About a year ago, my wife and I decided we only needed one car. We live in town, making it possible to walk most everywhere, and until recently we were both working from home.
We also had a new baby and wanted a larger vehicle for those times when we wanted to travel. Our economy cars had enough room in the trunk for a stroller and not much else.
So we traded our two little cars in for one larger car. We love it, and it does exactly what we need it to do.
But what am I going to do when Danielle takes it to Virginia with her for seven weeks this summer?
I started by thinking about places I will want to go that are not within walking distance. These include the base, the book store, Simmons Farm, where we buy meat and veggies, and Sweet Berry Farm, where we pick fruit for preserving.
I clicked over to Google Maps to see just how difficult it would be to get to these destinations. I was happy to see that they’re all within a five-mile radius, and that all but Sweet Berry Farm are on a bus route. With a little bit of effort, I should be able to wake up my long-dormant bike-riding muscles and make the trek out to the strawberry fields come June.
It certainly helps that it’s going to be summer, but this little thought experiment really has me wondering why more single-income families don’t adopt the one-car lifestyle.
Prior to 1990, two-car households were in the minority, according to the Department of Transportation, and in 2000, 1/3 of US households had only one car. According to AAA, you can save an average of $8,121 a year by not having a second car, and the only cost is a loss of some convenience.
It’s been pretty easy this last year having just the one vehicle. It will get trickier when our shore tour is over and Danielle has to get to the base every morning.
But that brings up another reason to have only one car: deployments. When your spouse is deployed, what happens to his ride? It sits there. Costing money.
Are there any readers out there who’ve made the switch from two cars to one, or who have always gotten by with just one (or less)? I’d love to see your comments.
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Tom knows my story, but for the benefit of others I’ll try to keep this short — we’ve gotten by with one car now for 8 years, including two years with a child. It has fit our lifestyle for similar reasons to those Tom mentions: I telecommuted for six years then started staying home with our child; Ruth has spent five of those 8 years on sea duty and thus away from home more than half the time; and we prefer to live in neighborhoods that are within a couple miles of work and shopping, making walking or biking easy and convenient.
It’s been a little tougher this time around on sea duty because of our son and because my wife’s ship has been in the yards, rather than operational (and therefore gone for days/weeks at a time). But she has duty once every week or so and we’re within a few miles of the shipyard, so it hasn’t been as inconvenient as I thought to drive her to work once a week, knock out the errands that require a car and pick her up the next day. Probably half the time someone offers her a ride home anyway.
As far as why one-car families aren’t more common — many people don’t choose their home based on proximity to the things they want or need to do. Folks seem to prioritize more yard, more bedrooms/bathrooms and additional square footage, decisions that leave little choice but to own a car for every adult who expects to leave the house daily.
People tell us we’re crazy more or less every day, so please, other commenters, feel free to pile on. I figure it comes with the territory…
My husband and I (and 6 month old daughter) have been a one car family since we got married in ‘06. There are times when it has been inconvient to drive him to and from work, or to be stuck at home when he has the car, but it’s worth the sacrifice in the long run. Especially when gas was $4/gallon. Isn’t it interesting how 20 years ago it wasn’t a big deal to do errands just once a week? I think it boils down to people wanting another car, rather than really needing one (or more!)
Great post! Although..if you bike it to the Berry Farm, how will you cart home your loot?
Well, I had to lose my panniers when I installed Sean’s seat, but we bought a basket for the handlebars that should do the trick. I hope!
We have only one car, and it has been that way most of our marriage of 18 months. It has been a little scary sometimes (rough neighborhood, I was on foot with no cell phone), and I have only been upset about it only once.
We got by mostly by living near where I worked or went to school. Before the deployment I was only about three blocks from school and it was just as fast to walk as it was to drive and search for a parking spot. I just waited to go grocery shopping until he was home at night.
During the deployment we only had the one car to worry about.
Now that he is home, we live in a much smaller town, so in all honesty we can both walk to our jobs. This works for me cuz I like walking anyway, and he says it is helping him get back into shape.
It saves us on gas for both vehicles, not to mention insurance and upkeep. There would have also been no point for two while he was gone, cause I know he would want some sport car thing, and I lived in the middle of the country down five miles of dirt road, I wouldn’t have been able to drive it at all.
I don’t know how you do it with these New England winters Tom! We considered going down to one car because I’m no longer working but this past winter convinced me I’m just not cut out of walking to the grocery store when it’s 20 degrees out.
Oh, let me tell you. We were a one car family (due to an accident costing me my minivan). It lasted nearly a year. There were five of us, two adults and 3 children (all in car seats). We managed to actually fit all of us, snugly in a small sedan. It can be done, even in New England. You just may need to be creative every once in awhile. I echo the excitement of only having one car when the spouse is deployed. I smiled when I knew we weren’t wasting money on an idle vehicle.
Of course, at the time I wasn’t working outside of the home. Now, things are a bit different with me back to work.
Wow, I am so impressed, and I do envy you your practicality and savings$$$$!
Being married to an inveterate “car guy,” exempts me from belonging to a one-car family. We currently own six cars (yes, I was surprised when I counted them, too.)
Three of those, however, are vintage Mustangs, currently in storage in the U.S. One of those has been mine since high school, so I can’t blame it all on hubby.
Also, my husband temporarily works 150 miles from home, so he commutes on the weekend in his little Honda beater (good mileage.)
Our 18-year-old son is driving a Smart car. Do we get any green points for that? ha!
If so, I’m sure they are canceled out by my SUV.
I know, we probably need automotive therapy from the Henry Ford Clinic …
I am a navy spouse and my wife and I talked about saving money by getting rid of one of the cars, but she commutes to work on base daily (we live in Virginia Beach and she works at Sewells Point across from NS Norfolk) and I am not about to ride buses or walk around town with an 18 month old. When we PCS to Okinawa next summer I will have to learn how to live with one car, but for now I am hanging on to the convenience of having my own car.
We’re thinking about getting Danielle a Vespa when she goes back to a ship next year. That would be a good little commuter, and it would mean I’d get the car most of the time
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