Giving Up a Car

[Drakantus]

I have owned a car of some kind or another for the last nine years.

Just recently I have been thinking of selling my current vehicle and going without. My motivation is mostly in saving money. My car payment is $370/month, my car insurance is $290/month- when you add in gas and maintenance it comes to around $800/month.

The main reason I need a car is just to drive to work. If I move to an apartment near work or near any metro (my office is near a metro stop), that is no longer an issue. I'm currently paying $500/month sharing a place. Even if the new place I find costs $1000/month, I will still be saving money each month. It'll involve giving up a few things, obviously, but I'm really starting to think it's worth it.

Does anyone else live without a car? Anyone who has a car who has considered something similar?

Also, I should note that I would probably want to get a car again at some point in the future, after saving up some money.

 

[Mercutio]

Aren't there super-spectacular tax benefits to Hybrids in Virginia?

One of my brothers lives without a car. He lives in Chicago, inside the loop (the place with all the tall buildings - kinda like living in Manhattan). The main thing he complains about is trying to deal with things like groceries. There's a limit to how much stuff he can carry around by himself.
The other problem he has - it isn't that big of a deal - but if he wants to see relatives or friends outside the city, he either has to convince me or my other brother to take him, or pay $50+mileage etc or so to rent a car (which is its own hassle).

 

[ddrueding]

I'm currently considering selling my GTI and buying a sport bike. In anticipation of this change, I've started trying to live like it already happened. My car is completely empty, and the only things I let myself carry is a backpack in the passenger seat. So far no issues; I've started doing more repairs on-site, but that's fine.

 

[Fushigi]

You're paying nearly $3600 a year for insurance? Ouch. I've got full comprehensive with a low deductible, glass replacement, rental, and towing and my annual car ins is under $750. Heck, add my wife's car and our house and the total for all three is still only about $2K/year.

What kind of car are you driving? It might be possible to cut insurance costs & your payments if you go to something like a compact sedan. And if you got something more fuel efficient your operating expense would also be reduced.

Of course, eliminating the car altogether would probably save the most, but when you're doing the math be sure to include any bus/taxi fares you'll be paying + a few $ every once in a while for a rental (assuming you'd ever need one).

 

[Pradeep]

Nowadays a lot of insurance is determined by your credit score, bad credit + excellent driving records still = high premiums.

If not having a car doesn't work out, you could try a cheaper car (a Hyundai for under $200 per month?), and that will reduce your premiums.

 

[sechs]

I've never owned a car. I live in the land of car-culture.

The key is to live close to things that you need and being willing to walk. Although I have my groceries delivered, I live about five blocks from two stores. I'm about two blocks from a transit mall.

Come to think of it, I've never driven in the last two states for which I had a driver's license....

 

[Drakantus]

I've never owned a car. I live in the land of car-culture.

The key is to live close to things that you need and being willing to walk. Although I have my groceries delivered, I live about five blocks from two stores. I'm about two blocks from a transit mall.

Come to think of it, I've never driven in the last two states for which I had a driver's license....

That sounds exactly like I intend to live. The way I see it, I can get along fine. It seems like most of the time I have to go places on the weekends are to care for my car, go figure. Another part of the time I'm going out with friends drinking and so I shouldn't be driving anyway. All I really "need" a car for is groceries, but by making smaller trips more often I can handle that just fine by walking. I can use the exercise anyway.


For those suggesting I get a cheaper car, that just wouldn't do it for me. My thinking is that I can get rid of the car, move closer to work, and save money overall. If I just change from one car to another I'll save some money, but I would still be living where I am. I would be giving up the car I love and getting nothing, instead of giving up my car and getting a new and better place, if that makes sense. Besides, a large part of my "car expense" is insurance, it's not the car payment so much. A cheaper car can only save me so much money.

My insurance payment is no mystery to me. I have had a lot of speeding tickets. I had a perfectly clean record my first two years driving, then I had three tickets in one year. Since then I have been more careful, but despite my best efforts I still seem to get at least one ticket every year, keeping my insurance high. I'm not sure about this, but if I sell my car and go without for a year, doesn't my driving record continues on as normal? My impression is that given enough time those speeding tickets will be removed from my record, so that if I did decide to buy another car after a few years my insurance could be lower. Am I wrong?

 

[Drakantus]

What kind of car are you driving?

It's a VW Jetta GLI. I know I pay a little more for having a V6 and such, but most of my insurance is due to my driving record. Changing cars isn't going to reduce it that much.

 

[Howell]

What kind of car are you driving?

It's a VW Jetta GLI. I know I pay a little more for having a V6 and such, but most of my insurance is due to my driving record. Changing cars isn't going to reduce it that much.

And your age more than likely. I have an 01 GLX VR6 and I seem to be unable to go for a year without getting a speeding ticket. My insurance is only about $1000/year. I'm 31.

 

[i]

Drakantus, you have asked at the right place.

I live in Arlington, VA, and I don't own a car. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

You lose one type of freedom by giving up a car, but what so many fail to realize is that you get a different type of freedom back in return. Some people find the trade surprisingly easy to make, and some people don't. Whether you will or not depends on a lot of things that only you can know about. I will start by saying that I love having none of the worries that come with owning a car -- no financial demands, no parking issues, no worries about theft, mysterious door-dings, etc. Here are some more general thoughts:

I have a 7 minute walk to the local metro station. It's a 4 minute walk to the grocery store. "So simple even a child can do it!" This is a nice neighborhood (between Rosslyn and Court House). Side note: have you looked at the core Ballston area?

My rent is $1300/month in a nice building. The money I save by not owning a car allows me to live in a far nicer place than I'd be able to afford otherwise. And the amount I save is also enough that I can afford to live on my own (a major bonus in my opinion).

Some advice about location: sechs is absolutely right. You're already thinking about the importance of transportation options (and the metro system is a big one around here of course). But the other specific issue I recommend you look at is finding a location from which you can also easily shop for food.

My local grocery store has essentially become an extension of my kitchen. And I think this is a good thing to aim for.

At just 4 minutes (on foot!) away, I don't need to stockpile a bunker's worth of food. Typically I'll walk to the store, pick up a few items, and come back with 3 grocery bags worth of stuff. Total time? 4 minutes + 10 minutes + 4 minutes, almost always at the most. That's 18 minutes, and I might do that 3 or 4 times a week. You can go into an analysis of a car owner that only goes grocery shopping only once per week, but then spends 54 minutes ( 3 x 18 ) driving through traffic to get to the store, pushing a cart around the store, loading up a trunkload of stuff, driving back home, and then unloading it all.

So I'm kind of back at the point about this being a trade of sorts. How things will work out for you in terms of costs, etc., I can't say because I have no clue what your situation in life is. What I can tell you is that it certainly does NOT cost me more to live my life car-free.

And then there are some payoffs that have no monetary value:

1) Without a car I can afford to live in a much nicer place and in a better neighborhood, with easy transportation links to almost all of the places I'm usually interested in.
2) I'm sure I'm in better physical shape than if I currently owned a car.
3) I'm not impacting the environment to the extent that others around me are.

Do a little scouting around, some research, and some planning. Try things for a year and see how they go. It's not like you'll never be able to touch a car again -- I'm sure you'll be able to buy them again in the future!! Heck, I rent a car a couple of times a year to visit my parents. And I'm also considering the FlexCar service that is expanding so much in this area. That would give me even more transporation flexibility.

 

[Pradeep]

My impression is that given enough time those speeding tickets will be removed from my record, so that if I did decide to buy another car after a few years my insurance could be lower. Am I wrong?

Sounds good, but from what I've seen, insurance companies like to see that you have had previous continous coverage prior to them granting you insurance. No sustained coverage, higher premiums. You just can't win.

 

[e_dawg]

There's a bunch of apartments/condos in every city that are above or adjacent to a mall that not only has a grocery store on premises, but often a cinema, bookstore, music store, electronics store, clothing stores, banks, restaurants, and a food court right on a metro/subway/LRT transit line. If I didn't have a car, that's where I would be living.

Forget about walking 4 minutes outside to the grocery store, you can walk 2-4 minutes indoors to almost anything you could possibly need.

 

[i]

e_dawg, you must be a programmer. :wink:

 

[mubs]

Sounds good, but from what I've seen, insurance companies like to see that you have had previous continous coverage prior to them granting you insurance. No sustained coverage, higher premiums.

Darn bloody right. And a darn important point.

Also, Drakantus, consider having a bicycle. jtr is a great proponent of that, so I'll shut up now.

 

[e_dawg]

Here are a couple examples of condos adjacent to malls from Canada, as well as a couple interesting articles on underground cities -- important in Canada, so you can walk around and shop downtown indoors in the cold winter:

Toronto
http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/current/sct0500/02d.html
http://www.horizon-on-bay.com/main.htm
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/path/

Montreal
http://www.placealexisnihon.com/Files/index_a.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city_(Montreal)

 

[e_dawg]

Wow, 3 posts at the same time. Never seen that before.

e_dawg, you must be a programmer. :wink:

Programmer of last resort, maybe. I spend more time managing programmers as resources than I actually do programming. I spend maybe 5% of my time at work programming. We create and distribute a lot of Excel based reports. Most of our team is good with Excel and can do a lot with formulas and other built-in functions. When there is something that demands automation or if the solution requires programming to work, I bust out the VBA to help out.

But I have no formal programming training; consequently, my code is devoid of elegance and I'm not capable of doing any large and complex database-based application as would be better served by an Access VBA application. For this we hire a real contract programmer.

 

[ddrueding]

When i lived in San Francisco and Manhattan I didn't have a car and didn't miss it at all. All the good stuff seems to have been covered, so I'll just say "yeah..." and hit post...\

PUI

 

[Santilli]

I bought a Toyota Tercel, 1988 Ez, new, outright. Right off the bat, cheap insurance, since I didn't cover it for comprehensive. I'm a good driver, so low rates. No payments. With tax results, I make money when I drive.

I still have the same car. 110 a year for state use fees, also known as a license, and repairs. Engine has 238k miles on it, and probably next year this time, I'll think about putting a new engine in it.

189k on the first clutch. And no tickets.

See if you can find something like this...

I like the freedom of a car...

s

 

[Drakantus]

Drakantus, you have asked at the right place.

I live in Arlington, VA, and I don't own a car. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

...

This is a nice neighborhood (between Rosslyn and Court House). Side note: have you looked at the core Ballston area?

My rent is $1300/month in a nice building.

Thats funny, because while my location says Fairfax, I am actually living in McLean now and working in Rosslyn. I am looking at places as close to work as possible, for obvious reasons. I'm leaning to sharing a place at this point. I certainly could afford to get my own apartment, maybe not a $1300 one- I know there are some around for less than $1000. I'm not really against having roommates, it looks like an easy way to save a couple hundred dollars a month.

At this point I pretty much decided I'm going to do it, I just have to find the right place and look into selling my car. I know carmax will give me a quote to buy it outright without any real effort, or I could try to sell it on my own for a little more money.

I know I am going to miss my car for certain things, but for all I can tell the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. And as others have said, I can easily enough buy another car if I have to.


My biggest problem at this point is trying to decide what to do with all the old computer junk I have. I really don't want to be taking 6 old computers and putting them in a small apartment, but at the same time they are still worth some money and I can't just throw them away.

 

[e_dawg]

My biggest problem at this point is trying to decide what to do with all the old computer junk I have. I really don't want to be taking 6 old computers and putting them in a small apartment, but at the same time they are still worth some money and I can't just throw them away.

I have that problem too. You know, I have found that I didn't actually need all that hardware in the end. Heck, I've found that I don't even need a desktop anymore. Over the past few years with my desktops being on the fritz more so than actually working well, I have been relying on my increasingly aged notebook with 12" screen, P3-650, 320 RAM / 40 HD, no optical. Gave up the occasional gaming and CD/DVD. Even installed Windows twice without a floppy or CD -- used the i386 folder on my data partition that I copied there a few years ago.

Looking for a new laptop while I try to get rid of my duallie setup that's still in boxes. IBM T42 15" SXGA+, me thinks. That should be good enough for a few years.

 

[e_dawg]

Looking for a new laptop while I try to get rid of my duallie setup that's still in boxes.

If anybody's interested, PM me Dual Barton MP 2500+, Tyan Thunder

 

[sechs]

I like the freedom of a car...

I like the freedom *from* the car. Considering the caliber of California drivers, I'm glad that I'm not out there.

 

[jtr1962]

I've never had a car or a license. I live in a place where they're a luxury, not a necessity. For all the talk about the freedom having a car gives you I find that not having one gives you greater freedom. I'm free from worrying about registering, renewing my license, car payments, car repairs, parking, car theft, and also little things like going to court for speeding tickets. The last is particularly relevant in my case because if I drove anything like I cycle I would likely be racking up speeding tickets galore, probably to the point of eventually having my license revoked and going back to square one.

What do I lose by not having a car? Nothing really. All shopping is within easy walking distance. As a bonus I get exercise and don't need to waste time looking for parking by the stores. Factor that in and walking is often faster than driving. As for traveling by car, it's seldom that I actually need or want to go somewhere away from public transportation so that's not even an issue. I get car sick on longer trips so the car really isn't a viable means of long distance transportation for me anyway.

Cycling is a great alternative for distances of up to 10 or 20 miles. Unfortunately I can't use it as often as I would like due to the lack of secure indoor bicycle parking in stores. For example, a few weeks ago I walked both ways to CompUSA (a eight or so mile round trip). The walking took about 50 minutes each way. I could have covered the same distance by bike in probably 15 minutes or less but I would have had no place where I could leave my bike and be assured that it would still be there when I came out of the store. NYC really needs to encourage businesses to have room in stores by the security guard where patrons can leave their bicycles. Lots of times that would allow me to make trips to stores which I would otherwise not make.

Anyway, Drakantus, I say good for you for considering joining the ranks of the carless. If enough people did that we might actually start having viable public transportation again in areas where we used to. IMHO we've taken a huge step backwards. 60 years ago you could go almost anyplace worth going to by taking a combination of railroads and local interurbans, trolleys, and subways. After GM and Firestone brought up many rail lines for the sole purpose of ripping them out many places were left with no alternative but the car. Nowadays people are starting to rediscover rail transit as the better alternative it is. Integrated with bicycles, this could well be the future.

 

[Santilli]

Just playing DA.

It would suck driving to San Diego in a rental, to pick up my surfboards???

Added expense, etc.

s

 

[LOST6200]

JTR:

I dislike driving as much as anyone, having lived most of the time in the most congested areas in the US, but the thought of taking public transportation makes me physically ill. I almost quit my job over the prospect. In recent yeaqrs, I have been able to cut my driving down to 6000 miles per year which is not bad IMO.

Owning a car is one thing, but having a license and the abilty to drive is something else. Some people like to travel, and many of the most interesting places in the world are not easily accessible without a 4x4 or at least a car. I suppose if one has the dough, then having a chauffer is an option.

 

[Handruin]

For grocery concerns, you could always consider an option like Peapod if it's available in your area.

 

[sechs]

It would suck driving to San Diego in a rental, to pick up my surfboards???

Buy local. It's better for you and everybody else.