Living Car Free - LCF economic necessity?

was curious how many here live car free out of economic necessity?
i only work part time for 10 bucks an hour and get ssd so i have to live car free.
is it only me or are others on this site in the same situation where they just can't afford the expense of a car?

Sort of both. When I left my Dad's house, I was car-free out of necessity. Since then, I have had several cars and a motorcycle. But they all seem to fare poorly at my hands, while my bikes go on and on. One of my bikes has outlasted all of my motorized vehicles.

In my current situation, I went car-free again because I was getting divorced and wanted to pay off my credit card bills which were enormous. That took a couple of years and is paying off big time. I continued because by the time I was paid off, my company was looking shakey. And now that I'm unemployed, it seems a good policy to continue.

But beyond all those considerations, it seems like the right way to go. When I was driving a car, I'd feel jealous of bicyclists when I saw them. Most of our trips are under 5 miles statistically. And for these, bicycling is great.

There is a real opportunity cost associated with living car free though, for me at least. The reasons to drive would be so that I can attend professional meetings at distant locations and carry computers while not having to worry about the weather.

The roads where I live now are rough, narrow and hilly. Local drivers simply do not understand how to deal with cyclists, and don't acknowlege that bicycles belong on the streets. Not exactly condusive to an enjoyable ride, especially at night.

Car-lite because we could not afford repairs on my car at the time, or a new (used) car. Plus it's hard to justify two cars when we both work the same hours at the same place. A teen son complicates things a bit--there have been maybe 2-3 times when the spare car would have been handy, and in each of those cases we figured out some workaround or another.

lost mine for medical reas0ns

I am car-free be choice, I could afford one if I wanted another one. I became car-free deliberately by selling a my reliable commuter car.

I am car free by choice.

My wife has a car that we bought used.


I have a motorcycle and a scooter for reasons of recreation and trasnportation when needed.



I calculate that I have re-distributed the funds that would have otherwise been used to pay off the car I used to own toward my bicycles and other hobbies with an overall positive result.

=)

If I wanted to buy a car today, I could afford it, but then I would have to give up some of the luxuries that I have become accusomted to having WITHOUT a car!

I have been car free/light in the past, mainly due to lack of funds to keep the car up and running. Currently try to be as car light as possible, when possible, just because.

Aaron:)

I made $35,000 last year, live in Eastern Iowa where we have a fairly low cost of living, and I don't really think I can afford a car. I know from experience that I could probably make the payments, pay the insurance bill on an older car, etc but that certainly doesn't make it affordable. I don't really understand how people do it. I'm 23 years old, and don't really go out too often. I have a ways to go in managing my money, but I would say that I am decent with it. One thing contributing to my expenses is the fact that I live by myself - I would estimate that I could save about 300 dollars a month if I had a roommate.

By comparison - the median income for an individual over the age of 25 in the US is roughly 32,000. The median family income is 52,000. I believe this is based on 2007 data, as the data for 2008 probably won't be released until August of 09.

I earn enough to have a car and make more than the minimum payment on my student loans, BUT

it would take me MUCH longer to become debt-free if I were paying for a car.

now that i work full time/salaried in the software industry, i could afford an audi probably.

but i don't want one!

I could easily afford a car, but I would have to work five days a week instead of my current four day work week.

Since I've been on disability for 3 months, and only getting 60 per cent of my usual pay, it's been a blessing for me that I didn't have to support a car habit during this time.

We have one car for the family. it's mainly used by my wife to transport the kiddies. I bicycle commute year round by choice. Less money out the door, smaller environmental footprint, feel warmer in the winter, don't have to explain to a soldier returned from Iraq why I didn't feel it necessary to make any sacrifices myself, I get to be an example to my children that there are other alternatives to a car, everyone at work thinks I'm nuts which is OK by me, but most importantly - I get to ride a bike every day and if life doesn't get any better than that, then it's just fine with me.

was curious how many here live car free out of economic necessity?
i only work part time for 10 bucks an hour and get ssd so i have to live car free.
is it only me or are others on this site in the same situation where they just can't afford the expense of a car?

Economic necessity? No. I am car-light and my goal was to make sure I didn't get sucked into buying any more than we currently have. So we are a one-car family. Although our budgets would be a lot healthier if we weren't supporting a hefty car insurance bill. The car is paid off and we seem to buy about $20-40 in gas per month, so the big concern is the insurance.

If you are making $10 an hour, a car is just too much budgetary stress.

I am car free by choice, but barely. By not owning a car I can afford to live in reasonable comfort, but if I were to own a car (which I could do) I would likely barely be scraping by. Not worth it.

I'm saving up for a car... I've been saving for about 2 years.

Every time I get enough money for a new Honda Fit, I tend to dump a chunk of it into the stock market. I just can't bring myself to buy a car when my bikes serve me just fine. Then again, I do live in the most bike friendly city in the US, I'm not sure how I'd fare in other cities.

Economic necessity? Well, it has certainly helped our finances, especially during a tough time or two. And it also means that we can choose to work less and spend more time with the kids. But at this point, my husband and I don't even remember why we didn't get a car to start with. I think the initial reason may have been that neither of us really likes to drive. Later the environmental reasons became increasingly important.

I could easily afford a car; I owned a car for most of my adult life without even thinking about it, and my decision to go car-free had nothing to do with my income. But now that I'm free of the expense of owning a car, I'm much more aware of what an idiotic option it actually was. It's pretty nice to have several thousand dollars a year more to play around with. I mean, invest. ;)

One of my bikes has outlasted all of my motorized vehicles.

.

Even tho I've always had a car- I always felt cars unreliable. Too many moving parts. Flats can be a problem, but since I am the moving part, I've always felt lots more secure when the engine was me. Guess, some inner paranoia about getting to work on time.

I do live in the most bike friendly city in the US...

Which city is that?

Something that popped into my mind reading cyclezealot's and bragi's posts. For less than a year's worth of car payments I have an entire collection of bicycles. Including one that I paid $25 for in 1982 and rode as my only source of transportation for 7 years and rode several more after that. It is still around and still functional. In fact I was looking at it the other day with the possibility of changing out the hub and adding a few more things to it. Can't say that about any motor vehicle. As pointed out they are complicated and expensive to maintain.

Aaron:)

i read somewhere, i think it was on the aaa site that a cost of a new/leased car comes to about 4000-5000 dollars a year. can anybody confirm this? i know that the irs allow a fifty cent per mile deduction for salespeople using their cars as a business expense. at least in 2006 anyway, may have gone up a bit since then.

According to AAA, the average cost of owning a car that is driven 15,000 miles in 2008 was $8,121. For a small sedan, they estimate $6,320.

You can find their full report here: http://www.aaanewsroom.net/Assets/Files/200844921220.DrivingCosts2008.pdf

i read somewhere, i think it was on the aaa site that a cost of a new/leased car comes to about 4000-5000 dollars a year. can anybody confirm this? i know that the irs allow a fifty cent per mile deduction for salespeople using their cars as a business expense. at least in 2006 anyway, may have gone up a bit since then.

It might be higher than that. Here is an article (http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/60943/article.html) with a table at the bottom showing the 5 year cycle costs of various cars. They also have a calculator where you can plug in your vehicle and find out what the 5 year cost for a specific vehicle is.

Aaron:)

Which city is that?

Davis, CA

The Tour of California's first stage is starting there.

Davis, CA

Ah, yes. I've heard that's a virtual paradise for cyclists.

aren 't there opportunity costs in living car free? in my neck of the woods alot of main roads are not bike friendly due to the shoulder of the road being too narrow for safe biking or the shoulder of the road not being cleared of debris for bike riding. also in my area 100 percent use of a bike is not feasible as there are days of snow storms and weather much too cold to ride a bike.
i feel that i would have more options as far as a job to work at if i had a car for transportation and i would be more mobile in general. as it is i have to work a distance from my house where when i don't use a bike i use a taxi where the taxi fees are not prohibitive.

I am currently car light out of necessity my financial situation makes it hard to afford a car to drive full time although when I have had the money in the past I prefer to ride my bike. In the winter I can't get into town because of ice on the roads I have to travel. I also have a horse and need to be able to get hay. Usually I can get it delivered but not always, so I need a truck. Most of the year I ride though.

Aren 't there opportunity costs in living car free?

Absolutely. For me the biggest problem has been attending professional meetings, most of which happen downtown, 7 hilly miles away. Fortunately, now that the bus system has bike racks, this is less of a problem.

But I also see opportunity costs with a car. The most immediate are being stuck in a car and not free to amble as you can on a bicycle. The cost of a car is also an opportunity cost. For me right now, if I was running a car, I would be going in debt and could not live on unemployment alone.

I could probably afford a car, or to be more accurate I could probably afford to service the loan I'd need to buy a car. But I felt guilty every time I drove, and my work gave me a van, so I didn't drive it more than once a week. Last year I sold it, paid off the loan I'd used to buy it two years previously, and had enough left over for a new Brompton.

Since then, I've lost that job and the van that went with it, and I don't miss driving. Sometimes I'd like to be able to go into the city at a moment's notice, or out at all when it's icy, but the bus service is good enough. And I have more time now for travelling.

I made $35,000 last year, live in Eastern Iowa where we have a fairly low cost of living, and I don't really think I can afford a car. I know from experience that I could probably make the payments, pay the insurance bill on an older car, etc but that certainly doesn't make it affordable. I don't really understand how people do it. I'm 23 years old, and don't really go out too often. I have a ways to go in managing my money, but I would say that I am decent with it. One thing contributing to my expenses is the fact that I live by myself - I would estimate that I could save about 300 dollars a month if I had a roommate.

By comparison - the median income for an individual over the age of 25 in the US is roughly 32,000. The median family income is 52,000. I believe this is based on 2007 data, as the data for 2008 probably won't be released until August of 09.

Here in the east coast, 32K a year is not a lot of money at all! I made that money, had a used car and was broke! Someone posted that nearly 90% all single filers under 25 didn't make 40K a year! Thats incredible! Yet, you see all these early men in their 20's driving new cars and most making just enough to make the payments. The auto companies market to these young adults because they already know most will borrow as much as their incomes can afford to drive the latest vehicle.

yeah i live on long island and it never ceases to amaze me how everyone has a new shiney car even the kids in high school. the economy is suppose to be bad but i don't see people using bikes for short trips. you would think if people are economizing they would only use a car if absolutely needed and for the rest of the trips use a bike. it is not as if people don't have bikes, i see them in everybody's garage but they just buy them and throw them in the heap in their garage. there are two bike shops within a one mile radius of my house so people are buying bikes.
when i was in high school if you had a ten year old car with rust spots you were a proud owner. this was in the seventies. nowadays the teenagers in my town have shiney new cars. is the economy really in bad shape then?

Here in the east coast, 32K a year is not a lot of money at all! I made that money, had a used car and was broke! Someone posted that nearly 90% all single filers under 25 didn't make 40K a year! Thats incredible! Yet, you see all these early men in their 20's driving new cars and most making just enough to make the payments. The auto companies market to these young adults because they already know most will borrow as much as their incomes can afford to drive the latest vehicle.

And they will keep rolling that loan over and over into a newer vehicle as long as their salary keeps up. When it doesn't they get stuck...big time.


yeah i live on long island and it never ceases to amaze me how everyone has a new shiney car even the kids in high school. the economy is suppose to be bad but i don't see people using bikes for short trips. you would think if people are economizing they would only use a car if absolutely needed and for the rest of the trips use a bike. it is not as if people don't have bikes, i see them in everybody's garage but they just buy them and throw them in the heap in their garage. there are two bike shops within a one mile radius of my house so people are buying bikes.
when i was in high school if you had a ten year old car with rust spots you were a proud owner. this was in the seventies. nowadays the teenagers in my town have shiney new cars. is the economy really in bad shape then? Yes the economy is in crappy shape because all the American Consumer has done is consume by paying for things with credit...keeping up with the Joneses. Problem is now they are over extended and trying to keep up appearances. Eventually their house of cards will come crashing down. It is just now starting to gain a traction.

FWIW some of us chose a long time ago to live within or even below our means and will weather this downturn better than the average person.

We have a guy here at work that is in desperate straights, that he put himself in. His wife was laid off a couple of months ago, he got involved in a minor accident the other night with his Escalade. He apparently had let the insurance lapse and hasn't been making the payments, so it has been impounded. They are getting ready to foreclose on his house.

I had long suspected he was living way beyond his means and it turns our he was. He has been moaning about having to move to GASP:eek: an apartment (if he can find one that he can afford that doesn't require a credit check) the children are going to have to go to public schools. He was in the COO's office demanding a pay raise this morning...didn't get it, and is probably lucky he still has a job. Our office has laid off over 25 people, that is a first time ever in the 15 years at this branch! He has always ridiculed me for taking my bicycle with me on the road and using for local transportation when I get where I am going...:innocent: Maybe I should offer to sell him one of mine (cash only!):rolleyes::D

Aaron:)

According to AAA, the average cost of owning a car that is driven 15,000 miles in 2008 was $8,121. For a small sedan, they estimate $6,320.

I was going to say I probably could afford a car but after reading this there is just no way. I could pick up a second job, been there done that and wouldn't do it again for a car. There better be a darn good reason for me to give up all my free time. Last month the pizza delivery guy delivered my pizza in farily new BMW 5 series. That was some classy tasting pizza.

I sold my car last year as sort of an experiment. My wife still has hers.

I can afford a car, I just choose not to right now. My biggest mistake was letting my wife talk me into buying another house in the suburbs. I specifically brought up the issue of moving to get more centralized, and here I am with a bigger house payment and a house that's actually MORE isolated... plus the now-hilly commute that's kicking my butt.

Some days I wonder what I'm trying to prove, as it would be nice to have the option of driving every now and then. I've gone so far as to research cars with low depreciation.

For example, I bought my last MINI used for about $17.5 and sold it for ~$16K three years later.

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Still.... if it were entirely up to me I'd move to a town with transit so I wouldn't have to go through the car urges.