs with One Car : Eco Child’s Play said,
[...] living with one car when the kids get older. Still, I want to try, and this is one eco-battle/financial scrap I’m determined to win. Here are our arguments. What do you think my chances [...]
Lindsey said,
My husband and I have shared a car for about 3 years. We have a 3 year old son and live in the suburbs. My husband commutes about 40 miles each day for work. I teach out of my home in the afternoons, and often in the evenings I am off somewhere in the state playing with symphony orchestras.
Pros: -The money savings is great. I feel so good about doing my part to help with environmental pollution. Not worrying about maintenance issues with a second car saves me a headache. On days where I really need the car, I take him and we get a chance to hang out on the ride there. My errands get smooshed into one day – I find I am way more productive on these days, and probably spend less because I can’t conveniently go to the store on a whim. I am also training for a marathon – so we purchased our second vehicle (a great jogging stroller). Fits great with my training, and our lifestyle.
Cons: What family/friends think is my biggest stressor. Some people view our car sharing as a bit ridiculous, especially in suburbia-ville. Also, trying to carpool with other suburbians who are not concerned with being green and saving money, to them it can come across as “mooching” – even if I do play them a bit. So I am finding occasionally this is affecting a few relationships. The days where I need to leave for a performance before my husband gets home are a bit tricky. We just have to plan plan plan way ahead of time and usually we find a good solution for us both.
Some days are harder than others…….but more days than not, my husband and I are grateful for this choice to be a one car family.
Lindsey said,
Oopse, when I said……..”to them it can come across as “mooching” – even if I do play them a bit.” I meant to say “pay them a little”. Changes the context just a bit!