I am quite attached to my car. It is economical, reliable, the most beautiful car on the road, and it is paid for. Because it is ancient, I have the minimal insurance ... but if I want or need it ... There it is. In most cases, I can use it for whatever I want and be back before the person dropping off the rental car would even be there.

Time is the one resource I cannot earn.

For instance ... next weekend i might need to throw my old lawnmower in the back and take it in to get serviced. That would have to be on Sunday, my only day off.

So ... I would probably have to rent a car for the weekend, take time off work to drive the driver back to the shop after it was delivered, have it sit in my driveway until Sunday, then use it for 30 minutes, then take time off work And involve my wife to drop it off and get a ride back.

But ... I also plan to try to clean the lawnmower's carb first. And if I can clean the carb and it starts ... no need for the car.

So either I rent a car and (hopefully) don't use it ... or I spend two weekends to do what I could do in one weekend if I owned a car (clean this weekend, rent a car next weekend---killing two weekends and as I said, time is precious.)

Th other thing ... I use my car for two things: long trips for work, which rarely happen since my job changed .... and rescuing my wife when she has car trouble, has an accident, a flat, whatever. So far I have done that at least once a year I think, since we have been married.

She always calls when I am sleeping, or eating or otherwise engaged ... and always demands immediate aid.

In the tiny town where I live, Uber and Lyft are nonexistent. I am not sure if there is a cab company ... the nearest I know of is 20 miles away. And I certainly cannot rent a car on a moment's notice at 10 p.m. while my wife is on the side of the road somewhere, crying.

That and the occasional... "It is cold and pouring rain, and my wife just got back from the store and did not mail the important package I asked her to mail, or did not buy the important whatever I asked her to buy ... and she is going out to do more errands."

She commutes almost two hours a day (which I think is insane, but she also makes the megabucks (compared to me) so hey, it's her life. But she Needs her car, and needs it to be running all the time. In terms of every kind of efficiency including financial, it seems that keeping an old, reliable, little-used, car with minimal insurance is a good deal.

If I rented a car for say, five days, and drove to say, Atlanta, I bet rental, mileage and insurance fees would equal what I spend per year keeping my car registered and insured. Then if I wanted to go to Virginia or Alabama later that year (actual real possible trips) I would be losing cash over keeping my car in the driveway and taking it to the store a few times a year just to shake the dust loose.

Possibly if my car got totaled in a wreck or something, I might consider other options ... but still when I need to travel for work, i need to carry a bunch of weather-sensitive and fragile gear, so even a motorcycle is not a great option.

So basically ... I could give a some processed cheese food about being "Car-Light" or "Car Free." I make decisions based on the whole of my life and what advances the whole of my life.

Right now keeping the car seems to be the best alternative.