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It's no surprise to anyone that times are tough right now. In this economy, we are all looking to cut costs any way we can. We recently made a decision that might shock some in the Tampa Bay area: we decided to become a one car family. In other parts of the country, this is an easy decision to remove an unnecessary expense. In our region, I doubt this option would even occur to most.
You may be thinking "these people must be crazy!" but before you jump to conclusions, let me explain. When we took a hard look at our budget, we quickly realized that after housing, transportation is our biggest expense. We had two cars, a subcompact that was paid off and a sedan that wasn't. When we discovered we could sell the sedan for roughly the same amount we still owed, we saw a huge opportunity to cut our expenses to help us get by.
Here's how the numbers break down:
- Each month, we will save $470.31 from the car payment alone.
- By removing the extra car from our insurance, we will save another $150.
- My fiancé works some 60 hours a week and his job requires commuting 78.3 miles each way 3-4 times per week. While the sedan was a fairly efficient car getting a little over 30 mpg, our subcompact gets about 40 mpg on the highway. By having him switch cars, we save another $50+ per month.
In other words, for us, it was a no brainer. It's hard to pass up the opportunity to save almost $700 per month, or over $8,000 per year.
Deciding to lose a car was the easy part, the hard part starts now as I face life in Tampa Bay essentially carless. I'm looking forward to sharing my trials and tribulations with all of you, thanks for the opportunity!
-Carly
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