Living with only one car

So I was curious if anyone on here who was married with kids had tried living with just one car before? The reason I ask, is I'm considering selling my Mazda to alleviate some debt. My wife and I both work but never on the same day. It kind of seems like the biggest complaint is the inconvenience from having one person always confined to walking distance of the house. I can see problems from when do you do the grocery shopping and things like that. Plus, the increased mileage on the car could add some expense. Plus our other car is a Scion Xa, so it's not exactly roomy.

I don't understand the question, one car per square foot of driveway or one car per day of the week.

You really asked this in here?

Did I log into the wrong place?

We have went to one (running) car for a while as I was fixing the Land Cruiser. We made it work. Like you said, it does take away a bit of freedom, but you are doing it for the greater good.

Maybe go GRM and get a motorcycle?

Swmbo and I shared the escort for about 5 months a few years and we did work the same days 4 days a week. It sucked but was plenty doable.

When the wife and I were first starting down our journey as a married couple we had only 1 vehicle.

We had kids (a 1 year old and a newborn) who had medical issues and needed frequent care and had lots of visits to the E.R. To make things even more fun I was due at work by 5 am. It was not fun getting everyone out the door in time for me to get to work by 5. I didn't sleep and I nearly lost my job due to being late too often, but we made it.

I won't do it again. I'd advise keeping a functional beater in your back pocket.

If I had a job at the moment, we'd be in trouble. We've made do with one car. Usually it requires juggling schedules and creative shopping and some freakishly long commuting. Thank god I like to drive.

I always run two cars, one good one, one marginal/ fun one. The wife and kids get the good car, mine are the rest. Like Jed said, one emergency with the kids, and no car at home could be a disaster. Get your cars paid off and enjoy not having payments till your car dies. If you have to pick one, choose the one the wife wants to keep. You can always get something cool later. If you need to run one car, leave it at home if you can, bus, bike carpool, walk to work... leave the car at home.

I did that with my GF for 2 years while my 71 Cuda was being restored. It SUCKED. I hated having to walk home after a long day at work.

We have been a one-car household since we've been married (4 years and some change now). We've simply never been able to afford having more than one car. SWMBO is a stay-at-home mom, so she gets the car in case of emergencies. I make it work by biking to work (I admit, I've been kind of lucky in having an employer that is at least tolerant of my all-weather bike habit.) There are some inconveniences - there have been a few occasions where I've had to interrupt dinner-making to have SWMBO pick me up due to weather or a flat bike tire, but for the most part we've managed it free of strife.

Does our one car (a Focus sedan) see more mileage than it would if we were a two-car household? Sure. But I don't think the increased wear and tear on one car exceeds the fixed costs of having a second car around.

In reply to aussiesmg:

I echo this......I have been able to drive any of three vehicles this summer.....that goes down to one in the winter, but I'm single. Next summer it should be at least a choice of 5 every day. LoL

Never done it myself but I can see how it would suck mightily. My suggestion, assuming the Scion is the least expensive of your vehicles to run and is reliable: keep it for her and the kids, sell the Mazda and buy a cheapie paid for basic transport car for yourself. Bonus points if your clunker is fun to drive, like a 200SX, RX7, 240SX, MR2, etc so forth and so on.

I ALWAYS keep a paid for car. Seen too many people who buy a car with big/long payments, big insurance etc then something happens out of the blue (lost job, accident, illness, divorce, spouse loses job etc) and the repo man shows up. Just today one of my customers showed up with his new 2012 Ram 1500, easily a $45,000 truck. He lost his job, has no quick prospects and is in a bad spot.

wife and I did it for years while I delivered pizza... both kids where still at home... because I had to have the car she couldn't drive me to work and use the car... but thanks to 24/7 stores it wasn't too bad for shopping and such...

growing up we only had one car and I recall mom occasionally driving dad to work at any given time of day (he was military so his schedule would change)...

if possible I'd keep one "good" car, if finances are tight get a cheap beater... insurance is minimal for a second car with minimum liability and it helps hugely with the headaches of single car life

My wife and I lived with one car for 10 years with up to 3 kids. She was a stay at home mom and I worked. I usually had the car. The school was in walking distance and there were stores in walking distance. Planning ahead was a requirement. Shopping happened in the evenings or on the weekends. It wasn't super hard, but it wasn't too convenient at times. We started out that way and at the time couldn't have afforded another even if we had wanted to.

My son and his wife have one car and they have three kids. They have survived for 3 years like that. She drops him at my house, he works for me, so he rides to work with me. She then drives to the express bus stop and rides the bus to work. She then picks him up at my house on the way home unless we are working late. On those days he takes one of my cars home. His situation is a little different. If they get in a bind, he can always borrow one of mine. I've got 5 tagged, insured and running at the moment.

Going from two cars to one at this point would be a royal PITA for us. I'm not sure we could do it without a fight. If you have loans on both cars, I'd probably buy a beater second car and dump the one you owe the most on.

I got a new job recently with a work van so we downsized to one car for the wife. I'm not allowed to drive the van other than for work ( I'm sure it would be fine for an emergency) we did it to try and catch up on debt and reduce insurance bills. But I miss having my own car and once we get some $$ saved up I'm getting a miata or mr2 to play with:)

That's the plan anyways I may never get my fun car

Well some more background. The Scion is paid off (it was a gift from my in-laws). Owe $7250 on the Mazda (07, 130k). So unfortunately, it would mostly be selling it for as small a loss as possible (or for what we owe hopefully). While I'm not at all against driving a beater, it's just kind of a hard sell to say 'sell one car, hope we don't lose money, and then buy another car'. Plus, I uh don't have the best car buying record (makes me nervous about buying a beater, and makes SWMBO reluctant to let me try my hand in such matters. Although I must say I found a nice Cherokee XJ for sale today....

It sounds pretty much like what I expected. Inconvenient for the most part, but can be a real PITA. Definitely some food for thought.

When we got married we had 4 cars (two each). Since then (45 years) except for one 2 year period we have never had less than 3.

During that one 2 year period we did have only one car, but I had 4 motorcycles. We both carpooled driving one day a week during that time so it worked out fairly well.

I have four running and insured at the moment. I am also a stay at home parent. We have one car payment. Generally speaking- we only need one car. I'm very fortunate in that we have everything I need within walking distance. (Literally. Bank, liquor store, gas station for smokes, grocery store, Walmart, Walgreens, and even a DMV!) We live in an odd little area where I'm 5min on foot from damn near anything. I rarely drive my car, or any other car for that matter- now that I'm at home. If we need anything, I grab the kiddo, the diaper bag, the stroller, and we go for a walk. He LOVES being outside, so it's not a problem to him, at all. Hell, the liquor store guy knows me and him.... we tend to walk a lot in the mornings and evenings (We're both quite sensitive to sunlight....I have a deep window tint script for my cars and if it's daylight, I have my sunglasses on) so the lower in the sky the sun is, the better for us. Just so happens I tend to walk by the liquor store at 10am, and have more than once shoved a sixer or a bottle of Captain in the stroller and continued on my journey. That all being said-

There is no way in HELL I'd ever be without less than 3 running cars. I need two just for myself. I'm OCD where I need to have a back up plan for EVERYTHING. So- I need a back up in case my DD (my ms3) breaks. Or, if the wife's car breaks, I need a car to stick her in to minimize downtime so she can go to work and I can fix her car. I won't let her drive the ms3 at all, and I won't be stuck without a car, so I need a 3rd. It's just how I operate. Is it feasible for me to do it? Absolutely. Will I do it? Hell no.

We have 2 cars 2 trucks. No children. 2vehicles are shows and races only but they work in emergency cases (if you dont mind filling up with high test and street driving drag slicks, no AC)

We work in opposite directions the same shift 5days a week. We could not have 1 car. On the weekends though we always ride together.

I'd sell my car in your case and buy me a low mileage ranger or Camry.... Protege' anything with faded paint and a solid drivetrain to get you by.

If you never both need the car at the same time, I don't see what the problem is. Less payments, less wasteful trips, less insurance, less property taxes, less maintenance to track, etc.

Enjoy.

It really depends on where you live and whether the kids are in school and how long your commute is etc. We've done it for a couple of days at a time when one car was down for maintenance, but it's not something we'd willingly do again.

mndsm wrote: ... So- I need a back up in case my DD (my ms3) breaks. Or, if the wife's car breaks, I need a car to stick her in to minimize downtime so she can go to work and I can fix her car. ...

This is a good case for having more than one. I've done the clutch replacements that finish up at 2:00am so I could make it to work the next day. They seriously suck. .

Toyman01 wrote:

mndsm wrote: ... So- I need a back up in case my DD (my ms3) breaks. Or, if the wife's car breaks, I need a car to stick her in to minimize downtime so she can go to work and I can fix her car. ...

This is a good case for having more than one. I've done the clutch replacements that finish up at 2:00am so I could make it to work the next day. They seriously suck. .

I have two case studies that prove this.One morning, I came down- already late for work due to a long night, to discover my DD/beater Taurus had a flat. I was in work clothes and really didn't have time to change a tire. Fortunately for me, I had 4 other cars at the moment. The keys for the ms3 were upstairs, as were the keys for the Prism. I had the keys for the mx6 and the MINI on me. Wife needed the MINI, so I jumped in the mx6, and made my way to work. Was still on time after a little creative manipulation of traffic laws.

Other time- had a wicked sidewall failure on the MINI, again on my way to work. Wife worked overnights at the time, in the direction I was headed. I called a tow truck (MINI's don't have spares) called her and told her to meet me on the side of the road. She showed up, we swapped cars, she waited for the tow truck. MINI ended up dying for some stupid reason, so I left work, grabbed her- grabbed a THIRD car- and we were back on the map again. She had to go get our son who'd been in WI at grandmas, and I went back to work while the MINI got sorted. None of which would have been possible without extra cars.

Toyman01 wrote:

mndsm wrote: ... So- I need a back up in case my DD (my ms3) breaks. Or, if the wife's car breaks, I need a car to stick her in to minimize downtime so she can go to work and I can fix her car. ...

This is a good case for having more than one. I've done the clutch replacements that finish up at 2:00am so I could make it to work the next day. They seriously suck. .

This. The Jensen is my backup transport if anything goes wrong with the Trooper. It paid off just recently when the two pieces of the harmonic balancer decided not to play nicely with each other after 200,000 miles of togetherness. Had to get the part overnight and I live WAY too far from work to walk, I'd have to start out at like 5AM to get there by 7:15. Then there's the bike as a backup to my backup.

Even though I drive a company van, I still like having two personal vehicles. I hate having to be confined to the house when the wife needs the Durango, whether I go anywhere or not.