Well, today marks the 1-year anniversary of our family of 4 going car free. Its been quite the experience and challenge but I'm pretty happy that we've gone this long. We live in the Phoenix AZ suburbs which I think makes it even more amazing!
How did we accomplish this?
1) Wife is a SAHM and I work from home about 3-4 days a week, so not having a commute is obviously a huge advantage.
2) Bought two bikes + a bike trailer. The bike trailer has been really awesome for getting the kids around, and we take them to parks, the library, etc.. Great for grocery shopping as well.
3) Bought a $900 scooter/motorcycle on craigslist. Mostly use this for the days I need to go into the office and I don't feel like taking the bus. Insurance is $100 bucks a year, and I spend about $10 bucks a month on gas. Cha-ching.
4) Car rentals. Mostly for out of town trips. Enterprise also had a great deal on weekend rentals. $9.99 a day. So on a weekend we'd rent a car for about $38 bucks and some gas and that's how we would go to some other local events, or other activities.
That's been our strategy. Since we ditched the car i've lost 15 lbs and we're slowly increasing the radius in which we're comfortable riding our bike. When we first started, I could do about a mile or two- now we're doing 7 or 8 miles at a time. I feel healthier than I've been in a long time. Sure, sometimes on random days we just wish we had a freakin car, but overall its made us realize just how much we can do without it.
We'll see how long we can make it through Year 2!
