giving up the car altogether?

[maverick]

oh yeah, there are also property taxes, registration costs, and maintenance. i have a 2008 subaru, which has been pretty trouble free so far – but these are still all costs associated with keeping a car…

[Tim Kelley]

Lots of great resources here: http://www.carfreediet.com/

[TwoWheelsDC]

My fiance and I got rid of one car, but we still share one. The car we do have gets a decent amount of use, whether it be shopping or the occasional commute, or leisure trips, it’s pretty handy…and I don’t think we would be willing to give it up altogether, since having one car isn’t really a financial issue for us. IMHO, if the car is paid off, it’s probably easier to just keep it so you have it for emergencies and for unforeseen circumstances. Maybe if you lived close to Zipcar or something that might not be the case, but renting a car is kind of a hassle, and you actually have to get to the rental place to begin with.

[consularrider]

We’re car light, one car for two drivers and I am exclusively a bike commuter 12 months a year. With a teenage son, we’re not quite ready to go car-free. I put more miles on my collection of bikes in a year than we both put on the car, but I have to use the car a least once a week for a large grocery run. If I was single I would certainly consider going car free and could do all my errands by bike. There have been a few occasions when I’ve found we need two cars, like when I am going out of town and have to drive. It certainly has been less expensive to just rent a car, Enterprise has some good weekend deals, on an as needed basis rather than have to pay insurance and upkeep on two cars.

I noticed that you also started a thread as a new bike commuter. Since you’re just getting started, I would suggest you hold off on selling your car until you have been through worse weather to make sure you are going to stick with it. Especially since your car is already paid off, you wouldn’t be saving much money overall.

[americancyclo]

I live pretty close to you and commute to DC and back on the bike. I take the metro when it’s below 20 degrees, over 100 degrees, or actively precipitating. We only have one car, and make do with that pretty well. I do occasional grocery shopping by bike, but we also purchase a lot of stuff at BJs and Costco since my wife is a small business owner and it’s easier to purchase in bulk sometimes. It’s not a requirement, though.

You could always keep the car, and just not use it. Mail the key to a friend if you need to, but see how life is without a car. I’d recommend doing this for at least a few months, if not a whole year, to get a range of seasons and extreme temperatures.

Or just take the plunge. Sell the car, and if you find you really miss it in six to eight months, you can buy another one.

Either way, welcome!

[GuyContinental]

First, I am not car-free, nor do I think that it’s practical for my family (doable, yes, practical, no). That said, if you know your patterns and understand the limitations then heck yeah. Just ask a New Yorker or a San Franciscan.

In your case it sounds like you have metro as a fallback for the occasionally grisly and dark winter weather but you may want to check out the three local mainstream carshare programs and see if one will work for you for the “other trips”:

Car2Go
ZipCar
Hertz Local Edition

[5555624]

More than 12 years ago, when it came time to renew my tags, I realzied I’d driven less than 75 miles in the previous ten months. (It was October, so since hte beginning of the year.) I took the tags off the car and donated it to charity. I have not owned a car since. (My car was paid for, but was an old beater and it was just easier to donate it.)

At the time, I was commuting year-round by bike; but could also walk the 1.5 miles to the subway, if necessary. Now, I live a bit further from the subway, but can grab a bus two blocks away.

Anything under a mile or two, I often walk.

Since you have the garage and the car is paid for, put it up on blocks for the next six months and see how things go. (If it’s on blocks, you can’t easily take it out if it’s raining or you don’t feel like riding/walking to get a carton of milk.) Come December, you can decide to sell it or donate it. If you decide that “car-free” is not for you and you’d rather be “car-lite,” take it off the blocks.

If necessary, I’ll rent or borrow a car, but it’s not quite as often as one might think.

[vvill]

@GuyContinental 22764 wrote:

(doable, yes, practical, no). That said, if you know your patterns and understand the limitations then heck yeah. Just ask a New Yorker or a San Franciscan.

^ This!

I like the idea of not having to own a car, but the convenience/availability of a car that’s already paid off would be too valuable to me. If I lived somewhere more centrally urban things might be different, but there are too many situations where I would want to have the option of a car. I’m more about minimizing car trips – while always having the option of falling back to the car if I need it.

If it were me and I had a 2008 Subaru paid off I’d keep it at least through the coming winter to see how much full-time bike commuting I’d really do.

[maverick]

thanks folks!

by the way, my wife drives a minivan – we’d hold on to that. but that will be her primary transportation, and one we’d share when going someplace together. certainly, i could use it if i need to run some place to pick something up, or if i need to get someplace that isn’t easily bike or public transportation accessible provided she doesn’t need it to go elsewhere. and she can drop me off to the metro if need be.

i looked at zipcar, and they do have a location at east falls church, which is pretty close to us (we’re about half way between east falls church and west falls church). i haven’t rented a zipcar before, but it seems less expensive to go with enterprise or something if you need the car for the whole day. we have an enterprise in falls church, but they’re closed after 12pm on saturday, and they don’t open on sunday – so it would be more of a planned effort. i need to read up on zipcar and the related services and understand where they make sense.

while the subaru is paid for, it does seem attractive to use the proceeds from the sale to pay down the mortgage . but i see your point of holding on to it to see how i do through the winter. who knows – we might even get some snow this year! my job is pretty work from home friendly – even though my car has all wheel drive, i try not to get out there in the snow and ice if i don’t have to.

thanks!!

[DismalScientist]

Your wife has a car? That changes everything. I am car-lite and the only use I have with it is picking up kids on occasion, grocery trips, and when the spouse (or me) is out of town with one of the cars. If you don’t have kids that require picking up, I would suggest ditching the car, particularly if your alternate commute is by public transport. If your alternate commute is by car, test out winter commuting by bike before ditching it.

[dasgeh]

Lots of good advice already. My husband and I have a toddler and are expecting number 2. We living in Arlington, about a mile from Metro, very close to the Custis and bus routes. He’s a stay at home dad, I’m a lawyer in the District. We’re very happy with one car. Of course, we’ve never had more than one (aside from a brief period after we inherited a car, before we sold our first car, but we never thought like we had two cars). We’ll probably invest in a bike that costs as much as a cheap car (bakfiets) once we have two that he’ll have to tote around, but it’s SO MUCH BETTER than driving.

Some things that help us: we both love to bike, especially for neighborhood trips. So even though he has the car and the toddler, most days they jump on the bike for trips to the store, library, sprayground, park, play dates. We live close enough to the stores we need to run out to quickly that taking the bike or walking is never an issue, even in crappy weather. We do monthly (ish) trips to Costco to stock up on big stuff. It’s easy to get from our house to National Airport, and hotwire usually has great rates on small cars, for the rare time that we need two (e.g. last weekend, when husband drove our car up to a bike race, and my brother, who isn’t so into biking, flew into town).

Also, being a one car family is one of the reasons my husband can stay at home. Cars suck money – gas, insurance, taxes, registration, maintenance, etc, etc. We didn’t even realize how much until we had two for that short period last year.

As far as selling a car: we sold our first car at Carmax. Unfortunately, that meant driving down to Woodbridge (but we were headed there for a bike race anyway). We were happy with the transaction. There’s a place on Washington Blvd in Arlington – just south of 10th Street N, that has a sign saying they buy cars. I don’t know anything more than we’ve seen the sign. If you do sell, don’t forget to turn in your tags at the DMV and get the documentation, then cancel your insurance. We actually didn’t save as much as expected on insurance, because we were getting a “multi-car discount”, which went away when we went to one. Oh well.

[Terpfan]

My old semi-beater car breaking down was actually part of what motivated me to switch to a bike/metro commute combination, but we still have one vehicle. My biking has rubbed off on my fiancee who bikes to the Metro (it’s about a mile or maybe a mile and a half). I find that works just fine. I can think of two times when I needed a vehicle in the last year. Both times I just rented a car for $22 for the whole day. The way I look at it is if the weather really sucks then Metro can do the driving/commuting for me. Otherwise, my bike has more than paid for itself in just a few short months, I get a good workout and I don’t deal with traffic. Plus, it makes me realize how crappy rush hour driving was and rush hour Metro.

[maverick]

thanks dasgeh! i will definitely keep carmax in mind if i don’t find a buyer and decide i just want it gone. i would think that a 4 year old subaru would seem like an attractive car and sell without too much hassle. let’s see…

[eminva]

My husband and I gave up our second car three years ago. For us, it was the realization that we only put 3000 miles on our second car in the preceding year. It was a nine-year-old Subaru, though, so it was fully depreciated in our minds. I might feel differently if it were a newer car.

We rent cars from Enterprise when we need to both be driving at once. It is not a frequent occurence and they have good weekend rates, so we are still well ahead of where we would be if we’d bought another car to replace the one we got rid of.

Then, as now, I was/am a bicycle and/or metro commuter so I never need the car for work.

We live in Vienna, and are in easy walking or biking distance of shopping and other amenities. We are 1.7 miles from the metro station.

Good luck.

Liz

[jnva]

I wish I could get rid of my car. Only use it on the weekends now. I have gone two weeks without getti g into a car, though and it felt great. I commute to work on my bike, and save about $20 per day doing this. That much saving is what motivates me to bike whenever I can.

[Author]

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