Our one-fewer-car experiment

For the past month, we've been down a car.  So far, it's nearly been working out.

When my wife and I started our married life together in a third floor walk-up apartment in Chicago in the 1980s, we each owned a car: both were Toyota Corollas, a couple of model years apart, but in most respects nearly indistinguishable.  In those first married days, we walked together to and from the neighborhood train station to get to and from our downtown jobs, so we really didn't need two cars, or even one, for work purposes.  But of course cars were useful - well, essential - for groceries and other errands, social life, visiting family, and the thousand and one other things for which American life has been geographically spread out with the expectation that one owns a car. 

Over the course of the next 12-13 years, we bought a house in suburbia and added four children to the tribe.  In order to squeeze more children into the available car space, the Corollas were succeeded over the years by a string of Toyota Camrys and minivans.  

But we departed from the prescribed suburban lifestyle manual when the oldest child got her drivers license: we didn't bestow a car on her.  The same was true for her younger siblings as they hit the drivers-license milestone.  Somewhat to their embarrassment, or at least occasional annoyance, we dropped them off at high school every morning, and then, depending on their schedule, they either rode the school bus, caught a ride home with a friend or, if they had an after-school activity, which was frequent, we picked them up (I was working from home by then).  Through all those years, we remained a two car family.

That changed when my second daughter graduated from college.  We paid for the purchase of a new car for her as a graduation gift, so she could get to her new job.  She continues to live with us for now, so our driveway, for the first time, has had three cars (our one-car garage has been used for storage for years now).  In order to fit the third car, we expanded our driveway from single-width to double-width.  

The understanding is that the third car is hers; the rest of us made do by sharing the customary two family vehicles, which in recent years have been a Camry and a Honda Odyssey.  It hasn't been too difficult: the two younger kids have been away at college, and both my wife and I work from home fulltime, so there have been days when very little driving has been done.

But now the configuration has changed again.  My third child graduated from college this past December, and as a graduation gift, we gave him our Camry.  He moved out with his car in late January, so now the driveway is down to two vehicles again: my daughter's car and our minivan.  My wife and I still work from home, and can go quite a few weekdays without needing to drive anywhere.  My other daughter still lives with us, and she attends school and also works, so she actually drives the minivan much more than my wife and I do.  

So these days, when my daughters are out and about in the two vehicles, there can be long stretches of a weekday (including now, as I write this post) when my wife and I both are home without a car.  I have to say, it induces a little anxiety.  Not that there is anywhere else I need to be.  It's just that I've had a vehicle at my beck and call for so many years that it leaves me feeling just a bit nervous not to have one waiting in the driveway.  

Upon our giving my son our car, my initial thought was: we get to buy a new car!  I know that's a source of stress for many people, but I don't mind it too much, and I like the whole new-car-smell thing.  

But then I heard that pesky Pope Francis whispering in my ear about living simply and not contributing more emissions.  So I talked to my wife about the possibility of our downsizing to be a one-car couple (with an adult child living at home who also drives that one car).  Neither of us (I mean my wife and me, not Francis) thinks we can get by with a single car for ever and ever.   This isn't an urban area where necessities are within walking distance.  But for now we are trying a one-car lifestyle see how it works.  We've made it a month so far.

And it's working - mostly.  Naturally, with the pandemic still in full swing, we drive to fewer places.  For example: if I'm making dinner on a particular evening, and there is an ingredient we don't have in the house, previously I would have hopped in the car and driven to the grocery store and back without giving it a thought.  These days, even if we had cars available, I'd think twice, or even thrice, about going into a public place; we're more likely to try to cook creatively with what we have on hand.  So in a way, the pandemic is forcing a simpler lifestyle on us, and having fewer cars hasn't been as limiting as it might otherwise have been.

The weekends are more of a car problem for us than the weekdays.  My weekend schedule in particular is pretty church-intensive, and I don't have much flexibility: I need to be on time for whatever I'm scheduled for.  Fortunately, the daughter who has her own car has been generous about dropping me off and picking me up, or letting my borrow her car.  She has bailed all of us out a number of times.  But at some point, probably in the near future, she also will move out, and then we would be three residents with a single vehicle.  Depending on whether others return home this summer, the ratio could become even more lopsided.

Another consideration which didn't exist until a few years ago is Uber and other ride-sharing services.  When I suggested to my wife that we could try to get by with one fewer vehicle, I did so knowing full well that I could order an Uber if need be.  I've been using Uber on business travel for several years, and am pretty comfortable with it.  

I've found Uber sufficiently convenient and inexpensive that at one point I did some back-of-the-envelope math to try to figure out whether it would be cheaper to rely on Uber than own a car.  My conclusion was that it's close but Uber probably is just a little bit more expensive.  But that presupposed frequent Uber trips, as in the pre-pandemic, all-the-kids-at-home days.  During this time we've been down a vehicle, I've only needed to use Uber once (well, twice: to get to church, and then to get home again).  If that is a typical month's frequency, then relying on Uber, rather than buying another car, is a no-brainer.  Or it would be, if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic.  Getting into a stranger's car these days, especially one which might have borne 20 or more other passengers that day, is somewhat of an act of courage.  

I don't know how long we'll hold out without buying another car.  We're not heroic.  But we've made it one month so far.  Maybe we can make it through another.