Well, it is official. We are now a single vehicle family.
After talking about it for over a year now we have taken the plunge and sold my husbands Jeep. The number one reason, of late, is to pay off the lovely hospital bills from our little NICU baby and rebuild our emergency fund (the Jeep has been paid off for years now so all the proceeds can go toward those goals). We have discussed a lot of other benefits as well.
- Insurance Savings - We figured our monthly car insurance will be reduced by about $34 per month for a yearly savings of $408.
- Gas Savings - I don't have an exact number for this, but we hope it will be a good amount. True, there will be the occasional extra mileage on days I need the car and take my husband to work, but less impulse mileage from me running out to get something or visit someone. I'll need to plan my errands and grocery shopping much more carefully and squeeze everything I need to do into 1 or 2 trips.
- Impulse Savings - There will be no more I-need-to-get-out-of-the-house-lets-go-out-to-lunch (or shopping, or for a Dr. Pepper) type events. I'll have to take walks and visit neighbors instead.
- Registration Savings - The annual safety/emissions/registration for the Jeep was around $150.
- Maintenance Savings - No more routine oil changes. No worries about new tires, new windshield, wiper blades or the upcoming 90,000 mile fluid flush. Plus it was getting on in years and I was concerned about other things beginning to breakdown.
Some reasons why we will survive just fine on one vehicle are:
- My husband's work is only 15 min. away. I can drive him if I need the car.
- We have lots of family close by if we need rides.
- I do most of my shopping on Saturday when the husband can watch the kids.
- A lot of my great neighbors are also stay-at-home mom's who I can run to in an emergency.
- Our church is a block away.
- The kids ride the bus to school.
I'm kind of nervous and excited about this new chapter of our lives. I'll be sure and blog updates so you can get an idea of how we make it work and what kind of savings we experience.
1 comment:
good luck! dallin and i sold our other car with the plans to buy a new one, but then decided against it, so we've been doing the one car thing for a month or so now. it gets tricky some days, but for the most part it works out and it's saved us a lot of money in the long run. most of which have to do with a lot of the reasons you just mentioned. good luck!
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