Single Car Couples with Kids--Enter Here

[rothwem]

We were doing up the budgets last night and realized that we could probably save ~4-500/month if we ditched one of our cars.  Its somewhat feasible, since I live only 1.5 miles from work.  However, we have a kid coming in October, and that could make it tricky.  We have no public transport here, and the roads are skeeetchy.  I've been riding and racing road bikes forever and I'm fairly comfortable riding in traffic by myself to places, but I'd be super leery of trailering the child places if my wife needed the car and I had to take the kid somewhere. Also, I think an uber with a car seat would be a giant pain in the ass too. 

So is there anyone here that:
-Has a kid in a car seat
-Lives somewhere without public transport and/or good biking roads
-Lives a one-car couple lifestyle?

If so, come in, share your tips and tricks. 

[GreenToTheCore]

Great topic but I think you might have more luck in the parenting section: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mini-money-mustaches/
There might already be a topic going, sounds vaguely familiar...

[partdopy]

We're expecting our first kid September 15th, so I don't actually have one at the moment, but we are a 1 car family and don't plan to change that.

I bike the 15 mile round trip to work, she uses the car for errands/appointments etc...  I'm the only one who works though, and we planned it that way, so I suspect this won't work for everyone.

Edit to add- I do own a 1976 Jeep CJ5, so technically we have 2 cars, but I'm the only one who can even drive the CJ and it has no back seat to hold a car seat.  Also has no parking pass for my office.

[cloudsail]

We are one car with two kids but we live close enough to downtown for DH to bike or take public transit to work. My kids are almost big enough to be out of car seats too. The only difficulties we've encountered are when the kids might have different activities at the same time. Also like tonight when DH needs the car to go play hockey but our daughter has an activity that might end a little later.

[kanga1622]

DH and I share a car and have two kids in car seats. Luckily we both work within a mile of our home so either can walk if needed as we don't have bikes. No public transportation is available.

DH and I have the same work schedule so worked daycare pickup/drop off around that. Now that both our kids are in school, we are able to put them on the school bus, drop me off at work, then DH takes the car to work. At the end of the day, DH picks me up and we go together to the schools and pick up our kids from the after care. We work hard to coordinate DH's evening schedule or kid activities so they don't conflict. Our kids are close in age (ages 6 and 9) so it hasn't been an issue so far as many times they go to the same activities.

DH's job requires him to visit remote locations several times a week. His office has company vehicles that are used to make these visits so our personal car is available to me in case of emergency. I may have to walk a mile to get it, but I could get to our kids if they were sick at school. On occasions where DH needs to leave early (like 6:45am to be at a remote site by 8), he has co-workers that live down the street and are willing to give him a ride a few times a year. I have a co-worker that is happy to drop me off if needed to get the car from the repair shop or some other emergency.

You will need to work out those unusual circumstances but it can be done for many families. We have had a few instances where one parent stayed home with the kids due to transportation issues but it has been pretty rare and extreme (shattered rear window in -35 windchills). We actually find that we do more as a family because we only have one vehicle. So we pretty much always go to do the weekly shopping all together. Or we all go to the public library on the weekend.

[Arbitrage]

I'd like to be in this category, but haven't made the leap for a few reasons:

- Current car is a very old, but without a ton of upkeep costs.  Insurance is pretty low due to mileage-based rate, and <1000 miles/year.  Savings wouldn't be huge (but there certainly would be some savings).  Trips with this car consist almost entirely of the occasional errand with kids, and personal trips to the dentist (too far/not safe to bike).  I could Uber the second kind of trip.  The first kind of trip is rare, probably less than once per month, but does happen.

- It is nice to have the option to occasionally drive the kids home from school rather than walking them home - pouring rain or extreme heat.

- I did experience a significant issue with my e-bike last year that caused a six-week unavailability while the manufacturer was tinkering with it.  That would be a serious hassle if repeated. 

- I didn't wimp out due to weather at all last year (SoCal), but might consider it this winter, since I think the 'significant issue' above might've been due to riding in downpours.  They're rare but do happen. 

Maybe I just need a backup bike and can get rid of the car?

[EngagedToFIRE]

Trailering a toddler on sketchy roads in traffic with a bicycle is tantamount to child abuse.  From your own description of the situation, it seems obvious you probably need 2 cars.  And why would a car cost you $500/mo?  Just get an older vehicle, pay cash, minimal insurance and drive it only when you need to (child safety), bicycle the rest of the time when it's just you.

[RFAAOATB]

Still have one car for two working adults and a toddler in pre school.  Both of us work downtown so one gets dropped off at work and drives to daycare before work, and the other does daycare pickup.  The trip home is doable by bus or spouse pickup.  The few times a car wasn’t available when needed can be handled with Uber and it would still be cheaper than buying a second car.

I would suggest thinking about how many Uber rides you need a month and will be willing to pay for before you buy another car.  For us I’m guessing it’s less than 10.

[darkadams00]

Did this for four years with 2 older kids up to empty nesting. Doubt we’ll ever own two cars again.  Transportation was one car, one bike (mine), or public transportation (very rarely used). Now it’s several bikes (mine, hers, and our tandem). Both kids were in private school about 25 minutes away. No bus. My work 8 miles away. Wife’s work 6 miles away.

Bottom line—How much are BOTH of you committed? If either of you is not, the slightest schedule inconvenience will not be a problem to solve. It will be complaining or frustration at best and an argument at worst. One car families were the norm for generations. It doesn’t come down to a transportation decision or laws about car seats. It comes down to frequent decisions about things that could/would need transportation. Do you/kids sign up for multiple scheduled, discretionary activities like yoga, sports, Pilates, weekly poker game, etc. or are evenings for family time? Can you organize and align errand running, or do you have to go right now to get that one item that comes to mind/is on sale/is needed for tomorrow but you didn’t plan for it until the last minute. Does the thought of heat/cold/rain/waiting/skipping bother either of you? Read blogs. One-car/no-car families with the best blogs and colorful experiences are committed and just deal. Commit or move on. There’s really not much middle ground on this one. If it doesn’t work for you, you’ll find something else that does in another area. Not every idea on this forum works out for everyone. And even if it’s frustrating, I remember this verse—

Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.
Romans 14:22

[AccidentialMustache]

We've only ever been a 1-car family. 5 years married, now 9 more of with kid. Totally doable. We do have a decent but not amazing public transit though. It helps, but it isn't required. With as short of a commute as you the OP have, you could walk if you needed to, and its usually a lot nicer to walk in terrible conditions (cold/rain/snow) than to bike in them (IMO).

[jpdx]

We're a 1 car family with young kid. Wouldn't have it any other way! We have pretty good public transit but only use it a few times per year. The thing that makes it possible is we can comfortably walk or bike to most of our daily errands.

Is it possible to engineer your life (read: move) to make this happen? Seriously, that's what we did. We've found it's a considerable improvement in quality of live to live in a walkable and bike friendly place, even if it costs more to live there.

[elliha]

The critical period for taking Ubers with your kids will be when they are too big for an infant seat but too small for a forward facing booster seat. In between those points your kids should be a in a rearfacing seat that will be big and can be hard to move from car to car. Before and after that you should be fine.

We only have one car but in Sweden this is pretty standard if you live in a city and buses and bike lanes are pretty much everywhere so a different situation.

[Cranky]

I think it depends on your schedules, to some extent.

Will you both be working away from home? Will you need to work around a daycare drop-off?

We've only ever had one car - I don't drive at all. We raised 3 kids just fine with only one car and one driver, but we have always chosen where we lived with that in mind. There have to be at least some things I can walk to. However, I was always either a sahm or worked at home until the kids were older, and then I got a job that I could walk to. Public transportation isn't very robust around here.

The secret for us was planning. If we couldn't get someplace during the day by walking, we didn't go. I planned around that.

I know that in some places it's possible to get an Uber with a forward facing carseat, but I've never seen one and I have a hard enough time moving my grandson's carseat from one vehicle to another anyway, so that would not be a great option for me unless it was a terrific emergency.

People always said "But what if it's a medical emergency and you have to go to the hospital??" Our PCP is literally across the street from us, and the ambulance company is a few blocks away, and I thought that in a true emergency they'd be better able to handle things than I was!

[rothwem]

I think the main question is where would the kid need to be transported to and who will do that?

You mention you live 1.5 mile from work and could easily do that by bike, so you'd be the carless one, correct?

How about your partner? What's the distance to work for her, is it bikeable or only possible by car?

If you can bike to work and your wife is able to drop off/pick up the kid from daycare when needed, you will mostly need the car for other outings, like evenings and weekends. What would be the chance of 1 of you needing to go somewhere with kid (where does a baby need to go on weekends/evenings?) while the other needs the car for something else (gym? night with friends?)? How often would a situation like that happen in the first 1-3 years of the child's life? By the time your child acutally needs to go anywhere you can have several 1-car years under your belt. You can always get a 2nd car again later when it's needed.

Note; I don't have kids yet myself but I grew up in a 1 car family who's car barely ever got used. I didn't get to use public transport frequently until I was in college, but I do live in one of the bike friendliest countries in the world so as a 4yo you ride your own bike around town here.

Correct, I'd be the one riding to work.  My wife's commute is ~25 miles, and she's terrified to ride on our roads anyways, so it would just be me riding.  Daycare (if we get in) will be right next to where she works, so she'd be the one driving the our kid around mostly. 

Oddly enough, walking is worse than riding on my commute, I've attached a picture of the road:

Did this for four years with 2 older kids up to empty nesting. Doubt we’ll ever own two cars again.  Transportation was one car, one bike (mine), or public transportation (very rarely used). Now it’s several bikes (mine, hers, and our tandem). Both kids were in private school about 25 minutes away. No bus. My work 8 miles away. Wife’s work 6 miles away.

Bottom line—How much are BOTH of you committed? If either of you is not, the slightest schedule inconvenience will not be a problem to solve. It will be complaining or frustration at best and an argument at worst. One car families were the norm for generations. It doesn’t come down to a transportation decision or laws about car seats. It comes down to frequent decisions about things that could/would need transportation.

Well we're pretty committed to saving money, but we're not really that hardcore on 1-car.  It just seems like we're blowing money out with a vehicle that I don't even drive everyday since I ride to work.  If we were childless, I'd have ditched the car several months ago, but having a baby is a game-changer. 

[G-String]

I grew up in a single car family.  My Dad took the bus to work every day so that made it work.  And my mom was a stay at home mom. 

[merula]

I have two kids (5/7) and have always only had one car. However, we live in a bikeable/walkable area with some public transit.

I bike, bus or carpool to work and leave the car for my husband (SAHD). He uses it as needed. Whenever we need to get two different places by car, we've always been able to figure out a solution, which incidentally hasn't yet included rideshare.

I would start by paying attention to the trips you're taking now. Looks like you have the everyday dropoff/pickup taken care of, what about weekends? But don't try to plan for everything that might possibly happen; there will always be a solution.

Infant seats that click into a base are by far the easiest to install until you get to boosters, so if you had to take an Uber or whatever, I wouldn't worry about it at this age. And, really, kids can fit in those seats longer than most people use them. Mine had a 30lb weight limit, which would've lasted my kid until he was 2 (granted, he was skinny). We only moved him into a regular rear-facing seat because 25lb of kid plus car seat is a lot to lug around all the time, but that's really less of an issue if it's an occasional Uber trip. If it gets to that point, there are also carts that essentially turn the larger kind of car seat into a stroller.

Generally, it's not recommended to bike with a child under 1 year old, either in a trailer or in a bike seat. I personally thought the seats that attached to a bike felt safer, especially the kind where the kid sits in front of the parent, but there's not good data on it. There is pretty good data that, even with car seats, driving with kids isn't as safe as we think it is. The most common cause of death in children under the age of 15 is unintentional injury, and the most common cause of unintentional injury is car accidents.

[SimpleCycle]

We have only one car, but we live in a big city with lots of transit.

Here's a post I wrote about Ubering with two kids in car seats: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mini-money-mustaches/baby-gt-car-required/msg2215257/#msg2215257

But one kid?  That's a breeze!  The infant bucket is super easy to do a seat belt install on, and then after that I recommend the Cosco Scenera NEXT, which is a lightweight, low profile seat that is easy to install.

I suspect you will find that you will not need the second car once you start planning your life as a one car family.

[PDXTabs]

We were doing up the budgets last night and realized that we could probably save ~4-500/month if we ditched one of our cars.  Its somewhat feasible, since I live only 1.5 miles from work.  However, we have a kid coming in October, and that could make it tricky.  We have no public transport here, and the roads are skeeetchy.  I've been riding and racing road bikes forever and I'm fairly comfortable riding in traffic by myself to places, but I'd be super leery of trailering the child places if my wife needed the car and I had to take the kid somewhere. Also, I think an uber with a car seat would be a giant pain in the ass too. 

So is there anyone here that:
-Has a kid in a car seat
-Lives somewhere without public transport and/or good biking roads
-Lives a one-car couple lifestyle?

I would tell you to move, honestly. I did something similar when my kids were younger but the person with the kids always had the car. Also, the roads were fine for cycling (adults anyway - I was always leery of towing a child). So in our family, usually I rode to work and my wife had the kids with our one car.

[Just Joe]

Years ago we did the one car thing for several years. it worked b/c that one car was utterly reliable. We'd carpool to the school, drop kids off, carpool to the next school, and then on to work where I'd drop off wife and then park the car at my work place. We were lucky enough that our employers were flexible so if I needed to be a little late or do some other single car logistics acrobatics we could.

After the kids and DW had activities and schedules different from my own, we bought a second car. The second car continues to serve us well and is stored in the garage. The car is a $1500 car. It is in good condition and we carry minimum insurance on it. I've made a few repairs over the years and replaced the tires. It doesn't driven many miles and thus is really cheap on an annual basis. There are PLENTY of unloved sedans out there these days. These are not the hot brands but perfectly usable but they seldom get much car magazine love. Buicks, Chevies, Fords, Chryslers. Simply not fashionable cars. Or Grandpa/Grandma cars discarded after someone became too old to drive.

I don't know here you live but around here a 20 year old car can still be perfectly presentable and reliable.

I too have done the ebike thing and yeah, when something goes wrong you are at the mercy of the bike shop if you bought one from them.

I broke my battery case this summer and it took some time to find a replacement battery case-only and then a few hours of head scratching and soldering to move the battery contents to the new case. Or I could have sucked it up and bought a new battery ($350) and repaired the old battery ($50 case) at my leisure. What's good about our DIY converted ebikes is that both utilize commodity ebike parts that can be sourced from 100+ different retailers. I'm not reliant on any specific bike shop brands or warranty services. 

[wbarnett]

We have 1 car, with three kids ages 8/6/2. So there are two booster seats and 1 clunky car seat in the back of a small crossover. We live in a Denver suburb and I work downtown. My wife works part-time a few evenings per week. My commute is 5 miles of biking plus a train ride, each way.

I'd say that 95% of the time, we don't need a second car. For the other 5%, we rent a car or use Uber/Lyft.

That road looks pretty sketchy. Is that the only road you can take to commute to work? If your wife can take the child to/from daycare and you are comfortable riding, that sounds great. It's not clear why the second car would be costing you $500/month. I agree with other posters here; if you must have a second car, get a cheap one, only carry liability insurance, and drive it as infrequently as possible. It should cost you far less than $6k/year.

[mschaus]

1. Absolutely you can go to 1 car! There is only one child, so there will always be a car to move the child. (Even though that bike ride indeed looks like it blows, so kudos to you for being badass enough to make it work.)

2. I'd take a step back to look at the whole lifestyle -- you're signing up your infant to ride in a car for 50 miles a day, every weekday. To me, that's way too much. I put my money where my mouth was and moved my pregnant family to somewhere that was walking distance to a daycare and short bike ride to work, and continued to live with 1 car. This is in a small town, but we also did 1 car when we lived in downtown Chicago. So small (45k) or large towns can work.

[CrustyBadger]

So is there anyone here that:
-Has a kid in a car seat
-Lives somewhere without public transport and/or good biking roads
-Lives a one-car couple lifestyle?

If so, come in, share your tips and tricks.

We currently have 2 cars, but lived for 15 years as a one car household, 10 of those with kids (2). 

It worked because my husband was able to commute via walking, bus, and subway to work.  I commuted by car to my job, and then later was a SAHM but used the car with the kids most places, if we couldn't easily reach the location by subway or walking.

Difficulties were when my husband needed to get to a doctor's appointment before or after work.  It took him very long to get there via public transportation if they weren't close to his office.

[arwenaya]

We're also a 1-car, 1-kid family. We live about a mile and a half on not great, but not terrible roads for biking to my husband's work, and walking is also an option. I would echo everyone else who noted that moving a car seat is basically a circle of hell, and not something I would plan to do on the regular with a Lyft or Uber - not even because of the installing/uninstalling (which still sucks), but because wrangling the thing when you're wherever you were going before taking it back home again is just a bridge too far when you're already carrying a small village in child support paraphernalia and also sleep-deprived. In your case, though, my visceral sense is that if you really needed to take your kiddo somewhere while your wife went to work, you could use your car and she could take a Lyft/Uber to avoid the car seat issue.

Now, I say all of that as someone who 100% plans to be using our one family car to drive a whole three miles to the local light rail line each day instead of biking because (insert lame, whiny reasons), and sometimes making things function for your family is better than just sitting in guilt over how you should be doing better. Great being the enemy of the good and all that.

Also, completely contrary to my first paragraph, having a newborn when both parents are working (or even just one) is really damn hard, so you may not want to make a signficant transportation transition until a little further down the line (aka a year out), when you have a better sense of where your family's new normal has calibrated.

[Goldielocks]

We were doing up the budgets last night and realized that we could probably save ~4-500/month if we ditched one of our cars.  Its somewhat feasible, since I live only 1.5 miles from work.  However, we have a kid coming in October, and that could make it tricky.  We have no public transport here, and the roads are skeeetchy.  I've been riding and racing road bikes forever and I'm fairly comfortable riding in traffic by myself to places, but I'd be super leery of trailering the child places if my wife needed the car and I had to take the kid somewhere. Also, I think an uber with a car seat would be a giant pain in the ass too. 

So is there anyone here that:
-Has a kid in a car seat
-Lives somewhere without public transport and/or good biking roads
-Lives a one-car couple lifestyle?

I would tell you to move, honestly. I did something similar when my kids were younger but the person with the kids always had the car. Also, the roads were fine for cycling (adults anyway - I was always leery of towing a child). So in our family, usually I rode to work and my wife had the kids with our one car.

This is how we did it, 95% of the time.  The car stays with the kid(s). Even if that meant that the car was parked near the daycare so we could divide drop off / pick up.   

Once in elementary, it is easier, as we always chose a walking distance school and after school activities (drive to activity on weekends or after dinner only).

Yes, I had 4 years with kids in a low transit, "poor" biking area .   BUT!  that poor biking area was because it was a hill so kids in trailers were not great, and it was ice / snow on ground 5 months of the year.   Adult cycling on an ebike cross-country worked fine, but not with kids.   One person carpooled during the winter, biked when it was possible.

If you have some means for walking, then you can get a range of motor assisted transportation that is safe for adults.  e.g. motorized scooter, skateboard, other, that you are legally allowed on the sidewalk.

------------
The exceptions.  I had two times where I ended up in a bind because no car. 
A) Kid hurt leg at school and needed to get to the doctor's.   I was in a panic to get from work to school to clinic.   Spent a lot on the taxi.   I mean, I had to carry my kid out of the school nurse's office.
 B) I had the car for my son's birthday party at a paintball place ( he was about 10 yrs old?) anyway, car would not start, and I had the cake and his sister and I needed to get there. DH was already at the party with my son, sans car ( we had planned  a ride with a friend's parent).   I ended up in a $$ taxi and got there 1 hr late.

That's it.   Twice in 12 years it was a problem.   I had no family in the city for either situation above, and I had not cultivated the type of friendships to rely on others.   My advice is to have a "rescue me" relative or friend with a car that you feel ok calling on once or twice a year.

[Fru-Gal]

One car, 2 parents, 2 kids & many dogs. Now the kids are teens. Urban area but 18 years ago public transit was much worse (no coverage, infrequent).

Daycare near where your wife works is great, but for us the best daycare was just a few blocks away. At one point with one kid I had daycare near where I worked. When I lost that job and husband needed the car for far-away jobs, I briefly tried to get there with toddler by public transit but discovered it was impossible as the schedule was over an hour between buses. That was sad because I was trying to make connections and play dates, but no one wanted to drive to us.

I disagree that having your kid in a trailer is child abuse. Cars are incredibly dangerous. There have been tragedies among people I know due to car accidents and small kids (there are things airbags can't protect you from). Children raised in them are also getting a lesson in entitlement: being chauffeured everywhere.

Using a car seat in a Zipcar or Lyft isn't impossible. One thing no one ever mentions is informal car-sharing. Why not make an agreement with a neighbor? There were times in the past where we borrowed or rented from friends and family. Again, that was before the options for travel had mushroomed like they have now.

I did chauffeur my kids a fair bit when they were little, don't get me wrong. I also found it quite stressful and often a major source of tantrums (even to this day we have to have battles over who gets the front seat). But now my kids are avowed bikers and public transit riders.

[rothwem]

I would tell you to move, honestly. I did something similar when my kids were younger but the person with the kids always had the car. Also, the roads were fine for cycling (adults anyway - I was always leery of towing a child). So in our family, usually I rode to work and my wife had the kids with our one car.

Moving wouldn't really solve a whole lot I don't think.  If we stayed in the area and moved halfway in between, we'd both have a ~15ish mile commute, and there's an expensive town between my work and my wife's, so our housing costs would go up significantly.  It would be a pinch more walkable though for non commute related trips.  If we changed jobs and moved out of the area, I think we'd really have the same issue--my career requires a manufacturing/engineering center that nobody wants to live next to, and my wife's work basically requires her to be at a rural hospital.  At least the mountains are pretty here and the climate is good. 

I do like the strategy about keeping the car and kid together, we might be able to make that work.  If one of us needs to go somewhere by ourselves, we take the taxi/uber/lyft. 

We have 1 car, with three kids ages 8/6/2. So there are two booster seats and 1 clunky car seat in the back of a small crossover. We live in a Denver suburb and I work downtown. My wife works part-time a few evenings per week. My commute is 5 miles of biking plus a train ride, each way.

I'd say that 95% of the time, we don't need a second car. For the other 5%, we rent a car or use Uber/Lyft.

That road looks pretty sketchy. Is that the only road you can take to commute to work? If your wife can take the child to/from daycare and you are comfortable riding, that sounds great. It's not clear why the second car would be costing you $500/month. I agree with other posters here; if you must have a second car, get a cheap one, only carry liability insurance, and drive it as infrequently as possible. It should cost you far less than $6k/year.

How much has your lyft/uber cost been over the past 6 months? Just asking for budgeting purposes. 

And yea, that's the only road that goes to work.  I'm only 1.5 miles away from work and I live on the road that goes by my workplace.

As for the vehicle costs, I'm including depreciation, car insurance and maintenance.  Add it all up, I'll bet you're not far off, or at least within a hundred dollars or so.  I've found that people that claim to not spend any money on their vehicles usually are just deferring the maintenance until the car "dies", or are actually making payments.

Daycare near where your wife works is great, but for us the best daycare was just a few blocks away.

That would be nice, but it just doesn't exist here. 

[nessness]

How flexible is your wife's job? In the situation you describe, if your kid gets sick in the middle of the day and has to be picked up early (a relatively common occurrence with infants), or has a midday doctor's appointment, or daycare has an unexpected closure, your wife will always have to be the one to go get the kid. Is that feasible with her job, or is it important that you also have the option to pick the kid up?

[rothwem]

How flexible is your wife's job? In the situation you describe, if your kid gets sick in the middle of the day and has to be picked up early (a relatively common occurrence with infants), or has a midday doctor's appointment, or daycare has an unexpected closure, your wife will always have to be the one to go get the kid. Is that feasible with her job, or is it important that you also have the option to pick the kid up?

I mean, that would be an issue regardless of whether we have one car or two.  If she couldn't grab the kid during the day, I could just snag an uber/lyft to her office and then steal the car for the afternoon for whatever appointment is needed. 

[jambongris]

I’ve been with my wife for 15 years and we’ve only ever had one car. We have two kids with one in school and the other in daycare.

Since most North American cities are designed around the assumption that everyone has a car it definitely takes a bit of lifestyle engineering (and luck) to make it work.

It’s definitely doable though (at least in our city). I’ve even met several families with multiple kids that get by with zero cars. After a while and with a bit of engineering it just becomes your new normal.

We spent more to buy a house in a part of town close to our jobs to save time and money getting to and from work. We also live close to grocery stores and our younger child’s daycares. I think people often fail to realize that commuting costs are housing costs.

[partgypsy]

Until my ex and I split up (so 20+ years), we only had 1 car (0, 1 then 2 kids). We are both within walking/driving distance to our respective workplaces. Also as I was pretty much a nondriver it just didn't really make that much difference. I was responsible for getting myself to work and most of my appointments (I chose doctors, dentists I could get to myself). The first first school they went to was in walking distance. It did mean that ex did pretty much all the kid-related driving. He's one of those people has to be the one driving if he's in the car so it is his preference. The car didn't get used every day despite that as I walked to work and he often rode his bike to work. The was a 6 month period of time we didn't have a vehicle at all, and while it was inconvenient it wasn't impossible. I also live around 1.5 miles from work, and so it is very doable just to walk.
 
I guess the main conflict is not so much the kid, but whether people have to go to two different places not within walking/driving distances the same time, and whether the person with the car is willing to do the child-related driving.

[cats]

How flexible is your wife's job? In the situation you describe, if your kid gets sick in the middle of the day and has to be picked up early (a relatively common occurrence with infants), or has a midday doctor's appointment, or daycare has an unexpected closure, your wife will always have to be the one to go get the kid. Is that feasible with her job, or is it important that you also have the option to pick the kid up?

I mean, that would be an issue regardless of whether we have one car or two.  If she couldn't grab the kid during the day, I could just snag an uber/lyft to her office and then steal the car for the afternoon for whatever appointment is needed.

Semi-related to this, I would ask how much flexibility (you) or your wife has to work from home as needed (like if your one car breaks down, or the kid needs to be taken somewhere and you need to be the one to do it because she has some big work project or something)

I would also be somewhat cautious about having childcare tied to one persons work location, rather than your home location.  Our son is in a daycare very near my office.  Initially, my husband worked on the other side of town.  If I got sick or had to travel for work, husband had to make a special trip across town for daycare drop-off/pick-up.  This especially sucked during our first winter as all our immune systems were getting clobbered by daycare germs.  There were many days when the healthiest thing for ME probably would have been to work from home so I could nap instead of commuting, but because the trade-off would be that my husband would have to make this special trip, I dragged myself into work.  Eventually my husband changed jobs so that we worked within a couple blocks of each other and the daycare location was suddenly great, but if that interim period had gone on for several years it would have been very wearing on me.

Anyway, we have a kid and one car that is rarely used, but there is a lot of public transit in our area.  I would definitely not give up on the idea of being a one-car family.  Driving is one of the most dangerous activities most people engage in, driving with a kid is potentially even more distracting ("hey kid, I am about to go through a particularly busy on/off ramp, please be quiet for two minutes so I can concentrate." "Mommy! I see a big truck with a little truck!  Why is the little trunk honking??? Look mommy, look! I asked you a question!! LOOK!").  Also, loading kids in and out of car seats is a PITA, I am so grateful I only have to do it once or twice a month!  Loading into a carrier, stroller, bike seat, or now his own bike is all sooooo much easier. SO, while I know it is a bigger life decision, in your shoes I would definitely consider whether your current home location/combination of jobs is really best for you.  A 25-mile daily driving commute for your wife sounds like a big grind even without a baby.

[Fru-Gal]

Oh, in case it wasn't clear, I didn't mean the "best" daycare, I meant "best for us" (price, comfort with providers, low-key, super close). We were the only professional-type people who sent our kids there. It's all ancient history now but finding a daycare is hard -- cost, snootiness, whether they'll guilt trip the mom, safety, activities vs TV...!!! We definitely tried many, some close, some ridiculously far away.

Another option for people with more money than we had at the time is to share a nanny. Or start a daycare cooperative.

[BeanCounter]

Two kids, now elementary aged. Two parents working. Two cars. We live in an area with no public transportation and just ok biking (though it's getting better). Though I can't really speak to living with one car, I thought I would throw in a few things for you to think about since this is your first. My DH has a 30 minute commute so I have always had the kids daycare close to my work and done all of the morning drop off and evening pick up.
 -When only one parent can do pick up and drop off it's very hard to flex your schedule so that you are dropping off as close to 8pm as possible and pick up as close to 5 pm as possible. This means that you care options are limited to only places or people that will take them from 6-6 or 7-6 or whatever, and your child will be in day care longer each day. Most parents split the drop off/pick up duties so that one can come in at 8:30 and the other can leave at 4:30 to make it work.

-Being the only person to do pick up in the evening or when a child is sick is also hard. I spent years trying to arrange my day so that at 5pm I could promptly rise up and GTFO because traffic was unpredictable and late fees are five fucking dollars a minute. Not to mention being the last one to be picked up is the worst for your kid.

 -Pick up sucks. That 5pm pick up time is the fucking witching hour. Nobody is happy. They don't want to get in their car seat, they want to spend time with you. They are hungry, etc. I can't tell you how many commutes I did with a screaming child. And if you've got a longer drive and that baby falls asleep on the way home then the schedule is all messed up for the night- forget Netflix and chill at 8, because baby is up till 10 now. And it doesn't really get easier when they get older. There was one point where I just resorted to throwing gummy worms toward the backseat to keep the peace.

Just don't do it. That's all I can say.

[Sanitary Stache]

We have 3 kids in one car. Now DW and I work a few blocks apart and the commute is to get the kids to daycare.  When we need to switch cars it is easy and we are only 1 mile from home so we can walk home if one of us needs to work late.

When we only had two kids, I commuted to work on a bus that departed about 1 mile from the house and DW drove the kids to and from daycare.  I was mostly unavailable for 12 hours of the workday, though friends and family did let me borrow their car to get home from work in a pinch if I missed the bus or when a baby was being born.

Your commute sucks.  It depends how you want to organize your life, but you can absolutely be a one car family.

We are considering a second car now because we have started to understand that cars aren't a cost per month, but a cost per mile.  And we would like to do the majority of our miles on a lower cost vehicle.

[CrustyBadger]

I just remembered another thing that was hard about having only 1 car with kids:

Birthday parties for your own child, where you wanted to transport the kids to a different location (take them to the movies, the beach, a trampoline place etc.)   With one car we were limited to places we could get parents to drop off, or to just inviting as many kids as could fit (in boosters) in the back seat.  Or we could have rented an extra car just for the party.

[wbarnett]

How much has your lyft/uber cost been over the past 6 months? Just asking for budgeting purposes. 

I don't track it specifically (very non-Mustachian of me), but I estimate we spend $20-$40/month on Lyft. It's absolutely cheaper than a car, although not a perfect solution with kids. I use my bike to run errands much more than I use Lyft, when my wife has the car and kids.

[FamilyGuy]

My wife cannot Drive. My work commute is 20 miles one way. Both my kids -3 and 2 years - started preschool in Aug for 2 days a week. I talked to my manager and as it is flexible work environment and I do put in a lot of hardwork for my job, I was told okay to work from home Tuesday and Thursday. Somehow with this set up, I can manage for this year. Next year when kids have 3 days school, I don’t know how we are going to manage with one car.

[cowpuncher10]

One car not doable. Three kids playing sports at different locations at either the same time or that would require warp travel to make it on time.

I also view having a single car as a safety risk. In the event of an emergency and the spouse has taken the car to work for the day what do we do if we HAVE to go somewhere? All kids still in car seats as well.

Can't afford to live closer to work due to crummy public school systems.

[me1]

We were a once car family for 4.5 years during which we had a second kid. In a midsize city in the us. It was simple to do because our kid went to school 2 blocks away and we always walked to it. One of us worked from home most of the time (with occasional work trips that required a car maybe 3 times a month). The other one biked weather permitting or took a car share to work. Once we had a second kid, the car got used a bit more. We have now moved to Europe and are attempting to do 2 kids and no car. So far so good. We’ll see if it keeps being possible.

[Goldielocks]

One car not doable. Three kids playing sports at different locations at either the same time or that would require warp travel to make it on time.

Its always about choice.   You don't have to have three kids playing sports at different locations at the same time.

I also view having a single car as a safety risk. In the event of an emergency and the spouse has taken the car to work for the day what do we do if we HAVE to go somewhere? All kids still in car seats as well.

  So the car stays with the kids / parent on primary kid response duties.  The working spouse figures out something else.

Can't afford to live closer to work due to crummy public school systems.

There are a few threads devoted to the whether a pubilic school with a low score is actually crummy.. sometimes yes, sometimes no... and ones about how to change up your transportation costs to get to work.   One example -- Lots of people get a drive to the transit stop by their spouse, who keeps the car and drives the kids for the day.   Second - electric bike kit.  Third, carpool.  etc. etc. etc.

It's about choices.   Challenge every assumption.  Try alternatives first to figure out if something won't work.

For example - one assumption is that a second car is expensive.  I assume that because OP was worried about it and it is heck of an expense around here.   My old, low cost car still costs me about $1200/yr just for the minimal insurance required by law.

BUT!  some areas, a low cost car would be the same cost as keeping a (nice) electric bike.

[Annie101]

We are one car with two kids ages 6&8.  We live in a large city and bought our house with good transit location as a priority so this would work.  The car is almost always with the kids.  We bus to work.  We share drop off and pick up duties so we leave the car in a place where the other person can find it.

Last year was the first problem year with both kids in soccer.  Practices were at the same time in different locations.  We didn't have the time to bus/walk to practice so we borrowed a truck from my parents for a couple months.

Another challenge has been joining a church that has poor bus service.  Requires two buses and about an hour to get there or back via transit.  We are still making it work though!

Edit:  also weekend trips for one of us without the kids are difficult.  Sometimes we can carpool or have kids careless for the weekend, but sometimes we rent a car.  When my dad had a crisis situation I rented a car multiple times to visit him.  Still cheaper than another car!  But only the airport has good (nights and weekend) rental agency hours, which is a huge hassle.

[Prairie Stash]

We were doing up the budgets last night and realized that we could probably save ~4-500/month if we ditched one of our cars.  Its somewhat feasible, since I live only 1.5 miles from work.  However, we have a kid coming in October, and that could make it tricky.  We have no public transport here, and the roads are skeeetchy.  I've been riding and racing road bikes forever and I'm fairly comfortable riding in traffic by myself to places, but I'd be super leery of trailering the child places if my wife needed the car and I had to take the kid somewhere. Also, I think an uber with a car seat would be a giant pain in the ass too. 

So is there anyone here that:
-Has a kid in a car seat
-Lives somewhere without public transport and/or good biking roads
-Lives a one-car couple lifestyle?

b]but the person with the kids always had the car[/b].

+1 (edited to highlight the best quote)
The car now belongs to the child, consider yourself the chauffeur. It makes planning easy when you realize it that its not your car, its the kids and you sometimes get to borrow it (plus you still get to pay for all the gas!).

Sure there are times you need to plan a bit more. Like when I got home at 10 PM from a road trip and the buses have stopped running and I have a suitcase. So I ended up taking a taxi, asking a friend for a ride, or walking home. The walking wasn't bad since I learned years ago to use a backpack instead of a traditional suitcase and I enjoy the exercise.

Besides, if you ever want a second car in 2-5 years, you can always change your mind. its not like this has to be a permanent decision. Try it for a month, park car #2, learn to adjust, and you'll see how much of a non-issue it is to save $4-500/month.

Full disclosure, I currently own 2 cars. I've had a single car and no cars at different points of my work life and family life. We tried one car with our first kid, then went up to a second car when we both worked different hours and daycare was a struggle (particularly when we had 2 kids, now 3 and 6 years old). We're going back down to a single car hopefully next month, I'm flexible and change as required to fit whatever stage of life I'm at. My second car costs (total) about $150/month. It has almost no depreciation, its a 2005 model.

The biggest perk of cheap cars over the years is I'm semi retired now and my wife doesn't work anymore. It sounds pretty great to most people, but I had to be creative over the years to achieve it. it wasn't any one choice, but the combination of many smart choices. I walked my 3 year old to pre-school this morning, I hope you can do the same with yours.

[zhelud]

My husband and I owned just one car and had one kid, and it worked fine. We had to get another car around the time of kid #2, but that was because my commute changed.

Think of it this way- you (OP) think you could save $400-500 per month by having just one car. How many times per month do you think you would need a second car?  Although if you have to take a baby somewhere in a car seat, a taxi is problematic, you can always rent a car occasionally and still come out ahead. 

[economista]

Lots of people have pointed out that being a one car family is possible but I'll just add on. We are a one car family and our baby will be here in a few weeks. We have always been a one car family and no matter what we always will be, because my husband is blind. It is silly to me that people try to say it isn't possible, or that it is unsafe to only have one car. No matter what my husband can't drive a car it has never been much of an issue for us at all. I can't even remember the last time he needed to take an uber or lift. Granted we live in an area with a basic level of public transportation (it could be MUCH better) but I also knew what I was signing up for when I married him. I have no problem rearranging my schedule to give him rides places when necessary and he has no problem dealing with it taking him 2-3-4x as long to get somewhere on his own as it would if he could drive.  You just have to think about things differently and do a lot more planning.

In case of a real emergency, you call 911. In the case of an emergency where you would drive to the Dr/Hospital/etc you can call a taxi/uber/lyft. We have no worries about this at all.

[mschaus]

Re: car seats in taxis and ubers – I was initially concerned about this, but it turns out it’s not an issue:

Infant car seats easily buckle in with the car safety belt while the child is already strapped into the seat. (You don’t use the base that you have installed in your own car.) Piece of cake, can practice at home. Uber driver barely notices.

Rear facing toddlers: A travel car seat like the $50 Cosco Scenera Next (lots of traveling parents swear by this one, it also works on airplanes) can attach with LATCH connectors super fast. It only weighs something like 10lbs. Incredible.

Forward facing kids: That same Cosco Scenera can be used, or in some markets you can request an Uber with a forward-facing seat already installed!

[Weisass]

So perhaps I can be helpful.

Four kids (2 in school, 1 in preschool, 1 under 1), one car, living in the suburbs on one FT and one PT income. Like you, I do a lot of bike commuting. Roads aren’t perfect but I got a bike that was safe and useful for family riding, much safer than a trailer (I own a madsen cargobike). I disagree with the poster who compares biking with a child to child abuse, but I will grant that I try to keep biking to errands under 3 miles with kids in tow.

It helps that whenever *had* a second car, so we don’t miss it. We aren’t obsessed with after school activities, so there’s one direction we could possibly go for extra curriculars. We can catch a train nearby, but it only goes to the city so we don’t use it for local errands, etc. we just walk.

I think it comes down to trade offs. We like the reduced costs in time and maintenance and environmental stewardship concerns so we are willing to get places more slowly on foot or by bike. And honestly with kids it does set helpful limits on what we can do, which means we are together as a family more.

[singpolyma]

Lots and lots of families have only one car, sometimes by choice, sometimes because they can barely afford the one they have.  If you choose to make this lifestyle change, you'll figure it out.  If you've already figured it out *before* the kid arrives you'll be way ahead (because you'll only be figuring out adding the kid to the equation, which you're already doing for the rest of your life at that point anyway).

Believe in yourself, and in the fact that many other families do this every day, and you can.  It might take some more planning ahead ("you take the car because you need it for X later") or some choices you might not otherwise have made ("I'll stay home with the kid today so you can take the car for X") but you can make it work.

I was a zero-car bachelor raised in a one-car family, so when my wife brought a car into the marriage that part was basically figured out already.  Adding the kid didn't change much.  When the kid goes with me we usually cycle, when she goes with mom or we all go it's usually driving or bussing.  But just because that's how we do it doesn't mean you need to be comfortable cycling or bussing your child to make it work for you.  When I was a kid we were a one-car family and my parents *never* cycled or bussed anywhere the whole time I was growing up.  Sometimes we would get up early to drive Dad to work and drop him off so we could have the car that day.  You figure out what works for you.

[lutorm]

We're a single car household, too, with 1 kid. This is not a big deal for us, as I work from home and the wife has a 15 minute bike ride to work. I start work early, she drops off at daycare in the morning and parks the car back home before biking to work. I stop working earlier and goes to pick up the kid. There is zero public transportation here and nothing's really within walking distance, but one car works really well. For the rare occasions when we need two vehicles, I also have a motorcycle (when it's working.)

If one of us had a required car commute, it would be a different situation, but we picked our house to be within biking distance to her job when we moved here.

[damyst]

Two working spouses, one kid in preschool, zero cars. We bike-commute two miles to work, with a daycare drop-off/pickup on the way.
We live in a bike- and walk-friendly area, with great transit and multiple car-share options (which we use once or twice per month).

 I realize this isn't directly applicable to most families, but it isn't a "happy accident" in our case either. It's the result of a chain of deliberate decisions, actions and compromises we made to ensure that our lifestyle matches our values. As Goldielocks said, it's about choices. If you treat every choice you've ever made as an immovable axiom, then the only possible solution is the one you already have.