After another rent increase notice from the landlord, something had to give. Getting rid of the car, and related expenses, made the most sense for us. We have now been living without a car for almost 2 years. Here are our (previous) monthly car expenses; this is how much we are saving each month by being car-free:
- $150. Parking. (Downtown parking was expensive).
- $65. Car insurance. (With a 17 year old car, insurance was reasonable.)
- $40. Maintenance and repairs. (This would only increase, with our older car.)
- $25. Gas. (We didn’t drive it much.)
- $10. Registration and inspection. (Dividing the annual charge by 12)
As this was an older car, we didn’t have a car payment to get rid of. But even with that, our car-free monthly savings is $285 per month or $3,420 per year.
This is a true savings, since we didn’t replace the car with regular use of taxis or car sharing services. We are lucky that we can walk to work, daycare, grocery shopping, friends, and the library. Sometimes we do need to take a bus, and a couple of times a year a taxi, but that cost is minimal compared to the savings.
Besides the financial savings, there is time savings from not owning a car. We are no longer dealing with insurance, maintenance, inspection, rotating tires, winterizing, getting gas, and all those other tasks that come with car ownership.