I’m still sifting through the survey responses (and I’m really flattered by the kind responses – you guys are absolutely wonderful and just as I suspected, it feels like I’m writing to a bunch of friends.), but lots of folks wanted to hear more about money and budgeting and just how we can live on less income AND several of you asked about family logistics – so I thought I’d share about something is key to our spending less money and is possibly our largest logistical challenge: owning just one car. For the past 8 years, we’ve shared a car. The same car, in fact, so it’s paid off and will probably need to be replaced soon.
We don’t live in a major metropolitan area – so public transportation isn’t abundant and I only know one other person here who shares a car with her husband. In a culture where most of our family and friends were raised in suburbia, it can seem like we’re not quite “grown ups” – still renting an apartment and sharing a car. It’s just not common in this area to make these choices and be near 30 years old with almost 2 kids. Feeling weird or unusual isn’t always easy, even when we believe it’s the right choice for our family.
A few things we’ve done to make being a one-car family possible:
– Live close enough for one of us to walk or bike to our job.
– Live somewhere that’s walkable so whoever’s at home has stuff to do and doesn’t feel stranded without a car. (This is more true now than our pre-Gabe years when we were both gone to full-time jobs most days).
– Communicate a lot about our plans and schedules and juggling all three of our calendars. So, they’re kind of big things – choosing where to live based on the kind of lifestyle we want to have and choices we’ve made. It can be limiting – even though those super fancy new condos in suburbia are appealing, we just can’t live there with only one car. Owning just one car makes our lives more simple and more complicated.
How our life is a little simpler as a result of being a one car family:
– We do less. Less scheduled activities, less chaos, less time spent in the car.
– We choose to live somewhere that allows us to walk more places. Walking = a slower pace of living.
– In general, we’ve narrowed our choices down. As I learned when I limited my wardrobe options, less choice is more freeing for me. We just can’t do as much of anything if we can’t be anywhere anytime we want to. We have to make decisions like Gabe can’t go to a preschool more than a mile away because it has to be an easy walk if we don’t have access to our car.
How our life is more complicated as a result of being a one car family:
– If I really need the car and Mike is going to be at work for the whole day, I have to drop him off at work and pick him up. Since this year, his job is 20 minutes away instead of 2 miles away (like it will be next year and like it was the past 3 years before this), it adds a whole lot of driving to my day. I don’t enjoy it. (Though I do enjoy the opportunity to get myself some Starbucks on days where I have the car after dropping him off.)
– I have to think about my access to the car when scheduling appointments or making plans. I can’t just operate separate from Mike and his schedule (this is where Google calendar saves the day a LOT). Everything requires more forethought and planning.
– It can be a downright pain and inconvenient and annoying. It can create resentment. It’s hard. Even thought it’s not always easy, it undoubtedly saves us money and, for us, the benefits outweigh the inconveniences. And I’ll share more about that next week!
We’ve had only one car a few times in life. When we were first married, I had no car to contribute to the family. My husband worked on campus about two miles away and for the first two months I stayed at home (until I got a job and then we had to get a car because the job was 45 minutes away). Then at some point that car was totalled and we once again only had his truck. This worked fine until the truck started to die and we traded it in for the car I currently drive. A month or two later we had to get another car because once again, he had a job a hour away and mine was in town. It logistically didn’t work for me to be without a car. However, looking back, I could have biked to work/class (campus was 2 miles away). I just preferred not to. We bought a cheap car ($300) and he drove it for probably a year. Then we bought a new car and got rid of the clunker. I could probably do without a car since I’m home most of the day, but my car doesn’t cost us much at all. I fill up in gas once every two months and my car insurance is super cheap.
I say, if you live in an area where it’s walkable (we don’t and can’t afford the areas of Nashville that are walkable :( ) then it’s great and awesome and totally take advantage!
I’m trying to convince my husband that we can go down to one car (when we move) so that we can save on money, but he’s been fairly anxious about the idea. I’m going to show him your post and show him that it can be doable and worthwhile, we just have to adjust our lifestyle a bit. You make some excellent points!
We just went down to one car and it’s awesome–saves us so much money! We don’t have any kids but we do live in kind of a young part of town that’s very walkable. I think people think we’re weird, being almost 30, married, and wanting no part of the suburbs, but I love our debt-free lifestyle. Glad to see we’re not the only ones making it work!
When we got married, I sold my car and we’ve been a one-car family ever since. Sweets is able to take public transit (or bike) to work. While I have to drive to work, I only drive two days per week. I walk Gavin to daycare on the days I work from home. In fact, other than driving to work, we rarely use the car during the week. Weekends are a bit different – we use the car for errands, going to Gavin’s classes and to meet up with friends, but we’ve rarely had to juggle use of the car because we’re going separate directions. When we eventually move, one of our priorities is to remain close to public transit options, so we won’t have a need for a second car.
Very interesting post. I would LOVE to live in a walkable place and be a one car family… cars are SO expensive and frankly I am not a big fan of driving, I much prefer walking. But unfortunately, it would not work for us. Both of us teach in the suburbs, so even if we moved closer to one of our jobs so one of us could walk, we still wouldn’t be living in a walkable location… unfortunately. It’s funny though- just having a kid has made us need to communicate WAY more about our schedules. I used to just do my thing and probably mention it to Eric, if I remembered haha. Now I have to be like “hey, I want to go for a run, what are you going to be doing at 3:00pm?” haha. We definitely DO NOT have this figured out yet, because right now it’s basically ERic going about whatever he wants to do and me needing to ask permission if I want to do something, which i don’t love… so, it’s something we need to work on.
We’re a one car family and have been for years. Most of the time it’s not a problem since we’re in a very walkable area. If I want to go somewhere further away with the kids I can usually take the bus, and if that won’t work, I just drive my husband to work so I can have the car! It’s a bit of a pain, having to wake the kids up early, but they love going on “adventures”, so it’s worth it! The big test will be this fall when Topher starts preschool and I’ll need the car three days/week. His school is walkable in good weather but we have cold and snow from October to March and … yeah. Not quite as walkable then, especially with a baby!
Ugh, winter!
My husband and I have shared a car since we’ve lived together. He sold his commuting car when he moved from Atlanta back to our little town several hours away. We make it work by combining trips when we both need to go to the next town over, and both living within walking distance of our jobs…thankfully our little town of 3000ish people has a thriving downtown area with a few taxi services and housing nearby! My friends all think we’re crazy, but as long as we’re considerate of each other’s vehicular needs/wants, it saves us a TON of money, is good for our bodies and helpful to not pollute. Rock on, one-car families!
We are also a one car family – even though it might be a little different as we live in Germany. I always get the feeling that in the US driving seems to be a necessity (or it could be that we have a better public transport system?) so we might have it a little easier. We also chose to live in the city where both of us can either walk to work, drive by bike or take the tram. But my fiancé regularly needs the car for his out-of-town court hearings as a lawyer. As I am currently pregnant I guess it will get a little more complicated when the little one is here but we’ll wing it! At the moment I see the positives outweighing the negatives so much more (just one car insurance, less expenses for petrol and those pesky car inspections or, worse, repairs, also less unnecessary driving out of laziness)!!
It varies a lot from place to place in the US. It’s so big compared to Europe that public transportation just isn’t as viable for rural areas and suburban sprawl is a lot more common because of the extra space!
In a culture where most of our family and friends were raised in suburbia, it can seem like we’re not quite “grown ups” – still renting an apartment and sharing a car. It’s just not common in this area to make these choices and be near 30 years old with almost 2 kids.
The key to what you wrote IMO is “in this area”. It’s funny how much geography can influence culture sometimes.
Having not owned a car in many years, one thing that I think is often overlooked is rental cars. Even if you’re not a big city that has public transit, cashare, bikeshare, Uber or any of that stuff, it will still have rental car agencies and the weekend rates are often ridiculously low. It takes a little extra planning (ie. I’m going to wait until the weekend to do X, Y, and Z when I have the rental car); but definitely bridges the gap when and if you need it.
Oh, totally. A large metro urban area is just so different than the suburbs and smaller cities. Cars are just what people DO in so many places. It’s unthinkable to be able to get around without one! But it’s also harder, so I get the hesitancy.
We’ve been a one car family for…7 years now. We live 30 miles from my work, in the middle of the (decidedly not walkable) suburbs. My kid goes to preschool 4 days a week. It’s doable for us because my husband works from home, and doesn’t mind being stuck at home during the day, but even when he was working, we just built our commute so that one of us dropped the other off.
We’ve talked about getting a second car when Jackson goes to public school (I’m a 30 minute MINIMUM drive from where his school is, and it makes me nervous to not have an easy way to get him if we need to), but for now, it’s been the right decision for our family.
Oh, that would make me nervous, too! Luckily, Gabe’s school is only a mile away from our apartment – so worse comes to worse, I can walk to get him in an emergency if Mike has the car. But if we were BOTH far away that would suck.
It’s so hard to contemplate getting an entire other car just so your kid can go to school, though! We keep butting into stuff like that – “Well, I COULD do that if we had another car…but can I justify getting a CAR for that?”
we were a one car fam for the first 5.5 years of marriage and i miss it already!
I wish we lived in a more walkable area that we could go down to one car. I really hate to drive, and would absolutely not mind being the one without a car.