If you don't own a car - please share your experiences

i didn't own a car when i went to college - in pittsburgh.  we have a FABULOUS public transportation system there and i was able to get to the grocery store and work very easily.  i think that is the key - a one-hour 6 mile commute would be a tough sell for me.  i had about a 6-mile bus commute to my college PT job and it only took about 20 minutes, and buses ran CONSTANTLY - even for my 7 am opening shifts, even for my 11 pm closing shifts.

i never missed having a car when i lived there.  i'm assuming no kids - i could imagine how that would not be doable.

Between the fiance and I, we have only had 1 car for the past 9 years, and that works very well for us. I don't know if I could do no car- mainly because of groceries, races and transporting the dog. But, our car only costs us about $100-150 a month in gas/insurance and AAA. How much is your insurance if it costs you $250 a month for the car? Maybe there is a way to cut down on the expense of your car. Do you own it? Could you sell it, and buy a car outright?

I'm not in quite the same situation, but am considering losing one of our cars. 

One thing to consider is car sharing.  You can sell your car and use a car sharing service like Zipcar if you have it in your city; that gives you a car at a low cost whenever you need it.  Or, another possiblity is sharing your car with a few friends.  It might not solve the winter commute thing completely but it would reduce the cost of ownership drastically.

Brian

Edited by famelec 2009-09-18 9:06 AM

No car here - I live with my fiance in a big city. But like you the majority of what we do is within a very short radius of our place.  I do take the bus to work which does take longer as I don't work along the subway line anymore but it's still convenient and i can read/zone out/nap, whatever. 

We rent cars as we need them and I belong to car-share program but don't use it all that often.  Both of us got gold credit cards as that includes insurance for rental cars so that saves money on the rental.  Not having a car for sure saves us a ton of money as parking at our apt building is about $100 month and that's not including any insurance, gas or car payments.

In terms of doing errands and such, we manage pretty well.  I make a grocery list every week and we both go on the weekend  - using a backpacks and re-usable bags. But we have two grocery stores about 10 min walk from our place.  And then do the occassional pick up of other items we may have forgotten.  We happen to live in a very pedestrian oriented area of the city - we have a 'village' near us where there are banks, pharmacies, restaurants, etc.

I like living without a car - it definitely adds to our active lifestyle. There was period where i had a car for about 9 months and i got so lazy just because i had the car.  Plus, i could see myself being a stressed out agressive driver ... so it's really better that I am not on the road more often. 

I am sure it's different having kids but we even  know a family near us that also do the vast majority of their errands on foot. It definitely has to do with the convenience of the neighbourhood.

The approximately $250/month includes property taxes, registration/emissions, auto insurance, AAA, gasoline, and a quarterly oil change.  It's actually a conservative number because it doesn't include any repairs that will undoubtedly show up in the future (the car is only five years old, but things wear out eventually).  We live within a mile of our grocery store, drugstore, library, movie theater, retail shops, gym, dry cleaner, etc. 

I agree that a one hour commute for six miles would be an impossible sell if it was every day, but in reality he's probably looking at doing that 20 times/year maximum (if he didn't call a cab), and that's if we have a bad winter (which has happened once in the last five years - thanks, global warming!).  The rest of the time he's been riding his scooter or his bike.

I guess the real issue is that the car basically sits in our driveway.  Since buying our house three years ago, we've put about 6,000 miles/year on it, and virtually all of those trips could have been easily handled through alternative methods (occasional one hour/six mile commute aside) and at a much lesser cost than through car ownership.  Someone mentioned Zipcar, and that would absolutely resolve the question for us, but unfortunately the closest location is not easy to get to without - you guessed it - a car. 

It has become an interesting debate in our household, and I was just curious as to what other people have done.  Thanks for the comments so far! 

This is what I was going to suggest.  There are also hotlines (at least here in Denver) that help carpoolers coordinate with each other.  You could look into that for snow days, maybe provide a couple bucks of gas money and have a bit of company on the way! 

I live in Chicago and don't have a car. It's fabulous.

I don't own a car either. I bike or walk to work (about 2.6km?), or if it is really rainy and I'm really lazy, I take the bus. I live in downtown Vancouver, so it's pretty easy to get places by public transit.

Edited by jeng 2009-09-18 11:16 AM