Going Carless...

I have been thinking more and more about trying to go carless. Downsizing and getting rid of both of our cars and getting 1 car. But DH isn't buying it. He likes the freedom of having two cars. We only have two cars because where we lived apart for 2 years in Southern CA. It was impossible without two cars.

So we ate the major depreciation on the cars before we even arrived out East. When we first moved we thought about selling one of the cars. But then my DH got into 3 car accidents immediately and we negated the idea. But we've been fortunately accident free since then. I still rarely drive my car, though we have had issues with the focus.

So I decided to run a couple of numbers about how much we'd save by selling one car. We might get $4k for the Focus. Plus we would not have to pay for insurance and maintanence. Insurance would be $75/month savings we would have 2 drivers, 1 car, and no discount for multi-car. The gas would not drop much because we'd be carpooling, but DH drives to work daily, and I would need a monthly transit pass. Currently I carpool, bike, and use public transit occasionally. The pass would cost $90/month. So the savings might be close to a wash because I don't use pass now but rather pay as I go. The pass works best if you use the transit daily, and I can catch rides 50% of the time and biked daily during the summer.

I wonder if it would still be worth it? We basically would net the $4k for sale of the car. The monthly savings would be minimally. The biggest factor holding us back is the Focus is the car we use for hauling stuff around, going camping, going snowboarding. But it is a more unreliable car. The corolla doesn't have fold down seats and carry as much. But we'd have to keep it because it's so much more reliable.

I guess we still should discuss it more. I wonder if the convience factor is worth the $4k?