Please talk us out of buying a second car

[frugalccino]

Hi all! 

I'm a long-time lurker and big fan of this site.

When we sold our house and moved to a new state (to be near family) we did so in the least mustachian way possible. We should have waited for our house to sell, but instead we moved and paid for the empty house while living in an apartment.  It was an enormously costly mistake!  The house finally sold after 9 months on the market...but we had to sell our second car to be able to bring money to the table at close (UGH!!). 

Well, we've done pretty well without a second car for about 18 months now.  We have 3 kids, and it is a tight squeeze in our SUV but we've made it work.  Our area isn't very walkable but My husband works at home, so most days there is no sharing the car.  Unfortunately we've run into three problems. 

#1, My husband travels a lot with his new job, so I have to drop him off at the airport at least once or twice a month (1 hour away, and all 3 kids come with me). Every once in awhile a family member will help with that, but we don't want to ask them all the time!

#2, Whenever family flies in to visit, we don't have enough room in our car to take everyone out places. 

#3, When I take the kids on a road trip out of town to visit family, my husband is stranded at home.

We JUST finished paying off our 2007 Ford Escape...I think it has a few good years left in it for sure!  Should we buy a cheap second car for my husband to drive to the airport? Should we trade in our ford and take out a small loan (cringe) to upgrade to a minivan?  Should we just try to manage?? 

We have 4k of debt that we have on a 0 balance card and are currently destroying.  We also have 30k in student loans and my husband will add 40k of student loans to that in December when he finishes his MBA.  We have $1500 in savings. 

Reading over my post maybe I am just being super whiney!!

Thanks for your advice.

[Basenji]

Could you rent a car for those rare occasions when family visit or you go away? And is there a airport service your husband can take? Has he asked his job to cover the cost of airport transportation?

[gt7152b]

Agreed on the rental car or uber/taxi. Make a calculation of how many times per year you need a second car and compare the rental fees to true car ownership. Don't forget to include registration, taxes, insurance, maintenance, depreciation, and money lost from investing the cost of the car.

[druth]

Even if your husband had a car would he really want to be parking it at the airport anyways?  Airport parking rates are rediculously expensive.  You could look into a service like super shuttle for times that it is too inconvenient, and that is probably much cheaper than parking.

Does your husband own a bike for when you leave town?  How close do you live to things, or are you out in the middle of nowhere, could he just bus?  Do you have hourcar/car2go or any similar services nearby?

[AZDude]

#1, My husband travels a lot with his new job, so I have to drop him off at the airport at least once or twice a month (1 hour away, and all 3 kids come with me). Every once in awhile a family member will help with that, but we don't want to ask them all the time!

Airport shuttle or taxi. Still cheaper than a 2nd car.

#2, Whenever family flies in to visit, we don't have enough room in our car to take everyone out places. 

Order in, BBQ, or have the visitors rent a car.

#3, When I take the kids on a road trip out of town to visit family, my husband is stranded at home.

Take him with you, or he can be stranded. At $1500 in savings and ~$78 in debt, its a no-brainer. No car until you get your debt under control and save up some cash.

[Cycling Stache]

You don't need a second car.  You've made it 18 months just fine, with a few minor inconveniences.  Don't blow cash on a problem that isn't really a problem.   Airport shuttle is fine when you can't give a ride, or just a field trip with the family to the airport that you've been able to make just fine in the past.

There is an MMM post about would it make my life easier--wrong question.  I think that's applicable here.  You're doing fine with one car, and you've got other financial things to tackle.

Good luck!

[mm1970]

Do you live where you can hire a car to take him to the airport?  We have such services around here.  Bonus: he may be able to charge the company (my husband's company pays for parking at the airport, for example, and this is an alternative to that).

How often do people fly to visit you?  Have them rent a car.

You have to think about the # of times things are occurring. 

For example, we bought a 2BR house.  We got the question "where will we stay when we visit?" from family.  I would say that we get visitors for about a week, every 2 years.  That is about 4 days a year.  So, that's a hotel.  It is much cheaper for us to put them up in a hotel (even better if they pay themselves) than it would be to own a bigger house.

Same for a car.  Let's say that you have visitors for an average of a week a year.  Depending on your location, that could be $100 to $200 (it really varies a lot) for a car rental.  That is much cheaper than the cost of owning a second car.

[Mrs.LC]

You can survive just fine with one car. The examples you gave to justify a second car are convenience factors and not needs. Instead of spending money on a car, license, insurance, and gas work on paying down your remaining debt and build up a savings.

[RunHappy]

how old are the kids?  A 2007 Ford Escape should be able to seat 5, so no need for hubby to stay home while you visit family.

[James]

I agree with all the comments above, sounds like you can make it without the second car and I would do so.

But on top of the other reasons, I will mention a more nebulous but important aspect. There is something to flexing your badassity muscle. Sure you can justify a second car, and maybe it wouldn't hurt you too bad in the long run owning two, but you would be giving up a great opportunity to develop and build your badassity! And where would it end? Another house with an extra bedroom and garage, a new vehicle so it doesn't break down, eating out so there isn't a mess in the house from dinner, etc, etc. We can all wind down that road of conveniences... saying "no" to the second car can be a helpful flexing of that badassity muscle which will help you say no to other bigger and smaller conveniences in the future. These things snowball either way, better to keep the snowball building on the badassity side of life... :)

[HipGnosis]

I know it's glib, but I gotta post...
He's almost got an MBA but you (together) can't figure out that you can't afford or justify a second car?  That reinforces some of the bad reps of MBAs.

You (again, together) NEED to really work on your savings and debt reduction.  That 9 yr old car is going to start needing repairs - what will you do when you suddenly (most always at the MOST inconvenient time) have no car?  For days or weeks...
You will very soon NEED to upgrade your car to a minivan (or crossover SUV).   It'd probably be great if you could keep the car...  but you (still, together) need to calculate if you can actually afford that.

Better a harsh voice of reality than a swift kick of it.

[10dollarsatatime]

Is there public transit going to the airport?  Cheaper than buying a car.  Cheaper than paying for parking once you get the car.  Takes a bit more planning and a bit more time, but I found it to be relatively stress free.

[RWD]

#1, My husband travels a lot with his new job, so I have to drop him off at the airport at least once or twice a month (1 hour away, and all 3 kids come with me). Every once in awhile a family member will help with that, but we don't want to ask them all the time!

Airport shuttle or taxi. Still cheaper than a 2nd car.

#2, Whenever family flies in to visit, we don't have enough room in our car to take everyone out places. 

Order in, BBQ, or have the visitors rent a car.

#3, When I take the kids on a road trip out of town to visit family, my husband is stranded at home.

Take him with you, or he can be stranded. At $1500 in savings and ~$78 in debt, its a no-brainer. No car until you get your debt under control and save up some cash.

^^^ This here is your solution.

[James]

I know it's glib, but I gotta post...
He's almost got an MBA but you (together) can't figure out that you can't afford or justify a second car?  That reinforces some of the bad reps of MBAs.

You (again, together) NEED to really work on your savings and debt reduction.  That 9 yr old car is going to start needing repairs - what will you do when you suddenly (most always at the MOST inconvenient time) have no car?  For days or weeks...
You will very soon NEED to upgrade your car to a minivan (or crossover SUV).   It'd probably be great if you could keep the car...  but you (still, together) need to calculate if you can actually afford that.

Better a harsh voice of reality than a swift kick of it.

Gotta call bull shit on the "NEED to upgrade your car to a minivan (or crossover SUV)", especially with the all caps "NEED"...

Also, 9 years old is not that old for a vehicle, sure it will need repairs at times, but some 2 year old vehicles do. Hell, in pre-MMM days I bought a brand new minivan that spent 27 days in the shop the first year...

But back to the SUV, that is plenty of room for 3 kids. Want a minivan or crossover? Sure, but don't start calling things like that a "NEED"... :)

[Dee18]

My sister regularly flies to visit my mom.  My mom has a nice civic for my sister to drive once she gets to the house, but my mom can't make the drive to the airport.  Turns out there is a 75 year old woman from her church (fit and with good eyesight) who is happy to do scheduled drives.  She charges $20 for what would be a $45 cab ride, but only drives "nice people during the day."  (It's about a 25 minute 15 mile trip.)  might be worth asking around....

[markbrynn]

But back to the SUV, that is plenty of room for 3 kids. Want a minivan or crossover? Sure, but don't start calling things like that a "NEED"... :)

Agree on this one. What happened to five people fitting just fine in a sedan? Or the famous station wagon? I'm sure it's more comfortable to have an SUV or minivan, but that hardly qualifies as a NEED. OP could save a lot more money (to pay down debt) by making do with a little less comfort.

[HenryDavid]

Hi all! 

I'm a long-time lurker and big fan of this site.

When we sold our house and moved to a new state (to be near family) we did so in the least mustachian way possible. We should have waited for our house to sell, but instead we moved and paid for the empty house while living in an apartment.  It was an enormously costly mistake!  The house finally sold after 9 months on the market...but we had to sell our second car to be able to bring money to the table at close (UGH!!). 

Well, we've done pretty well without a second car for about 18 months now.  We have 3 kids, and it is a tight squeeze in our SUV but we've made it work.  Our area isn't very walkable but My husband works at home, so most days there is no sharing the car.  Unfortunately we've run into three problems. 

#1, My husband travels a lot with his new job, so I have to drop him off at the airport at least once or twice a month (1 hour away, and all 3 kids come with me). Every once in awhile a family member will help with that, but we don't want to ask them all the time!

#2, Whenever family flies in to visit, we don't have enough room in our car to take everyone out places. 

#3, When I take the kids on a road trip out of town to visit family, my husband is stranded at home.

We JUST finished paying off our 2007 Ford Escape...I think it has a few good years left in it for sure!  Should we buy a cheap second car for my husband to drive to the airport? Should we trade in our ford and take out a small loan (cringe) to upgrade to a minivan?  Should we just try to manage?? 

We have 4k of debt that we have on a 0 balance card and are currently destroying.  We also have 30k in student loans and my husband will add 40k of student loans to that in December when he finishes his MBA.  We have $1500 in savings. 

Reading over my post maybe I am just being super whiney!!

Thanks for your advice.

[HenryDavid]

Ooops, quote function malfunction.

The point is this: why is husband "stranded at home" when no car is there?
Weird. 
Is the home in an isolated location, not reachable by bike or on foot? Kayak? Dirigible? (OK, hardly anyone has a dirigible anymore.)

Once I did some housesitting for people who actually bought a house in such a location. Car-locked. No other way in or out! Aagggh.
Could not wait for that to end. If you can't bike there, why live there?

[GreenPen]

#1, My husband travels a lot with his new job, so I have to drop him off at the airport at least once or twice a month (1 hour away, and all 3 kids come with me). Every once in awhile a family member will help with that, but we don't want to ask them all the time!

I might also recommend posting these airport rides on Craigslist or Zimride. I used to be in a silly situation where I needed to fly weekly, and I ended up getting most of my rides this way. It helps if you can get the same (reliable) driver each time. And the best drivers are those who would be making the trip past the airport anyway on a daily commute. Some daily commuters are happy to have a passenger for a fraction of the price as an airport shuttle.

#2, Whenever family flies in to visit, we don't have enough room in our car to take everyone out places. 

#3, When I take the kids on a road trip out of town to visit family, my husband is stranded at home.

Lots of good advice already on this thread -- I just wanted to +1 the option of getting a rental car for these special occasions. It looks like Enterprise will start back up with their "Weekend Special" in a few months. This would be a good option if you have family visiting just for the weekend, since the rental would just be $10/day.

https://www.enterprise.com/car_rental/deeplinkmap.do?cust=MSWSRTA