The Financial Independence Project

Well we technically made it two weeks with just one car, but as of today our one car experiment has come to an end. We spent a lot of time juggling schedules and moving appointments but after a thorough analysis of our schedules and responsibilities we just are not set up to be a one car household at this time. We could have made it work with one car for another month, but after that we realistically could not have just one car without impacting our income. If we lived somewhere with strong public transportation or one of us had the ability to bike or walk to work it could have worked, but unfortunately we are not in that situation right now. We even looked at the cost of Lyft and Uber to supplement only having one car but the cost of those services did not even come close to making financial sense, even if used very infrequently. So in the end after looking at logistics and the spreadsheets we created (I mean who doesn’t use spreadsheets for this type of decision :p) we decided to find and purchase a second car…

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For most people and families, there are usually three big spending areas that can have a significant impact on the path to financial independence. Typically in the order of significance they are housing, cars, and food. The scale and size of the impact of these areas will vary quite a bit depending on personal circumstances, but outside of additional income, addressing these items can have a huge impact on how long it takes to reach FI. 

Since we have been together, we have always been a two car family (one per adult), and have never considered the possibility of trying to get by with just one car. One reason why we never even discussed it is we have not had a car payment in almost 10 years, and we both planned to keep our cars until they stop running or cost way too much in repairs. Also, based on our schedules, kids activities, and work locations it just never seemed practical, and we never gave it much thought. While we planned on keeping our cars until they wouldn’t run anymore, this changed when our 11 year old Toyota Matrix was totaled by a college student who decided to run a red light at an intersection and directly into my wife’s car. Luckily no one was injured, including both of our children who were in the car at the time, but the car did not survive. This has left us with only one car to use for the last week once the other driver’s insurance company paid us the small amount of value they determined the car was worth. It is a very frustrating outcome because the Kelly Blue Book value is no way near the value we placed on and was provided by the vehicle. So while unplanned we are now operating with only one car, and decided to document this process and whether it is possible given our circumstances to realistically (and I do mean this literally) have only one vehicle in our family. We will probably make this a multi-part post from two different perspectives, and we will see how long this experiment can last, although based on this first week I doubt it will last long…

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