FIREing on one or two cars? - if you do not consume more than 6K-8K miles a year?

[mpeirce]

I'm curious. People often mention renting as an option. Do people actually do that? I.e. how often do you actually rent a car when you have only one.

We once went for a couple of months with only one car and we didn't like. And yet, we didn't rent one short term.

 

[imoldernu]

1996 Caddy and 1998 Executive Town Car
both run and look good
about 700mi./yr on the 98
maybe 3-4,000mi./yr on the 96
sell value about zip.
cost for registration and insurance and gas and oil change maybe $5,500 at most. So far all repairs have been mine. (last one two years ago)

If I get stuck somewhere, Jeanie can pick me up, or if I go to the lake alone, she has transportation. We figure at twice the price, we're ahead of the game.
Independence is the name of the game.

 

[audreyh1]

I guess I shuould have mentioned that it’s at least 14 miles to just about anything. We have some parks within cycling distance.

We simply got rid of the second car after realizing that it wasn’t being driven hardly at all

 

[imoldernu]

... just out of curiosity, in a question that goes along with having one car....

Do you know how much it would cost you to take a taxi, to go to a Dr. appointment, or to something "necessary" that was five or six miles away... means getting there and getting back. Taxi Lyft, Uber or Municipal "taxi" service? And, as an aside, how long to arrange this type of transport?

How much to rent a car for a day... a week.

I think this fits in with the discussion, so didn't want to start a new thread.
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For a reason,am posting in a separate threD ....
"Carless"

 

[Walt34]

One of the things I wish people would put down is how close anything is located to their location...

Okay, we live in a suburban development so the only alternative is taxi or maybe Uber (we don't have the app on the phone).

Closest grocery: 3 miles, the one we go to most is 5 miles but is much larger and has more selection. The closest one is closing soon anyway.

Most docs/dentists are ~5 miles.

One really needs a car to live here, we'll have to move if/when neither can drive.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm curious. People often mention renting as an option. Do people actually do that? I.e. how often do you actually rent a car when you have only one.

We once went for a couple of months with only one car and we didn't like. And yet, we didn't rent one short term.

Maybe once every couple of years because it’s in the shop for a long service and we don’t want to wait all day.

 

[Walt34]

I'm curious. People often mention renting as an option. Do people actually do that? I.e. how often do you actually rent a car when you have only one.

It seems we rent a car about once every ten years or so. Twice it was because DW's car was in for collision repairs (not her fault so insurance paid) and once we rented a car when DW's car was in for repairs, we were going to drive my mother to a family gathering in VA, and my 4WD pickup truck was too high for Mom to get into. So we rented a sedan for that reason.

 

[Cobra9777]

We are in the burbs... walkscore is 9. Our usual grocery store is 1.7 miles. There are restaurants within 1 mile but not places we would ordinarily go to. Shopping and restaurants that we actually use regularly are 3-4 miles. It's easy driving, not very safe for biking, and impractical for walking.

WRT renting... We have 3 vehicles but we rent to go on long road trips, anything greater than ~4-5 hours away. But this is rare, maybe once every 2-3 years. All 3 vehicles are old with high mileage so we don't like using them for long road trips. When traveling to a large city away from home, we use Uber and Lyft rather than renting a car.

 

[jollystomper]

Our walkscore is 0. The closest centers with shopping and restaurants are approx 1.8 miles away. We would love to walk to sometimes, but there are no sidewalks, the road is hilly, speed limit for much of the route is 40 (so everyone is doing at least 50), and it narrows at times to where there is barely any shoulder. The only times we have walked is after major snowstorms have closed the roads and we could walk in the middle of the street with no traffic.

 

[athena53]

I'm curious. People often mention renting as an option. Do people actually do that? I.e. how often do you actually rent a car when you have only one.

DH and I might have done it twice- I specifically remember I had a dentist appointment and he had a doctor's appointment on the same day and we didn't want to bother re-scheduling, especially since I had to be in the office most of the day.

We also rented a minivan when we made a family road trip with DS, DDIL and our 1-year old granddaughter to a family wedding in TX. For a very small person she needed a lot of Stuff.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I'm curious. People often mention renting as an option. Do people actually do that? I.e. how often do you actually rent a car when you have only one.

We once went for a couple of months with only one car and we didn't like. And yet, we didn't rent one short term.

We were married for five years before we bought a car—we were broke and lived in very congested Chicago neighborhoods with terrible parking and excellent CTA busses and subways and the El. We rented cars from a downtown rental office to go away for weekends about once a month and found it was cheaper than paying car insurance was when we broke down and bought a car. Of course insurance on a second car is usually much cheaper than the first one, but for us in our mid-20s with one car in a “bad” zip code, it was a lot.

 

[Dash man]

We are also a low walk score, being about 1.5 miles from grocery, Target, pharmacy, gas station, wine and spirits, and convenience stores. Some fast food is in the same area. The hilly road to there is 45 mph and has no sidewalks. For nicer restaurants we’d have to go 2.5 miles or more. The better restaurants and the mall are about 16 miles away. Our local hospital is nine miles and our preferred hospital is 24 miles. Our primary care doctor is about five miles.

 

[aja8888]

One of the things I wish people would put down is how close anything is located to their location...

Super Walmart - 1 mile

Church - 1/2 mile

Kohls, other big stores - 1 mile

COSTCO - 1.375 miles

THREE major hospitals - 1 mile, 1.4 miles, 2.2 miles

New MD Anderson Cancer Center - 3/8 mile

About 50 eating establishments - 1/2 mile to 3.0 miles

Walking trails - in our neighborhood.

Community college - 1/2 mile

Regional High School - 1/2 mile

Sam Houston Nature Preserve - directly behind us.

There is more...

Two cars (currently); 1998 Ford F-150 Lariat pickup with 46,000 miles, 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe with 79,800 miles on it.

Traffic locally?? - UNBEARABLE

 

[38Chevy454]

You made me look, I'm 6 out of 100. Yup, car dependent.

https://www.walkscore.com

I scored a zero. Have to have a car for everything. Not news to me, I stated in my earlier reply to this thread that I live out in the country. Even a 1 hour walk does not get me to anything.

 

[harley]

Our score is a 4, although I don't know how. We're at least 5 miles away from anything (except a golf course), at least by car. Maybe they're doing as the crow flies. It's only 2 miles by boat, but I'm not going to the library in my kayak.

We probably drive 20+K miles/year, with 3K of those just going back and forth between FL and MD. I love to drive and we do a fair number of road trips. Plus it's 30 miles to the nearest real city (Salisbury MD). When in FL we seldom go more than 5 miles when running errands.

We have 4 cars for the two of us. Two are new, and one of those is our commuting between FL and MD van. The other is a convertible VW Beetle, just for fun.

The other two are old. One we leave in FL in the garage on jack stands when we're up north, and drive it when we're down there. It's a 2002 diesel Beetle, and cheap enough to own it's not worth getting rid of. Plus it gets 45 mpg. We'll just keep driving it until it dies.

The other old one is my 2004 Highlander, that I use to haul trash to the dump, mulch to the house, and four wheel up into the mountains to go camping. Things we wouldn't want me to use the van for. Again, so old it's cheap to own and too useful to get rid of until it dies. The Highlander and the new Beetle get stored in the garage when we're in FL.

Whichever ones are in the state we aren't in get put on liability insurance only, so they aren't costing us much for insurance when they aren't in use. I'm sure it doesn't make sense to some, but it works for us.

 

[RobbieB]

We're gonna do it with 2 cars and 3 motorcycles

 

[Kwirk]

Our walk score is 3/100. We use a car for any trip other than a walk in the neighborhood. We have a Walmart grocery within 2 miles but would probably never walk there.

Some years ago we rented a truck from Home Depot to bring home a large purchase but now any large purchase will probably be delivered. We've thought about renting a truck to make a landfill delivery but it never proved necessary. I vaguely recall using a taxi once, also years ago, but I don't recall the reason.

If one of us needs to wait for the other (eg a medical appointment) then we just read or play a game.

Our hybrid Avalon is very reliable (reliability is our most important criteria in choosing a car). DD has a minivan that we borrow if we need something larger for a brief time.

 

[savory]

One car, two bicycles. We take the bikes as often as possible to remain healthy, wealthy and wise.

 

[DrRoy]

In our first 6 months of RE, we never had both cars out of the garage. We drive about 12,000 miles/yr. We sold the Malibu and the Equinox, and bought a new CRV. In 9 months, we have only had one situation where we both would need a car. I took DW to an appointment, and then went to a photography group. She got a ride home, but I would have gone to get her if not. We also have Uber available, and Enterprise rental a mile away. We can walk to the Dr or drug store or Meijer within a mile if needed. One car is working very well for us.

 

[mexexpat]

One car in US, one car in MX. We live in very walkable small towns and rarely use either of these cars. For vacations, we fly more than we drive these days. At some point will get rid of both cars and rely on Uber or taxis. Put a LOT of miles on cars when we worked and happy to not drive very much in retirement.

I didn't realize until just now that WalkScore includes our MX town and home. 76!!

 

[brett]

We were four years with only one car. Plan was to rent one if we needed one.

Did we? Only once. And that was at the end of a four year condo rental and we needed a larger vehicle to move some items across town that we did not want to the movers.

 

[Big_Hitter]

We're gonna do it with 2 cars and 3 motorcycles

sure you don't need a truck in there somewhere?

 

[Yarnstormer]

Single driver here. I have two cars but one is a 65 mustang so it’s just for fun and I’ve had it for over 25 years so it’s paid for! It’s a toy.

I can see keeping an old truck around for hauling but I would not keep a spare “nice” car unless you use the wagon for travel or something? Sell it and invest the money.

 

[SheitlQueen]

I have two vehicles even though I am single. I live in the country and if one car goes down-and it has-it can cause a problem. I also like having one car and one truck-it comes in useful for hauling stuff and I like the 4WD in the winter. The cost to keep it around isn't much, and if I was worried about the slight increase in costs I would cut in other areas.

 

[walkinwood]

We're another of the one-car families. Our plan is to rent if we need to, but the only time we've rented was a u-haul pickup truck to bring something big home from the store.


The chances of us renting has increased in the past year as I've mentioned in an earlier post.