When I was raising a family, I opted for maximizing my income and commuting as far as necessary to do so. Once the kids got through college and I was able to retire, I have opted to dump my car (my wife still has hers, so we aren't really "car-free") and bike wherever I wanted to go. To do that, we needed to move to a more bike-friendly area. While we aren't living below the poverty line by any stretch, our income has been cut in half -- but so have our expenses, so it isn't exactly an economic hardship to choose this lifestyle. But my point is that choosing to drive wherever you need to or not may be more conditioned by other responsibilities in your life that you need to consider rather than just a question of your commitment to a mode of locomotion.