I was reading an article yesterday on high-speed rail in California (still just a dream, by the way), when I realized how insane it was for me to own a car. It costs me over $800/month to own my car in the city:
$300 car payment
$300 garage payment
$150 car insurance (even though I have a clean driving record *shakes fist*)
$50 gas (conservative estimate)
And this doesn’t even take into account repairs.
So it looks like I will probably sell my car very shortly here. I am not completely sure I am going to do this yet, but I am about 90% sure. Thankfully I live in what is considered “downtown,” so there is great bus access right near my place. And since I live downtown, groceries are just a walk down the street, as is drinking. So here is what I would do for transportation in lieu of a car:
– SF MUNI bus for going to work, EFF, Best Buy, other not-too-far-away city places
– Caltrain for going to places south of San Francisco
– walking for things that I already do (no-brainer)
– a new Trek bike for medium trips during the day when it doesn’t involve carrying much
– City Car Share for when I need a car. They have a few different models, and plenty of parking spots (where they store the cars) throughout the city. One of them is five blocks away (right near where I currently park my car) and one is just a few more blocks away than that. I would look forward to driving the Scion, Prius, and Civic Hybrid.
I think the biggest thing holding me back is that I love my car and I love driving a fast car. But I don’t think this is a good enough reason to spend $800/month. I have been thinking a lot about all the toys I could buy with that amount 🙂
And I also think that if I got rid of my car, I’d get part of my soul back. I think we all have our concepts of “how the world should be,” and in my world I see a lot less cars and a lot more public transit. So I’ll be one more bus-riding bum, very slightly growing the demand for expanded public transportation.
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Comments
3 responses to “Bye Bye, Beautiful Car”
Yeah for the saving of money!, but booh hoo hoo on not having the excitment of owning and driving your own nice car.
Good luck, son, on anything that you decide about this subject.
You, as I always see, do some deep thinking things through.
I’ve always thought that if I lived and worked in a city with acceptable public transportation I probably wouldn’t own a car either – it’s expensive, and I probably wouldn’t need it that often.
Still, you just bought that thing. The depreciation is going to be murderous if you sell it now.
The depreciation is going to be murderous if you sell it now.
True, but that only means that it would have made good financial sense to not buy it in the first place. I’ll still get the most benefit, assuming I will sell it at some point, by selling it now.