Cutting Back on Everything But...

The Reed family has completed one week without two cars. No clear observations yet on how this is impacting our ability to get around. The kids are in school until early June and my wife and I have had no real conflicts on who needs to use the car and when.

But one thing is clear. With a looming recession and stratospheric gas prices drivers aren't cutting back.

Are you altering your gas consumption habits?

Last Day

The drop off...


The hand off...



The send off.

Relatives Weigh In

My wife's aunt read my previous posts and reached a conclusion about our experiment.

"I think it's funny," she told my wife. I asked my wife why. She said her aunt thinks this will not be a test of living with one car, but rather a test of our marriage.

What do you think?

No Fail-safe for Running Late

It’s T-minus seven days and counting. One week from today my family reduces its mobility utility by half. Our leased minivan returns to the dealer, leaving us with a 10-year-old Subaru Outback wagon as our only means of transport.

It just hit me today. We’re on a collision course with our first major single-car test. I realize the second car was our safety valve. It was our fallback; our fail-safe solution from getting up too late, scheduling too much or not planning well enough. If we had to arrive on time someplace nearby, or if someone wasn’t quite ready, we’d casually suggest, “Hey, how about you meet us over there (school, church, movie, dinner, etc)?

Those days are gone. A new layer of complexity is added to how we’ll plan and execute our days, nights and weekends for the next five months.

The Experiment

I’m going to get rid of one of my two cars. Honda is forcing me to.

The lease on my 2004 Odyssey EX is up on April 19, 2008 and, sadly, my family and I must part with it. It’s been a great vehicle. Reliable, comfortable and safe.

So, why am I not replacing it? The reasons are simple.

First, my wife and I work out of the house. Not a bad situation if you can get it. We measure our daily commutes in feet, not miles. I’m a public relations consultant; she’s a project manager. I do have to go see clients, but I spend most of my time serving them from home. My wife on the other hand doesn’t need to go to an office at all. As for kids, we have a ten-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. No tussle for keys there.

The second prevailing factor is proximity to an Avis rental office. It is literally a half mile away from our house as the crow flies. If I need a car, I can get one for about $45 a day. Even if I rented one once a week, the total is still far less than the $500+ I’d be shelling out monthly for a new car that, with the exception of grocery shopping, would just sit in my garage. Add the price of insurance and the liquid gold cars run on and you are talking significant savings.

So, without a commute and easy access to wheels, buying a new car right now just doesn’t seem to make a whole heck of a lot of sense.

And finally, we just weren’t that thrilled with our new car options. We’re attempting to downsize in the face of high gas prices that are here to stay. More on what models we looked at and why we balked in a later post.

So, here’s the experiment. We are going to see if we can hold out without a second car until September 19, 2008. I chose this date hoping a 2009 model will better fulfill our purchasing criteria. I’ll regularly report on how we’re adapting, including the highs and lows on family harmony and patience, as well as a running tally of what we’re saving.

Will we cave early to our perceived need for unencumbered mobility? Will we buy new, or buy a cheap beater? Being the suburbanites we are and the community where we live (Naperville, IL), I’m anticipating some bumps along the way.