Save money - be a one car family

Cars cost families a lot. At first glance it may not seem like much of your budget goes to your car, but the Dept. of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that car ownership costs are the second largest household expense in the U.S and can take up about 17% of the family budget (that’s for one car).

Ditching one car if you have two can be an excellent way to lower household costs. You can save that money you would be spending on depreciation, interest on your loan, taxes and fees, insurance premiums, fuel costs, maintenance, repairs, and more and put it to better use.

I was in a two parent + kid family for years with just one car. We lived in an area with seriously terrible public transportation AND we lived in a little town out on a beach – so for supplies you had to drive into town. Lastly, my son’s dad and me were both in college at the time and one of us always had a job. However, we still managed to make one car work by doing the following….

• Alternating schedules or sticking to schedules that overlapped a bit so that we could switch out the car or drop the other person off.  in order to allow time for one of us to drop the other off.
• We got child care within walking distance of my college or I’d take baby Cedar to class with me.
• We never made small trips into town. If we needed stuff we did it all at once – hit the doctors, hit the grocery store, and thrift store, etc.

If unlike us, you live in an urban area, it’s way easier to cut one car from the family budget because you can…

• Take public transportation.
• Car-pool with another person or family.
• Walk or bike to work and school.
• Have one parent work at home if possible, or at least work PT from home – more and more jobs are working out ways that employees can do this.
• Try a car share like Zipcar.
• Rent a car if one is needed for a temporary change in schedule.

It’s not totally easy to live with just one car in a family with more than one adult, but it is possible, and not as bad as you think. You save a ton of money and lower your carbon footprint as a bonus.

Could your family manage with just one car?

[image via stock.xchng]