ALT-9 Tips for Living without a Car
Like some many other harsh realities in life going car-less is a viable lifestyle. Consider my plight: I live in a medium sized town that has reasonable public transportation, but I work in a larger city that is approximately 50 miles away. In the past I would commute 100 miles a day, fight traffic and pray for a parking space. Then I gave just up.
One day while my car was in the shop for maintenance I took advantage of a commute offer from my employer. They would pay half of the cost of my commute providing I only used public transportation. So that morning I walked to the local train station (3 minutes), boarded the inter-city commute and arrived at my destination 55 minutes later. On the train I read my newspaper and even "moofed" by using my laptop to scan my emails. I arrived refreshed and prepared for my first meeting of the day. When I shared this experience with my co-workers at lunch I had discovered that I had actually saved 15 minutes on a normal drive to work.
On the way home I started to realize that if I sold my car at its current resale value I would be able to continue this comfortable lifestyle beyond the average lifetime of my car. My current car is six years old and the average lifespan for this particular make and model is approximately 9 years. So that leaves me with 3 years of depreciating value before I will have to give the car away to get rid of it.
In the remaining three years I will be faced with increase maintenance costs, higher fuel bills and crowded roadways. However, if I go car-less now I can save the depreciation, insurance, fuel and maintenance costs now. I could also add interest to that if I reasonably banked the proceeds of the sale. I could also save more money if I participated in the annual, instead of the monthly, commute plan. In uncertain times like these it is always handy to have a nest egg.
My son applauded my environmentally friendly decision that evening after dinner. That evening he went to www.carbonfootprint.com and actually showed me how this t would significantly reduce our family's carbon foot print and would help the fight against global warming. My wife commented that this would also reduce stress in my life. No more road rage on traffic jammed roads that eventually transform into the world's longest parking lots. Best of all I could put a pool table in the empty garage!
So now I'm looking forward to selling the car and starting my new car-less lifestyle.
