An interesting article at MSN about “Could you get by with one car?” It discusses how many people are moving towards the old trend of one car per family. Rising gas prices and increasing congestion is what is driving many people to reconsider taking public transit and whether a second car is really necessary.
Truth is that DH and I could easily live without our second car. DH is the one who drives to work and on the weekends we try to hang out together so a second car is a true luxury. I am unable to drive to work so I solely use public transit or bike into work.
So for us it is definitely a luxury we are paying for to afford a second car. But I’m not sure I’m ready to take the leap into single car ownership. Mainly because we have two much older paid for cars. I’d have made the leap definitely if we had two expensive newer cars. But with two paid for cars that have already depreciated a significant amount, hence the value of the cars nominal, makes it difficult to give up the convience of having two cars.
We don’t necessarily spend more on gas and definitely not on insurance because of the MA insurance works out. That we’d still have to pay for 2 drivers no matter what the cars are. But it might be different if our insurance was car based instead of driver based. Plus when DH stays out late, it’s nice to have the convience of grocery shopping and going out without waiting for him. I also use the second car to run errans like dropping the dogs off at daycare, doctor, etc.
But this is really on justifications. The truth is it would make more fiscal sense for us to only have one car. We probably would save $200/month because of residual investment value of the second car and slightly less insurance. It would be more but if we had to pay for a zip car rental or regular car rental that would eat into our savings.
Could you live with only one car? Would it be worth it?
5 responses so far ↓
1 Meg from All About Appearances // May 6, 2008 at 3:55 am
My husband and I almost do, but it would be hard for us — or most couples we know — to have access to only one vehicle. And we’re even in a city with half-way decent public transportation!
We have only one car of our own but he gets to use the work van a lot, which is good since we don’t even have to pay for its gas and it leaves me the car. *Most* of the time, though, we still don’t need two vehicles. I work from home and I really don’t like driving or going out alone.
However, during the past few months, I have been taking some college classes, so I’ve had to drive myself there sometimes. The college just up the road a few miles, but it’s too far for me to walk (especially with my instruments in tow), and it’s even on a different spoke of the bus system. A lot of the time my husband has taken me to classes, but I can’t rely on him being able to because our schedules are far from a predictable 9-5.
There was a short period when we did have access to just the one vehicle, but I could take a bus to classes no problem back then because it was a different school and we lived really close to a bus route that was a straight shot there (I also didn’t have to carry any instruments).
2 Jim ~ mydebtblog.com // May 6, 2008 at 4:22 am
My wife and I carpool to work every day because of the gas prices, and we’re both heading the same direction. She drops me off first, goes to her job, and then when she is done, comes to pick me up. My car recently broke down and it wasn’t a huge problem for us to just have one working car. It has really asked the question is it worth having two cars? We own both these cars, and the combined value of them could get us a slightly larger vehicle. I drive a midsize and my wife is a 2 door compact. The gas prices are really putting a strain on what we’re used to paying, and it’s getting worse. Now is the time for domestic oil drilling and reducing our reliance on foreign oil.
3 LivingAlmostLarge // May 9, 2008 at 12:14 am
I am not quite ready to not have a car, but perhaps one day. We both drive compacts so we could trade into one bigger car but I’m not sure it’s worth it.
4 anonymous // May 15, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I’m single, and live in a small city. I don’t even own a car. I’m often surprised at how much people talk about “not being able to do without” because they’ve never taken the time to arrange their lives to support not living with a car. I live 2 blocks from work. I bike to the grocery store. I walk to restaurants. I carry big packages on the bus system. I chose my doctors and shopping destinations based on what’s close - it can totally be done! You just have to sacrifice, like with money.
5 Simon // May 19, 2008 at 6:39 pm
We get by with one car, have done for the past 3 months when we moved into our new place. Its nicely situated between our workplaces, which are only a mile or three up and down the road. I cycle to work, my wife takes the car. She would have a hard time giving up her “independence”, whereas i can zip around quite quickly on my bike (i am the one with the 3 mile trip) like i used to in college. Its not a big issue, occasionally rain is a problem, but generally once we both get home, we are more often than not going places together anyway. Prior to our recent move, we carpooled together which was a bit more hassle as we have slightly different hours, but we found we didnt really need two cars then either.
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