Saturday, November 26, 2016

Can I Live Without a Car?

Good ol' Dougie - we've gone through a lot together!


Oops, was supposed to post about this and then forgot. I forget a lot of stuff these days. My head is much busier than my hands. Ideas galore - implementation not so good.

I've spent some time recently wondering if I could manage being car-free. The object of this "wondering" is to save more $$ for travel which is highly motivating for me. And then there's the environment and fossil fuels argument.

My options are:

  • selling/giving Dougie the Dodge away for a tax receipt and renting a car from my daughter when I need one (she works for Enterprise now and tells me lots of people just rent a car occasionally when they need one; or a family has just one car and rents another as needed)
  • use CarShare or Zipcar when I need a car (you can rent by the hour or longer as needed for a small monthly fee. Gas and insurance included.
  • trade Dougie in on a smaller car (no $$ savings)
  • Go completely car-free and use transit system (not thrilled with this idea)
  • keep Dougie and maintain the status quo
Thoughts? 
Have you experienced living car-free? How did it go? Is it really cheaper having to use buses, trains, and taxis?

3 comments:

  1. I got my first car when Gwen was 6 years old. Up to that point I had used public transit and walked. It was doeable for us at that time. Right now I'm giving some consideration to giving up my car as I'm now working from home and barely ever drive it. We have Yann's car for travelling. It's hard though to give up the sense of freedom that having my own car gives me. To be able to just up and go for a drive out to places I can't reach by walking.

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  2. I would gather some data. I'd do a daily Dougie diary and see how much I actually HAVE TO use him. I'd do that before I made a decision that either didn't work for my lifestyle, or ended up costing me more than expected (rentals).

    ReplyDelete
  3. By going to RentalCars you can find affordable car rentals at over 49,000 locations globally.

    ReplyDelete

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