Wfh and Multiple cars

[firemane]

I am curious if many posters have switched to a one car household. I am thinking of doing this and am fishing for either a nudge in either direction since it is a new concept to me.

We have 2 cars and are permanently WFH. One car is nice and only has 55k miles while the other is older and requiring more and more repairs and maintenance (2008 rx350 suv). If we frequently needed the car, the maintenance would probably be worth it to not have to buy a new car. However, I am thinking that maybe it would actually be a greater luxury to free myself of having the hassle of maintaining two cars and taking up garage space in a narrow garage. It currently needs another repair and I am thinking I am ready to let it go.

We recently moved to a smaller city in the south, and are dinks. We are in suburbia, but have a lot of stuff within walking distance. Once every month or two, both cars are in use, but I feel like we could probably get around this by having one person drop off the other and then go about our separate business

This is not necessarily a financial decision as much of a lifestyle decision and saved money is just icing on the cake. If it were a situation where I was having to call Ubers, rent cars, and increase hassles in a different type of way, I would not be considering. We travel for work but the companies always provide a rental car.

Thanks for reading

[Dictionary Time]

Yes, my husband is WFH and I walk 20 minutes to work and we have one car. We are deep in car centric suburbia and it is fine.

Yes, there are moments where we have to think about things and maybe rearrange. It’s really so rare, I almost can’t believe it. I figured we would get an Uber or have to rent a car occasionally. But it’s been 18 months and we haven’t even done that at all.

Some people may feel constrained by the idea of scarcity. But we view it more positively and I think that makes the difference.

And if you don’t like it, you can always go back to two cars. Now that supply chains are better and prices have stabilized, it seems less risky to try it out.

[Tasse]

We are both WFH and have one car. The only time it has ever been inconvenient was in coordinating plans with other people, when we both needed to be in two places at once.

Honestly, every few months I run the numbers trying to decide whether to become a zero-car household. I haven't it because I think it would make us too reliant on my in-laws (who live 5 min away), and I don't want to impose.

[jac941]

My spouse WFH, and I go to an office. I drive to work once a week and otherwise bike or take transit. We also have 2 kids. We only have 1 car. We have found that as long as you’re willing to be creative and to take a Lyft occasionally, it’s fine. We take Lyft maybe once a month.

In any event, we have no regrets. A monthly Lyft is far less expensive than owning a second car. And it’s more convenient than driving - no maintenance and I can get stuff done in on the ride.

Sounds like you could ditch the second car and see how it goes for a few months. If it’s awful, you could always buy a car at that point.

[Freedomin5]

Neither of us are WFH, and we don’t own a car. We are walking distance to my work and biking distance to DH’s work. On rainy days, he carpools while I throw on a raincoat. If we need to go further than walking/biking distance, we take public transit or an Uber.

[reeshau]

We went from 3 cars in Michigan (!!) to 1 car in Dublin. We tried zero cars, but had a couple medical emergencies that convinced us otherwise.  As with other consumer habits, time in Europe showed us a better way.

Now in Houston, we made a top priority of walkability--fairly scarce here, but doable.  We have 3 grocery stores within walking distance.  I am FIRE'd, but actively manage our investments, so you can say I am WFH.  Both DW and I have our social groups, and with after-school activities for DS, the car is fairly well-utilized.  If I am traveling alone, I will get a ride to the airport, or we will confirm with a neighbor or friend their availability in an emergency if I am gone.

I will also add our car is a plug-in hybrid, (Chrysler Pacifica) so the daily shuttling we do is all electric.  I have a picture of the gas mileage reaching 65 mpg, but above 60 fairly unusual.  We get gas every month or two, but I only fill it halfway, so the gas doesn't sit in the tank too long.

Oodles of cost savings.  Understandable it's not for everyone, but it fits us like a glove--and not coincidentally, but by design.

[LD_TAndK]

We're a one car couple, in suburbia with poor transit. About once a month we both want the vehicle simultaneously.

We've been doing this for seven years and always been able to figure it out. We're generally flexible people and like to bike and take what public transit there is here. We've never had to hire an Uber/Lyft. We may be strange in that we generally do everything together on the weekends and rarely have separate social plans.

Not only is it freeing saving all that money, you save an incredible amount of space.

[Sibley]

I didn't see any reasons in your post why you would keep the 2nd car.

Sell it and be done with it.

[ditheca]

We downsized to 1 car when I started biking 15 miles to work. Now that I'm fully WFH, we would never consider two cars. DW and my oldest son walk or ride half a mile to the local University.

We did get a bit extravagant -- I bought two Lectric ebikes ($1000 each) which get more use than the car.

[simonsez]

We ... are dinks.

Yes, have been a 1 car hh for many years now.  The only thing that would make me change is if we have a child/children and I'd want reliable transportation to get to a hospital or go run a dire errand (assuming our primary car is already in use and unavailable).

Safety is an expensive illusion, though so we'll see. ;-)

[midweststache]

I didn't see any reasons in your post why you would keep the 2nd car.

Sell it and be done with it.

This.

[Kris]

We still have both our cars, but they are old and paid for and still run fine. DH is retired but he takes his mom to doctor appts and grocery shopping, etc. several times a week. I go to the gym every day except Sunday, and do other stuff too, and it’s nice that we don’t need to work around each other for the car. Plus we wouldn’t make that much if we sold either of them, so there’s not much incentive to do that.

One of the cars will eventually die, and when that happens we won’t replace it.

[Finances_With_Purpose]

I would do that easily if in your situation, and I'm someone who strongly prefers two cars.  But we have two jobs neither of which is 100% WFH, kids, and so on, so there are lots of times when the conflicts are unworkable. 

There are just so many workarounds/solutions you may find with that. 

But you don't have to worry about it: just sell the second car now, since it's giving you trouble.  The used market was way up, and still is, I think, but not as hot.  Sell now, though.

See how it goes.  It's a risk-free test.  You'll either need another car eventually.  Or you won't.  And it won't take too many instances to figure out whether you find workarounds and it works or it just won't work, and you need a car soon-ish. 

The solution is easy on this one: just try it out. 

[JAYSLOL]

Probably both a good lifestyle choice, and a good financial choice.  You can always take an Uber ride once every month or two if you really need to, will certainly work out to less spent by doing that

[firemane]

Thanks for the replies. Very eye opening. We are going to ditch the car

[NorCal]

We tried to do this a few years back.  We did a test where we just left one car in the garage, and see if we could go a month with only one car.

We made it work about 95% of the time.  But there were just a few times per month where it didn't work, and rideshare couldn't have filled in.  Sometimes it was kids doctors appointments paired with a work conflict, or other times me or my wife would have to go somewhere when it was time to get the kids from school.

I wish it would have worked for us, but there were just enough incidences of conflicts that it was worth keeping the second car.

[ixtap]

We have been a one car couple since 2018. It takes some coordination and communication, but honestly the only real problem is the same one I had when I was single: getting the car to the mechanic if needed. We had one within biking distance, but they closed when their plaza gentrified.

[Blissful Biker]

In transitioning to being a single vehicle family, we took advantage of a government rebate program where scrapping an old car gave us $1K towards the purchase of an ebike. 

Having a reliable single vehicle and an ebike has worked out really well for our family of 4 drivers (2 parents and 2 young adults).  The kids normally take public transport to school, DH is retired and I WFH so somedays the car doesn't get used at all.

We also thought we would occasionally rent a car, but in 4 years we haven't needed to once.  Really glad we made the change.

[FLBiker]

Congratulations!

We switched to being a 1 car family about 3 years ago and it has been fine.  We live in a place (small town Nova Scotia) that doesn't have ride sharing, but we do have cabs and I've probably used one twice.  My wife commutes to work but has summers off and I work from home.  We also have an 8 year old.  My wife is home in the afternoons and does most of the driving for chores, kid activities, etc.  When going someplace on my own, I typically bike.  It's a short ride to town, but the hill is VERY steep so that particular mode of transportation only appeals to me.  Wife and daughter will often walk to town, though (~25 minutes when walking with an 8 year old).

One funny episode happened this winter when my daughter was sick at school.  Usually my wife has her phone with her, but she didn't on this day so I strapped the chariot on my bike and went to my daughter's school to pick her up.  She got a real kick out of that!  It would have been impossible if there was a lot of snow, but I could always have taken a cab.

The most interesting thing has been when my wife travels -- she and my daughter went to stay with her folks in Florida for spring break for ~10 days, and they just parked at the airport.  I could have dropped them off and picked them up so that I could have the car, but the airport is ~1:15 away and I didn't think I'd need it.  Honestly, I didn't miss it at all.  They're going on a road trip this summer for ~ two weeks, and I'll be carless again.

[lucenzo11]

My wife and I switched to one car a little under 2 years ago. Both of us work from home full time and I had been considering it for a while since there were very few times when we both needed our cars. Really we just needed to take the plunge although I really didn't want to backtrack as purchasing any car, used or new, wasn't easy at the time. Finally we went for it and I sold my car easily to a private party. Since then, there's maybe been five times where we've both wanted the car, but we've just talked it through and in some cases rearranged schedules to make it work.

Some things to our advantage that made this work:
- We live within walking distance of grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, hardware store, and urgent care. That covers almost all semi "emergencies" if one of us was gone for the day with the car.
- Uber/lyft is a viable backup for the extremely rare event where one of us needs to go further for something more specific like a doctors appointment.
- My wife's parents are retired and have three cars for some silly reason. They would certainly let us borrow one if we ever needed to.
- We have lots of family in the area that we can carpool with.

Overall, it's been fine and a lot of our worries about it prior to going to one car were overanalyzed. Very happy with our decision. Plot twist, we are moving soon to a more rural area so our walkable convivence will be going away, but I still expect one car to be sufficient for us.

[Omy]

I would love to sell one of our 2 older cars since it's extremely rare that we need both cars, but DH vetoes the idea whenever I bring it up. And I veto getting a newer car whenever he brings it up. Stalemate.

If we lived in a more walkable/bikeable area, we could likely compromise and replace both older cars with 1 newer car. 

[AnotherEngineer]

To provide a little of the opposite perspective, I'm considering going the other way and buying a second vehicle. The OP doesn't mention anything about use cases, such as carrying lots of people, hauling materials, road trips, etc.

I bike to work and my wife is WFH and is primary transportation coordinator for our three kids. We have always had one car which worked for 98% of the time and the primary issues were with my work obligations where I could rent or Uber on them. However, like your old RX350, our 2007 Odyssey, while a hauling and road tripping beast, gets 19 mpg city. I worked the numbers and shifting 80% of our miles to 90% electric via a gen 2 Volt would reduce our total costs while preserving the remaining years in the old van for the trips only it can do. The same idea as the Pacifica PHEV above, and while magical spaceships (there are two in my extended family), their MSRP is hardly mustachian as getting one would quadruple our transportation costs. The Volt + Van solution covers the same use cases.  The holding costs (depreciation, insurance, registration) on old cars is minor compared to new, fancy ones and can make multiple vehicles make a lot of sense, as long as it doesn't make you drive more. I scoff at those that commute in new full size trucks because the "need to tow" twice a year.

[Metalcat]

Even when we both worked outside the home we only had one car.

That said, if we relocate permanently to our summer home, I would consider a second car because DH frequently takes weekend trips away for mountain biking and snowboarding and there is no public transportation out there.

[Philociraptor]

Another data point for: I went WFH 13 months ago and we sold our second car 12 months ago; wife is in-office 2 days a week, home otherwise. DINKs also. We are NOT in a walkable area, but have managed to avoid using rideshare over the last year, other than taking me to/from the airport for work trips. If you have two new-ish cars I think it's a no brainer, depreciation and insurance on the second car were over $100/month, and since we sold at an advantageous time we actually made money on the car. Also helps if you tend to spend all your free time together, we literally never have separate social plans.

[StarBright]

oh- you're DINKs and work from home?

I'd give it a shot if I were you. Just hang on to your crappy car (but maybe don't do the repairs/maintenance yet) while you figure out if one car works for you.

We have thought about dropping to one car, but we have two kids and both of us need a car at the same time about 6-7 times a month right now, more at certain times during the year with various school events. It feels like just enough to keep our crappy old 15 year old corolla.

If we didn't have kids we would 100% drop to one vehicle.

[firemane]

To provide a little of the opposite perspective, I'm considering going the other way and buying a second vehicle. The OP doesn't mention anything about use cases, such as carrying lots of people, hauling materials, road trips, etc.

Great point. Our Lower mileage car is a 2 door car with small back seats. The backseats can fold down so you can fit a whole mountain bike back there if you want. There has rarely been a butt in the backseat. We do have a social life), but it rarely involves transporting other people - especially since moving to a smaller city where everyone is within  ~5 miles. Sometimes we take out our nephews, but we borrow my brothers car as it already has the car seats in it. Hauling anything bigger than what can fit in the trunk is rare. I have done home improvement projects in the past, but I stopped for the most part because I don’t enjoy them.

For road trips, it depends. Typically, we will just rent a car. Usually, something like an ecoboost mustang. For shorter trips under 4 hours we take our better car.

[Metalcat]

To provide a little of the opposite perspective, I'm considering going the other way and buying a second vehicle. The OP doesn't mention anything about use cases, such as carrying lots of people, hauling materials, road trips, etc.

Great point. Our Lower mileage car is a 2 door car with small back seats. The backseats can fold down so you can fit a whole mountain bike back there if you want. There has rarely been a butt in the backseat. We do have a social life), but it rarely involves transporting other people - especially since moving to a smaller city where everyone is within  ~5 miles. Sometimes we take out our nephews, but we borrow my brothers car as it already has the car seats in it. Hauling anything bigger than what can fit in the trunk is rare. I have done home improvement projects in the past, but I stopped for the most part because I don’t enjoy them.

For road trips, it depends. Typically, we will just rent a car. Usually, something like an ecoboost mustang. For shorter trips under 4 hours we take our better car.

Our one car is a Chevy Sonic, which is very small, but has 4 doors.
We use it for everything, including a 31 hour each way annual road trip.

I have a small utility trailer if I need to haul anything that can't fit in the back with the seats down, and we have a 3 bike hitch rack.

As you said, if we need something bigger, we can just rent it.

[AnotherEngineer]

I have a small utility trailer if I need to haul anything that can't fit in the back with the seats down, and we have a 3 bike hitch rack.

As you said, if we need something bigger, we can just rent it.

We need more of this thinking in our society.

[firemane]

The suv sold really fast. The experiment begins!

[lutorm]

I was going to chime in and say we went to 1 car when we moved to HI a decade ago, but I see you already sold the second car? Congrats!

Seriously, I WFH and my wife biked to work when she was working, and we've practically never had a conflict that couldn't be worked around with minimal planning. The biggest issue has been when we've had to take the car to the shop for some overnight warranty work and then needed to pick the kid up from preschool in the evening, but we borrowed the neighbor's car for that.

[Nangirl17]

The suv sold really fast. The experiment begins!

Posting to follow!

We gave up our 2nd car 2 years ago, and haven't regretted it. There have been a few instances that we wished we had it, but not enough to spend the money!

[firemane]

I was going to chime in and say we went to 1 car when we moved to HI a decade ago, but I see you already sold the second car? Congrats!

Seriously, I WFH and my wife biked to work when she was working, and we've practically never had a conflict that couldn't be worked around with minimal planning. The biggest issue has been when we've had to take the car to the shop for some overnight warranty work and then needed to pick the kid up from preschool in the evening, but we borrowed the neighbor's car for that.

Thanks, yea it’s gone. Already feels like we are living lighter. Tires needed rotated, brake pads hasn’t been replaced in a while, needed an oil change in a couple of months. All things that required more work than having a second vehicle provided  utility.

Yes, the shop thing could be tough, and I have thought of that. However, I can usually negotiate a loaner car if it’s a multi day repair. Have not tried this in a few years since supply chain woes.  Worst case scenario, like you said, borrow a car or Uber

[JAYSLOL]

I have a small utility trailer if I need to haul anything that can't fit in the back with the seats down, and we have a 3 bike hitch rack.

As you said, if we need something bigger, we can just rent it.

We need more of this thinking in our society.

Yep, we’ve had a couple old cars for a long time that are definitely not trucks (I also bought a little ranger recently, but that’s another story), but I also own a little trailer and it’s been super easy to lift stuff like furniture and appliances 16” into the trailer than 36” (stock f150 bed height) into the bed of any modern pickup truck.  And that’s not considering the people that drive F350s and have them jacked up an extra foot and bigger tires so the bed is like 5’6” off the ground.  Utterly useless. 

[joedad189]

We may be experimenting with this in the near future. We are moving and will both be WFH. We currently have a mini van that's paid for and i just got a new truck, i know - not mustachian - that could be sold.

The cool thing about the town we are moving to is that they allow golf carts and UTVs on most roads so we could easily have 1 car and a golf cart and/or some electric bikes.

I think we will need some time to acclimate to the new life/living situation and to see how we want to manage transportation.

[Philociraptor]

Single car win (in my opinion): An upcoming vacancy in the local plant of the company I work for may require that I show up in-person there to train someone. When I told them that I no longer own a car because I WFH, it moved the decision to bring me in up the chain because they would need to approve either a ride-share or a rental car to get me to and from the plant each day. The additional cost requirement to the company has them second-guessing whether it actually makes sense to ask me to come in-person, and it probably making them think more about who they want trained, as they won't want to pay for me to have to come in again in a month or two to train someone else.

[reeshau]

Funny how when it's *their* money spent on the commute, it's suddenly up for discussion.

When I was in Dublin, companies often either paid for or offered discounts for commuting costs, because those were train / bus / bike rental fees.  It would be interesting to have these externalized for everyone, and then discussed as part of a benefits package...

"Well, we can pay for your commute, or you could have: two weeks extra vacation / lower cost health care / on-site day care / WFH"

[Car Jack]

I was fully WFH for 2 years until about February of this year.  Now, they want everyone in for a Monday meeting every 2 weeks.  We have 4 cars and have no plans to reduce.  One of my sons is using one car.  Wife has her car.  I have a car and a Jeep.  I see no reason to get rid of any of them.  Sorry.