In a strange development, I sold my car back to the dealership where I bought it and intend to live without a car, at least for the next foreseeable period of time. It's not as bad as it sounds. My partner and friend and resident molecular biologist, J____, has a car. We decided that we probably only need the one. As she pointed out, not once in all of last year did a situation arise where we each needed a car at the same time to go to two different places. Since we are moving to an urban situation (in just a few weeks now) we will need a car or cars even less, so the theory goes. We will be living one block away from a streetcar stop, and even without the streetcar, several restaurants, one hardware store, and about three grocery stores, a pharmacy, library, FedEx store, etc. etc. are all within easy walking distance.
Of course there's no nearby Target or Best Buy or giant mall, whatever, but J___ has her little red car and, anyway, we're about two minutes from three Interstates going off in all directions. Any inconvenience is offset by three factors: no monthly parking garage fee, no car payment, no insurance payment. Four: no depreciation-, and because the prices of used cars has shot up so much due to Covid related shortages, I sold my car for a little more than I paid for it new, (I only had it about eight months. If/when I need another car, the prices will hopefully have dropped back down to something more realistic.
This will be the first time I have not owned a car in roughly five and a half decades. I like to point this out. My first car was a '50 Ford, and my last car (so far) was another Ford, 70 years newer, exactly. In between, there were no Fords, but that's another story that won't be told due to lack of interest. I like cars as a matter of principle and in part of my early life they were pretty tightly woven into my ego, my identity, at least in some ways. It seems just a little liberating to contemplate life without one, now, kind of like when I got rid of so much junk a few years back and sold my house.
Anyway, I'll let you know when I get tired of this and buy another car. But, maybe . . . oh well.
Congrats! I didn’t realize how good I had it back in Chicago sans car. No maintenance, no insurance, no parking hassles. Of course, Chgo had awesome public transportation, while SoCal… not so much. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
ReplyDeleteI don't enjoy sharing a car, so this would drive me a little crazy. But there's definitely a convenience that comes with freedom of no insurnace or parking or maintenance and driving can also be a real pain sometimes.
It might prove to be too annoying to share a car--we thought about that. Worse case scenario, I buy another car. This time, I'll use the cash I got from the sale and not get a loan. That'll be somewhat of an improvement.
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