How Do I Do It: Living With 1 Car
If you have missed any part of this series on how we live on a small income you can read them by following these links.
That is right the title says 1 car. Since we have been married we have never had more then 1 car. That is over 5 years of only having 1 car. In the beginning it was challenging, but now it is so easy, I honestly can’t even picture us with more then 1 car.
Back when my parents were born it was a big thing in a family to have more then 1 car. It was just how people lived and functioned. Now, I know times have changed ther eis more in the world now then there was before. more places to go, more people in households working, and people think you must have 2 cars to make things work.
When Matthew and I were first married we were both going to school full time and both working part time. We worked across town from our school. Our schedules didn’t really match up either. so we sat down when we first got married and decided how we would make this work. We looked at the cost of getting another car and we realized that we didn’t have money for it. Matthew had a bicycle and he said he would ride it to work and school. So We decided that we would either give rides to each other or he would ride his bike and I could drive the car. After a little while we bought me a bike and we switched off who had the car.
After I got pregnant we knew I would not be working anymore. I knew I wouldn’t want to stay in the house all the time and I would have appointments for me and our son. We invested in a good walking stroller (used of course) and I would walk with the baby to the store and park and anywhere I wanted to go while Matthew was using the car. I had his schedule so I would make all appointments work with when he would need the car. It took planning but it worked.
We have continued with that through now 2 and 1/2 kids and we will continue to do it for the next few years of schooling my husband has left. It just takes communication and planning. You go shopping when you can and you plan appointments when you can.
I would estimate that the choice to only have 1 car for now has saved us thousands of dollars. We have had no car payments, insurance is much smaller on 1 car then 2, gas for an extra car would be over $100 a month right now. It has been so worth the effort and planning financially.
Do you only have 1 car? how do you make it work? If you have more then 1 car, do you think you could make 1 car work?
