Extreme Frugal - No Car

A car is one of the most expensive household consumer items. And yet, there is a limited understanding of the cost privately and socially of owning and using one.

For most of my life I enjoyed owning a car, and not once did I calculate exactly how much it was costing me. 

If you "have to have a car", why bother? But do you really have to have one?

Undoubtedly they are a highly convenient mode of transportation, but we pay a high price individually and collectively for that.

Private motor vehicles are expensive because they cost a lot initially to purchase. A car today costs what a house used to cost not so long ago.

There is also depreciation, insurance, registration, repairs, gas, and all it takes to keep a car clean and shiny.

Social costs include pollution, congestion, noise, death and injury (of humans and other living things) from accidents, road maintenance, and health care costs due to inactivity.

All those roads and parking spaces cost a lot, and determine how our landscape is designed. What we get is a planet built for cars, not for people.

It has been estimated that a couple that lives closer to work and bicycles there instead of driving could save them $250,000 over 10 years.

Linda and I are presently in our 3rd year of not having a vehicle, and we have no regrets. But I can't say it has been painless.

After a lifetime of easy mobility, we have had to make alternate arrangements for getting things done.

We have generous friends that have been picking up groceries for us that we order on line. 

For other things there is a non-profit organization that provides wheelchair accessible transportation for both Linda and I for $20 dollars per trip. But we find that we don't really have a need to go anywhere.

I ride my bicycle a lot, and ride to town for most things that need to be done. 

I ride to a small store run by a local family for small  food orders, like onions or apples or potatoes, then carry the food home in a pack on my back. 

Instead of driving and taking 30 minutes, it takes me about 2 hours on my bike. But those are 2 glorious hours in comparison.

People generally want to be healthier these days. Studies show that cycling and walking is not just physically healthy, but is also beneficial for mental heath. 

Cycling is ideal for shorter distances. In cities it can be faster than driving, and it is definitely more enjoyable. 

I have never seen someone on a bicycle get road rage. 

Road relaxation is more likely.

But for the majority of people, the most important thing these days will be saving money. Saving lots of money.

If you want to go extreme frugal, I would highly recommend going car free.

We wish we had done it 30 years ago when we first talked about it.

“In a sense the car has become a prosthetic, and though prosthetics are usually for injured or missing limbs, the auto-prosthetic is for a conceptually impaired body or a body impaired by the creation of a world that is no longer human in scale.” 

― Rebecca Solnit