Question Becoming a one-car family

Nedra · Aug 28, 2016

We have two cars. We don't think of them as "his and hers" -- rather, we just have two that we use interchangeably. I like having two and being able to easily switch between them as needed (if one needs repairs, or if a car seat needs to be removed for washing, etc.)

My husband wants to move down to just one vehicle. I see his point -- he takes public transit to work and we live within walking distance of my work and our daughter's preschool. So even if it might be inconvenient if the one car is in the shop, it's not like we'd be stranded without it.

But I can't do it yet! I feel like we use both of them regularly enough that I cannot imagine getting rid of one of them....

It doesn't help that I was planning to buy an E2F 3-in-1 soon...and now if we get rid of a vehicle I won't have an excuse to get one anymore....sigh

How do you know if you can downsize your car situation? They are both paid off and I worry that we'll regret it if we get rid of one of them. We've had two cars since I learned to drive!

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Dillipop · Aug 28, 2016

How much would you save by dropping one from insurance? Since they are both paid off, that would be you biggest monthly expense.

It sounds like your situation is perfect for going down to one car. You could save the insurance premium you won't have to pay and put it aside for vehicle repair or a new vehicle later on.

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jjordan · Aug 28, 2016

We both walk to work but decided to replace our second car when it died. We can't walk everywhere (can't walk to a grocery store, kids' school, doctor's office, etc) and occasionally we do need to drive somewhere while a car is in the shop. Not to mention that we need two cars if we're going to drop one off at the shop (also not within walking distance), so right there we'd need to borrow a car whenever ours was going to be in for longer than one of us wanted to sit and wait for it.

We have friends that have just one car and they do okay for the most part, but for us with 5 kids it seemed like a good idea to have a backup plan for what to do when our van is out of commission. More people = more chances that we'd need a car and have to scrounge to borrow one from friends.

Do you get your car serviced at a place that can give you a loaner? I know you have family nearby, would it be feasible to borrow from one of them if you needed to?

I think that before moving permanently to one car, maybe you could try it out by only driving one at a time for, like, a month, just to see how it feels. After a month you would probably have a good idea of whether or not you want to commit to just having one car.

An alternative to going down to one car would be selling one and buying a clunker for your second car. You get cash from selling one, probably pay lower insurance (especially if you drop collision and comprehensive on the clunker), but still you have a second car if/when you really need it.

mel2012 · Aug 29, 2016

We've been a one-car family for 3 years now. I have a 6 and 8 year old. We live in a temperate climate and are fortunate enough to be able to bike and walk year-round, which helps a lot in juggling schedules, and can take public transit. My suggestion would be to pretend that you don't have a second car for a couple of months (just let it sit) and see if you miss it. Both of our cars were paid of fwhen we sold the second one, so a car payment didn't factor into our decision. We saved about $50/month on insurance by dropping the second car and also save all of the maintenance expenses. Plus, keep in mind that your second car is depreciating, even if you aren't using it, so that's money you're "spending" even if it isn't coming out of your pocket each month.

BananaBoat · Aug 30, 2016

We have always been a 1 car family since before we were married. We are walking distance to public transportation (for DH's work, the city or the airport) and a few stores. Everything else, including schools are driving distance. It is rarely, if ever, an issue. Maybe once a year we rent a car, but that cost is minimal in comparison to the cost of having a second car. I find it actually encourages us to do more things together as a family instead of splitting up. We have no plans to get a second car.

carseatmama007 · Aug 30, 2016

We've been a 1 car family for 8+ years. Like someone else mentioned, we live in an area that is temperate all year round with little rain, so we can walk/bike a lot. We purposely chose a house within walking distance of school, gym, stores, and restaurants. Sometimes it takes a bit of extra planning to get to things not within walking distance, but we always make it work. Bonus, it's good exercise - I walk about 4-5 miles a day!

rosey2007 · Aug 31, 2016

Dillipop said:
How much would you save by dropping one from insurance? Since they are both paid off, that would be you biggest monthly expense.

It sounds like your situation is perfect for going down to one car. You could save the insurance premium you won't have to pay and put it aside for vehicle repair or a new vehicle later on.

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That is similar to what I am thinking. Maybe do a trial run and see if you could go with only one car. The other issue that may show up in the long run is if your one car breaks down you will not have a backup car.

bnsnyde · Aug 31, 2016

I don't know if walking distance to your work and preschool is enough. What about if you go anywhere else? And when she is not in preschool? I cannot think of a single day ever, for years, when I did not use the car (well, van) and we live within walking of preschool too. But we never once walked to it. It's just not easy and in the winter it's freezing and not all the sidewalks are plowed.

BananaBoat · Aug 31, 2016

bnsnyde said:
I don't know if walking distance to your work and preschool is enough. What about if you go anywhere else? And when she is not in preschool? I cannot think of a single day ever, for years, when I did not use the car (well, van) and we live within walking of preschool too. But we never once walked to it. It's just not easy and in the winter it's freezing and not all the sidewalks are plowed.

OP says her husband takes public transportation to work, which would leave her with the car. This is exactly how we work - DH uses public transport for work and is gone all day. I have the car. There's no issue. We drive almost everywhere.

katymyers · Aug 31, 2016

bnsnyde said:
I don't know if walking distance to your work and preschool is enough. What about if you go anywhere else? And when she is not in preschool? I cannot think of a single day ever, for years, when I did not use the car (well, van) and we live within walking of preschool too. But we never once walked to it. It's just not easy and in the winter it's freezing and not all the sidewalks are plowed.

There have been numerous times throughout my eight year marriage that we've only had one car. Even now with the kids having multiple therapy appointments, school, and other errands I frequently go days at a time without leaving the house. I also walked my kids to and from school, with my younger kids, everyday last year, all winter long and we have harsh winters. My boys are both walking by themselves this year and will walk during the winter. Walking is statistically way safer than driving and I see no reason to waste gas driving when we're perfectly capable of walking.

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Nedra · Sep 1, 2016

SuzaBanana said:
OP says her husband takes public transportation to work, which would leave her with the car. This is exactly how we work - DH uses public transport for work and is gone all day. I have the car. There's no issue. We drive almost everywhere.

Yes this. My husband takes public transit to work. On the rare occasions that he needs a vehicle, his thought is that he could rent or take Lyft/Uber/taxi (or DD1 and I could walk, if the weather was good), so being in walking distance of my work/her preschool is more of a convenience than a necessity.

We decided to keep a log of how many times we need/want two cars (essentially, how many times do we have both cars in use) for awhile and see what the data tells us.

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bnsnyde · Sep 1, 2016

DH here takes public train too, but he drives to the station and it's about 2 miles maybe? So it's not far, and that's good because our Civic is lacking safety features.
This is the first year we have a school bus and I am finding it much more difficult than loading all 6 into the van and just driving the 4 to school.

I keep telling myself that surely it's easier for a little yellow bus to just come get my kids across the street from us. But I am nervous about the road (cars can be in a rush in the morning), and about making it clear they don't cross back to the house after I help them cross. (Twice we had to have a talk about that).

And I corral the two smallest ones in the house. The whole set up is just not as easy as I thought it would be. It's unbearably cold in the winter (one of my kids did have a K bus two years ago at the same stop) no matter how much we bundle up, and we do try to arrive early to be considerate to the driver.

And lap belts for all. Maybe in a small bus that's fine but I don't like the idea of a lap belt, I guess. But maybe I just need to get used to the routine more because I keep telling myself that the bus should make things easier.

jwilliams · Sep 2, 2016

I'm coming off 10 years as a one or no car family. If I were in your situation, I most likely wouldn't buy a second car, but unless there was a tremendous amount of savings or convenience (parking logistics, etc.) to be gained by ditching a paid-off second car, I would probably keep it.

We have to go to two cars (getting #2 tomorrow) because public transit is abysmal, kids need to go places miles apart for school/preschool this year, and husband and I both end up needing to drive for work activities fairly often (meetings, banking runs, and so on). So, basically the opposite of your awesome logistics [emoji21]. Plus soccer practice and games. We bike and walk a lot but it has its limits.

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mamah · Sep 2, 2016

Iso narrow hbb, to replace excited radian.

In error.

Nedra · Sep 4, 2016

jwilliams said:
.......kids need to go places miles apart for school/preschool this year.....So, basically the opposite of your awesome logistics [emoji21]. Plus soccer practice and games.
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This is something I hadn't thought about at all. Our kids are currently 3 and 1. So we have not yet encountered the kid "activities" that would complicate matters. I suppose even if we went down to one car for now, we'd likely need to go back to 2 cars once they are involved in extracurriculars.

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mamah · Sep 4, 2016

Yes, we have found we really need the second car for times kids activities overlap. Now, we do have five kids, so probably more activities then two kids.

Did your dh say why he wants to sell the second car? If it's a cash flow issue, at in you need to pay off debt or something, I could see selling and buying something else if/when you need it.

Nedra · Sep 4, 2016

mamah said:
Did your dh say why he wants to sell the second car? If it's a cash flow issue, at in you need to pay off debt or something, I could see selling and buying something else if/when you need it.

We don't have a specific debt to pay off -- it's more that he's stressed about paying for preschool. So, I guess in a way, it would make sense to go down to one car right now during the preschool years and then when the kids are in public school we could go back to 2 cars?

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oakster · Sep 15, 2016

We have also always been a one-car family and it works well for us, but I think it depends very much on how strong transit is where you live. We are in a mid-sized city, so we have access to pretty solid transit and a carshare organization that we belong to, and most places we go are easily bikeable in good weather. We also both work, so we don't have afterschool activities in the same way that we might if one of us were at home--kids will go to aftercare activities after school when they start elementary school, and there are vans that take them there for the things that aren't at the school. On the weekends we usually do things as a family, or kids have activities together; occasionally one of us takes one child somewhere solo but it's very rare that the other needs to go somewhere where both require a car (again, because transit is always an option, and barring that, the carshare is easy to use to fill short gaps like that if we know in advance that something is coming up). A couple of times a year, we rent a car for a day to cover specific needs (e.g., one parent having to go out of town on a trip that requires a car, or relatives visiting where we need more seats than we have in the one car). We are in walking distance of a car rental location which makes that very easy. Otherwise, it works very well. We also only have off-street parking for one car, which is a huge incentive not to own a second. When we sold our old car we had two for about a month, and it was a pain to keep track of where the second car was parked, whether it was street sweeping day wherever that was, etc. Obviously not an issue if you have parking for two cars!

We do have more car seats for each child than we have cars, if that helps enable at all...

Question Becoming a one-car family

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