Last week, I discussed being a one-car family – some ways sharing a car has made our life more simple and more complicated as well as the keys to how we’re able to make this work for our family.
Today, I want to talk money. Money is one of my favorite things to talk about and analyze, because it’s so empowering. (The flip side of that is that it can be so stressful, but the more I feel in control of my money situation, the more free I feel). Personally, this is of importance to me because, as several of you mentioned in your survey responses, my family has a pretty limited income. Mike is a grad student who works part-time as a researcher and teaches a few classes as an adjunct. I work part-time as a web designer. Together, we make an income that’s still below the median for a family of 4 and we also have things to worry about that we wouldn’t if either of us had a full-time employer – like purchasing our own insurance.
With careful planning and prioritizing, we’re able to live in a way that doesn’t feel like we’re lacking. Some of this is because we have no debt (thanks to our parents for teaching us good financial habits, and to AmeriCorps for helping me with my student loans), but also because of decisions like this whole owning-one-car thing.
Cars & Money
Just how much does it cost to own a car? Well, for our 12-year-old Honda Accord, we spend about $4000 a year just on gas, insurance, and repairs (which is probably the lowest it’ll ever be – we have no car payments and we hardly ever need repairs.). That’s a bit less than the estimated cost of ownership from Kelly Blue Book (they estimate it’s about $22-24K over five years plus the cost of depreciation), but still rather significant when we’re looking to save money. And we are.
A few other unexpected ways in which not owning a second car saves us money:
– We only need one car seat.
– We eat out less – we can’t just be like, “Hey, meet you at sushi after work?” It’s more of a hassle to come back home, pick up the other person, and go out. So we do it less.
– Less Target runs. Look, I’ll be honest. If I had unlimited access to a car, I’d be going to Target and Starbucks with Gabe a whole lot more often than I already do. Being ‘stuck’ in our neighborhood means I just don’t have that option. The public library and several parks is nearby and free!
So, basically, the hard part of sharing a car (sacrifice, limited mobility) is also what saves us money.
Also, bonus! It keeps us a little healthier because we’re often walking and biking for transportation. And is a bit better for the environment – one less car on the road (and one less hunk of plastic car seat in a landfill eventually, I suppose).
In my ideal world, I think we’d live somewhere that we can walk to work, school, and all our errands. Where the weather would be cooperative or public transportation plentiful. Where we’d just need to rent a car every now and then for big grocery runs or IKEA trips or something.
That’s not our reality right now (or..ever? It all depends on where Mike finds a job!), but we still want to live in a way that aligns with our values and saves us some money. So we’ll be those oddballs walking 1.5 miles to the grocery store, taking the public bus when no one else we know does, and living in an apartment building with a bunch of retired folks and college kids (who luckily make living with them largely enjoyable, as they adore Gabe and fix things for us within a few hours).
For now, the benefits of sharing a car definitely outweigh any difficulties for us.
The phrase that comes to mind when I read this is “forced simplicity”. Simplicity because, really, there’s not another valid alternative. I felt like we had a lot of forced simplicity when we were in a one-bedroom apartment with our firstborn. I enjoy getting rid of things that we don’t need/don’t use, but living in a small space particularly forced the issue.
Sounds like I’m saying it’s a bad thing (“forced”) but I think it’s great!
Oh dear, I’m not even sure I can count how many car seats we own. We started out with one infant seat and three bases – one each for my car, Thomas’ car, and my mom’s car (she babysat full time). But from there we bought three convertible seats (one for each car) for Margaret…then three for Paul…and now we’re into buying booster seats as M is outgrowing the weight limit on a couple of the convertible seats. Yikes.
I love when you do these posts because like you said, you make very little and still seem to do okay :) It’s a good reminder to me because we have 2 full time jobs and still sometimes get stressed about money! Plus I want to learn how you do it. I want to learn but then I’m like yea, can’t get rid of one of our cars (both drive in different directions to work), but it’s still nice to read about :) Cars are SO expensive. Hope you are feeling better!
Oh, totally. There are definitely pros and cons to the intentional simplicity lifestyle we seem to have fallen into. I *could* get a full-time job that pays well and offers health insurance and have more money for a second car and child care. But I choose to work less and for myself because I like the flexibility and lifestyle that affords! We’re all making choices with work and money – like how I’d rather work less but also buy less stuff. Some people prefer to be able to purchase whatever they want, so they’ll need to work more. It’s weird to be an adult and make choices like this. Haha.
Yup, that makes total sense. I don’t really like to buy “stuff” either but I live in an expensive area of the country, and I like to buy dinners out and trips a lot ha ha. Also, I don’t mind working and could probably not ever work for myself. Also, I have no idea how you get work done at home with Gabe. I can’t get ANYTHING done. I had like 2 hours of work to do during my whole maternity leave and I JUST finished it yesterday when Eric watched Max for an hour and I sat upstairs and did it lol. Absurd.
We are trying to make more simple choices about the plans we make… since we do have 2 cars we can do a lot of things in one day but with a baby it just gets crazy/doesn’t make sense. However, we struggle with choosing what to say no to, especially because I usually want to say no to Eric’s family/friends stuff and he’d rather say no to mine ha ha. We love each others friends and family but when you are trying to prioritize… :)
This post reminds me of a story I heard on NPR about BMW’s electric cars and how they’re providing free loaner (gas) cars for longer trips and/or for when electric car owners need a larger vehicle. We have a larger SUV (more $$ on gas, insurance, etc.) because my husband likes the idea of hauling stuff, our camper, etc. But, I think I could convince him to drive a smaller car (assuming his 6’4 frame is comfortable in it) if he had access to a larger vehicle for the few weeks a year we’d actually need it. (Though, it definitely won’t be a BMW when the time comes to buy a new car, ha!)
Yea, Eric and his 6’4″ frame refuse to ever drive a small car, ha ha
I wish I lived in a place where I could walk to work, to shop, etc. Or even in a place where I had decent public transport. It would take me over 60 minutes one way to take public transport with all the transfers and stops, and that assumes they run on time. For now, having two cars and the expense is worth my ten hours a week (really winds up being about 5 hours based upon my drive time commute). My Honda Accord is seven years old and I love it… I love no car payment, I love knowing what to expect out of it, etc. Of course my darling hubs says we need a new car in case we ever have a kid (larger to fit the bonus kidlets, his tall self, our dog, me and a bebe) but I say that getting a new car “in case,” is no reason at all.
You inspire me to purge of stuff on a regular basis, by the way. I really do prefer less stuff and make sure I know what I truly NEED vs want when I’m shopping for anything (groceries included… though sometimes a bag of candy sneaks its way into my cart!)
We just downsized to one car and it’s awesome! Sure, it takes a tiny bit more planning but we’ve also been better about taking public transit, carpooling, and even biking to where we need to be. I love the reduced cost and that it’s better for the environment :)
We own two cars now, but we owned one for many years (both working! with kids! true story!). I loved it (especially because of the money saving!) and would really like to get rid of our second car, but the truth is that we use the second car for hauling things: kids to soccer and t-ball and swimming, everything from hardware stores, gigantic drop-offs at goodwill, etc. I don’t know if we’ll ever been a one-car family again (even though we don’t even have a two-car garage), but the upside to two people who try to use public transportation even though we do have cars: our first car is 11 years old and has 39,000 miles on it. Our second car is 6 years old and has 17,000 miles on it. We’re going to have them FOREVER.
Also, wait until your kids don’t need car seats. It’s a magical, magical world.
Even when people live near their work and public transport they keep two cars. I am always for one car in the family. As you say it saves money and require a little bit planning when you are shopping for groceries. Also, you can keep a better car instead of keeping two average ones. That is what we do. We spend all our money allocated for automobiles for one good car. By the way, $4,000 is pretty low cost of auto ownership. According to AAA it costs about $9,000 pa on average to own and maintain a car. I am not sure if they included amortization in their calculations. It is a lovely website you have here.