I was working from home one day a week and then with the pandemic I am still working from home all the time and it looks like it is going to stay this way. I couldn’t be more happy about this.
I have had groceries delivered through this whole time. My car which sat in the garage so long without use that the battery went dead. I only went to start it cause there was time for an oil change on the calendar. I decided to get rid of the car, and use Uber and Lyft when needed. I felt if this didn’t work out and I felt I needed a car for some reason for a day, I would rent one, and if this has happened more frequently I would consider getting a new car. Or if I just felt odd about not having a car, I’d get one.
I did a cost analysis of this and it has been an amazing savings. No cost of gas, oil or repairs. When I take an Uber to the dentist, it might cost $30.00 round trip including a generous tip, but that’s it. I compared all this to just the cost of a monthly car payment (excluding gas, oil, repairs) and I am way ahead this way.
I also realize how much time I was wasting doing grocery shopping. The cost of delivery is less than if I took Uber or Lyft round trip too. At first I thought it was going to be too expense to do this, but after many months of tracking this there is a cost savings.
It’s not practical for me to do this at present, but for all the years I lived in Chicago proper I didn’t bother to own a car. Much like you, I found it saved me a lot of money and wasn’t nearly the handicap some people think it would be.
For better or worse, I have to drive to work every day right now, no work-at-home for me. Maybe when I “retire”.
My mother just went this route with some strong encouragement from the kids. The car was sitting around a lot after my dad died and needed to be jump started at least three times over the last 18 months. She’s also 84, has major arthritis in her hands, and her top 5 spinal vertebrae were fused about 3 years ago due to spinal stenosis.
She’s in a condo, so she rented the parking space out for $150. Between that, licensing, insurance, and maintenance she’ll come out ahead financially.
I’ve been pretty unhappy with the level of service with curbside pickup from grocery stores here in the Little Rock area. I wouldn’t trust them to do any better with delivery and that’s especially the case for fresh food like meat and vegetables. I’m a little more discerning than the average picker I think.
From a recreational point of view, there isn’t a lot for me to do within walking distance of my home. If I want to go shopping, meet my friends for a game, or do many of the other activities I enjoy such as hiking I need to drive and sometimes a fairly good distance. I don’t think I’m comfortably relying on a gig driver to get me to all those places.
Part of it is because a lack of a vehicle makes me feel like I have less independence. If I wanted to, I can wake up Saturday morning and make a trip to Petit Jean State Park and know when I’m done hiking I have a reliable ride back home. If I want to go to the game store I can go when I want not when another drive is available. I’m in control.
Missus and I are both working from home for the foreseeable future. While I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of cars completely, we are kicking around the idea of turning the ones we DO have into cash, and getting a cheap ride until the selection of EVs becomes greater. Meanwhile we can use the cash to fit the house with a solar powered charging station. What I really don’t want is to be sitting on $50k in gasoline powered transport when the EVs take over and make them obsolete.
What about, I’m not sure of the term, ‘premium’ or ‘surge’ pricing- say if you just happen to need a lift on Super Bowl night or New Year’s Eve. Doesn’t that become ridiculously expensive and require a long wait for a ride? I realize those situations would be relatively rare.
The couple of times I took an Uber when it was significantly more expensive than taking a car service would have been resulted in a much shorter wait than I would have had for a car service. The most recent was after Hurricane Ida hit NYC - the public transportation system was mostly shut down and the Uber I took home while my husband was in the ER cost me 3-4X what a car service would have cost - but the Uber was there in under 10 minutes while I know from my pre-Uber experience a car service would have taken hours. That’s kind of the point of the surge pricing- as the price goes up, more drivers make themselves available while a car service has a limited number of driver/vehicles at any given time.
For a Super Bowl or NYE, there’s hardly parking available anyway and prices go way up. You’re paying in time and money either way. That’s why surge pricing works - the alternative is also unpalatable.
As a grad student, I made the mistake of flying back home from a short vacation on the evening of the Super Bowl and the stadium was literally across the street from my apartment. Just getting back home was a challenge and took a couple more hours and cost a lot more money than it usually did (I wasn’t going to ask friends for a lift during the Super Bowl to basically the stadium site). And that was pre-Uber.
This concept in general wouldn’t work for me personally. Not working from home anymore and things are really spread out, even in the densest cities in Texas. You might be able to get away with it in a very limited set of housing/employment circumstances here but it’s not viable in general.
I think this is possible under very specific circumstances, such as living in an urban area where delivery/ride services are dense-enough that one would not feel deprived. However, I suspect for a majority of people going car-less would be problematic.
I, personally, would not want to live this way, unless I were residing in a very dense city, like NYC or SF, where literally everything you need is accessible via delivery/ride services, public transit, or walking/riding a bicycle. Unfortunately, most US metro areas do not lend themselves well to that sort of lifestyle. What metro is the OP in?
I will say, tho, getting rid of “a” car in favor of delivery/ride services makes more sense - for households that have 2+ vehicles, leaving at least one car available for road trips or for other needs that demand total flexibility.
It’s not something I would do, as I need my car at random moments, but I can understand why you’d do it. I’ve estimated that I use my car in total perhaps only two or three hours in a week (168 hours). That’s a lot of money to tie up in the car, fuel, maintenance, insurance and perhaps parking fees. Fortunately, my apartment includes a free parking space, parking is free at work and I almost never visit places that charge for parking. The car itself is eleven years old, and I paid cash for it. It’s a Honda, so maintenance costs are minimal. But if I replaced it, I might be looking at $30-40,000, which would require taking money out of investment accounts and putting in a depreciating asset.
My daughter needed a car to run around to small town hospitals in Minnesota during her last year of nursing school. I lent her mine, even though my commute across town would necessitate a change of bus (15-20 min of freezing, waiting for a capricious bus driver).
But I lucked out! I managed to ride my bike every day. Our city parks dept. plows the bike paths, usually before the streets get done.
That proved to me that I could get by without a car, and just bike everywhere. Got a nice big pannier (Banjo Bros. Grocery Pannier, $50), and for bigger stuff? Well, I’ve bungied eight foot lumber to my bike (yeah, it hangs out a bit behind me…). And when we need softener salt, I just shrug and my wife says “Okay, okay, I’ll pick that up after work.”
I’ve assumed I’d be using busses or Uber occasionally, but so far, ZERO need for them.
Definitely not feasible for me. I have to go to work. I work 25 miles away. Although I don’t exactly live in the middle of nowhere, I am in a sufficiently rural area that getting an Uber is a crap shoot.
My commute is 0.
Have a couple of days off this week; filled up the car yesterday, filled up the car again today because it needed it.
Tomorrow I was (weather changed plans) supposed to leave my house about 6:20am for a 35 mile drive, only to return back home a few hours later.
Another situation is when you get too old to drive. My parents stopped driving when they got old. I think my dad was about 85. It just wasn’t safe anymore. So even though they live in a place where car is king (Orange County. California), they have no choice: they are forced to use Uber to get around. Fortunately they live walking distance to a shopping center, so they don’t need a car for everyday staples.
We have not had family visit because of the pandemic, but when that resumes, I would consider renting a car for the duration of their trip so we can pick them up at the airport and take them places and restaurants. These trips are usually only a few days. So the yearly cost of doing that a few times a year is still better than having a car. Almost everything can be delivered now by some service. So for a big event, we would know about it in advance so we could plan the rental.
I know for some people having a car is a sign of independence or freedom, and I never felt that way about a car. So while there was a psychology adjustment for which a couple of months, it forced me to plan things like grocery shopping better. By preparing the weekly list, order it online and it arrives on my doorstep. Since I’m working from home, I can accept these deliveries during regular hours without a problem. With the car it seems like I was going to the grocery store 2-3 times a week, which I consider a waste of time now. After getting a number of home deliveries from different grocery stores, I determined they did a much better job of selecting produce than I did. I’ve never gotten something I didn’t think was a good selection. I generally indicate not to substitute most things.
What I like about doing this, is that it has been working out better financially and gives me more time. And this change certainly isn’t permanent, as if I couldn’t change my mind and get another car. But for now, this seems like a very good method.
I’ve had no car for three years now. It’s a mixed bag.
Yes, I do get groceries delivered, but not every item in the store is available that way. Example: Want yogurt? Limited flavors in only 2 brands. Also, I’m somewhat picky about produce. I like to grocery shop, but it gets old walking the same mile to and from the store with my little cart. And I wouldn’t use Uber for that.
I also take the bus, but to get many places, even some not that far away, means at least one transfer. It’s time-consuming.
Yes, I save money, but there are so many places I want to go that are either very difficult or impossible to get to without driving. Hiking mountains is out unless a friend with a car is willing to drive me. I’d love to go to the Oregon coast, but it’s waaay too complicated to get there without a car, and Uber is not an option.
If I discover I’m out of an ingredient halfway through a recipe, it takes over an hour to get to the store and back.
And lately there’s been an Uber driver shortage. A driver told me lots of the drivers prefer doing Uber Eats, and I suppose the pandemic plays a role, as well. So sometimes I have a long wait, and several times there have been NO drivers, so I couldn’t get to the doctor or wherever.
Yes, I save money, but I miss driving. I miss the convenience, the freedom, and the time saved.
The reason I stopped driving was because of vision issues, so right now I’m pretty much restricted to Bumper Cars. That’s a great suggestion, though, and if I’m ever able to drive safely again, I’ll definitely keep it in mind. Thanks!
I did this, but for printers. Sent something to print like 3 years ago. A simple one-page letter was all I wanted… and after the jam and then the thing ‘running out of cyan ink’, 10 minutes of work, none of it allowing me to print 7 lines of black text… after that, I disconnected the thing, tossed it in the trash, and subsequently have sent all my printing to the UPS Store w/in walking distance of my house.
Let them spend $45 bucks on a color cartridge because you need to print a plain black-ink letter, and the printer refuses because it is low on blue ink. Goddamn, my stress levels are increasing just thinking about it.
That’s a great suggestion, though, and if I’m ever able to drive safely again, I’ll definitely keep it in mind. Thanks!