Do you need the second car in retirement?

[Koolau]

We had one car for a while and were surprised at how many conflicts we had. We are back to 2 cars.

Not much conflict for us. Only conflict is she wants ME to drive HER places!

 

[6miths]

I have wanted to go to one car for quite awhile but DW not in favour. I have always said that I will figure it out if both of us wanted to go separate places at the same time. Cars are expensive and in many ways just a hassle.

 

[Koolau]

I have wanted to go to one car for quite awhile but DW not in favour. I have always said that I will figure it out if both of us wanted to go separate places at the same time. Cars are expensive and in many ways just a hassle.

Yes, even though we could afford the extra expense, we simply can't seem to go back to two cars. Maybe someday.

 

[DrRoy]

We went to one car about 7 years ago. Occasionally one of us needs to drop the other off and pick them up later to have use of the car, but not often. Haven't had to Uber yet.

 

[INTJ10]

We have two cars. One is minivan that we use for road trips and hauling people/things when needed. The other is a small econobox that is easy to park. We can't really go anywhere walking or biking so I think it would be a challenge with only one car.

 

[GoodbyeYellow]

We retired 4 and 3 years ago respectively, but noticed about 2 years ago that, in the previous 5 years, there were only two occasions when we used both cars at the same time, and one of those were when we had several out-of-town visitors (one of us WFH). So, dumped the oil changes, spark plugs, most of the other overhead, sold both dino cars and went with Tesla.

Reclaimed a lot of garage space in the process and have never needed the second car since. We generally go everywhere together anyway so that helps, and was a major factor.

The mental relief has been yuuge. Oftentimes, it was "which car are we using today?" or "which car did I leave my jacket in?" or "car #1 has its smog due next week". "I thought we just did that". "No that was car #2". And so on.

 

[JoeWras]

You need the second one if you are crazy enough to "keep them 'til they die" like we are.

 

[GenXguy]

I had a second vehicle for a while because it was a truck. But the cost of insurance, license/registration, and maintenance makes it not worth it anymore.

 

[Koolau]

You need the second one if you are crazy enough to "keep them 'til they die" like we are.

Yeah, that's the one thing we miss. When we only have one car, that one time in 2 years when the battery dies, I have no second car to go buy another battery.

We also had to rent a car while the car was being repaired at the body shop for 8 days or so. Fortunately, the insurance picked up most of the rental costs.

 

[More Cowbell]

We have N cars, where N = # of drivers in the household, and a 2 car garage. For decades we had N+1 (except for that time we had N+3), but for the past 7 have been at N. Going down to 1 car is possible but extremely inconvenient due to differing interests and how spread out different activity clusters are. We prefer not to be inconvenienced. We do, however live in a walkable area with amenities close by. We can select the most convenient way to get to a destination: Walking, e-bike, public transit light rail (no bus), or car.

 

[Dogpeace]

I need a truck for some things but the gas mileage is not great. I have a hybrid for every day driving. If I went down to one, it would have to be the truck, and I'd pay a lot more for gas (but save on insurance).

 

[Koolau]

I need a truck for some things but the gas mileage is not great. I have a hybrid for every day driving. If I went down to one, it would have to be the truck, and I'd pay a lot more for gas (but save on insurance).

You'd also save on depreciation. It's true that gas is more expensive for the truck but deleting one vehicle from your fleet saves fixed costs like depreciation, tags and insurance on the 2nd vehicle.

That's where we finally ended up. Even though the 2nd vehicle no longer depreciated, it did have a few repairs needing to be done each year. All in all the convenience of the extra car was very expensive.

Only reason we kept it as long as we did was because DW really liked that car and didn't mind driving it. Our "new" car, she avoids if possible. YMMV

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Only reason we kept it as long as we did was because DW really liked that car and didn't mind driving it. Our "new" car, she avoids if possible. YMMV

Same with my DW. When we bought our "Retirement Road-Trip Vehicle" at the end of 2023, I had her sign all the paperwork for it, so as far as the stealership is concerned, it's her car. We live in a community property state, so it's titled in either of our two names., though. We took it on one 7-day trip around lake Michigan last summer, and a few day-trips as well. It's got 2700 miles on it.

She's never driven it.

Maybe this summer.

 

[ponyboy]

We have 4 vehicles and only 2 of us can drive. Definitely overkill. Three is the sweet spot imo. Have 2 nice cars and one "beater" car.

 

[brett]

Doesn't it really depend on your lifestyle, your activities, and where you happen to live? And or course your personal preferences.

 

[Koolau]

Doesn't it really depend on your lifestyle, your activities, and where you happen to live? And or course your personal preferences.

Of course all those things are important and relevant. Having said that, recognizing the cost for the extra vehicle(s) is also important IMHO.

 

[skyking1]

Not for us. It flies completely below the radar, as we have buy used rigs and never borrow to buy them. The occasional repair is just the price of doing business. The extra insurance is the only tangible for me, when I write that check.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

We have 4 vehicles and only 2 of us can drive. Definitely overkill. Three is the sweet spot imo. Have 2 nice cars and one "beater" car.

For us, the "sweet spot" happens to be 6.

Her mostly reliable, (10 year-old) daily driver small car, and my mostly reliable (15 year-old) daily driver small truck.

I restored an old El Camino and we bring that to car shows during the summer months.
She inherited an MGB convertible from her father and I got it (mostly) drivable so we can at least take it out to A&W a few times every summer. Her dad really wanted her to have that MG, so we hang onto it not only because it's fun to drive around with the top down, but for sentimental reasons as well. Both of the vintage cars have collector's plates, so there's no annual registration costs, and liability insurance for those is around $40 each for 6 months.

We live where it snows for 7 months out of the year, so we have a 22 year-old SUV that has 4-wheel-drive for those rare occasions where we need to get out of the driveway when there's 10 inches of fresh snow, or if we have to help relatives get their vehicle un-stuck. It's also our back-up vehicle most of the year if one of our daily-driver vehicles needs service. It's paid for and runs well, but with good winter tires, it only gets 10-12 mpg, so we only drive it enough to use up a tank of gas each year. It costs $85 a year for registration and $40 every 6 months for liability insurance.

Finally, we bought a new Chevy Trax last year for our "retirement road-trip vehicle". It's new, it's got a lifetime powertrain warranty, and gets over 30 mpg. We only put 2700 miles on it last year, but with retirement looming, we hope to enjoy it more this year and in the future.

 

[YB88]

Here I thought that my wife and I were outliers, but I think every situation is at least a little unique. I have an issue with one eye such that I rely on my good eye for driving. Still legal to drive, have a license, and for local trips I'll drive once in a blue moon. But at freeway speeds if you get a floater in your one good eye it gets pretty hairy, so I stopped doing that. As a result we found that we enjoyed having the space of a two-car garage with just a single car in it --- leaving comfortable space for an upright freezer, table-saw, work bench, storage, etc. And bike parking.

Then we moved to an over-55 community that offers lots of activities about a 5-minute bike ride from our house. I have bike saddle bags that are easy to use should it make sense for me to go grocery shopping (maybe a 10-minute and quite a safe ride from home).

Indeed I'm happy to use Uber for the really rare occasions that my wife and I both need to go different places. Since our move that's happened exactly once, so ... no worries.

 

[Koolau]

Not for us. It flies completely below the radar, as we have buy used rigs and never borrow to buy them. The occasional repair is just the price of doing business. The extra insurance is the only tangible for me, when I write that check.

Yeah, I still recall nursing my old '91 Mazda along and thinking the $150 I had to spend on an exhaust repair one year was SO much less than a car payment on a new car.

What finally "killed" the Mazda was when the lock on the driver's door "broke". It was gonna cost $450 to fix. I simply could no longer justify that much money for a clapped out car. I sold the car for $100 and the kid who bought it did NASCAR ingress/egress like a pro (I had been scooting over the gear shift). As luck would have it the kid got 9 more months of faithful service out of the car and then the 5 speed gummed up because I'd never serviced it. I think the kid got $200 cash for scrap!

 

[nassa]

We went from two to one car several months ago to test it out. The car we sold was getting old and we didn't want to sink any more money into it. So far, it's been completely workable for us and we may stick with it long term. We do most things together and I think that helps.

 

[Jerry1]

Interesting thread. DW and I just agreed to log any time that we’re using both our cars at the same time. I think it will be very infrequent that we actually need both cars, but we’ll find out.

 

[folivier]

Let's see, we have our '23 Buick Enclave which we drive back and forth from our condo and cabin. Keep a '06 Lexus GX470 at the cabin. Also have a Polaris Ranger and a Rzr, plus 2 snowmobiles we use in the winter to get around. We actually use the Ranger mostly while at the cabin so that could count as a daily driver. All paid for and cost very little for upkeep and insurance.

 

[Mark2024]

We have pretty much decided to stay with just one car for the time being.

One option we considered was to purchase another certified pre-own for around $45K and use our current 10 year old car as the back up. The downside is that the depreciation alone is more than a nice international trip for us. As we only drive around 5K miles per year with just one car, we will have both cars parked most of the time. After my retirement, we could have much better flexibility of activities.

Another option was to get a 2010ish $5K car just in case of rare needs. The downside is that this could cause more headaches in repair.

The bottom-line - it is about the uncertainty of the coming retirement. We are going to do some reviews with our FAs next week. With our pensions, potential SS, and millions of investments, we should be able to afford some nice cars. As of today, the uncertainty is making us unsure about spending any $.

 

[aja8888]

We have pretty much decided to stay with just one car for the time being.

One option we considered was to purchase another certified pre-own for around $45K and use our current 10 year old car as the back up. The downside is that the depreciation alone is more than a nice international trip for us. As we only drive around 5K miles per year with just one car, we will have both cars parked most of the time. After my retirement, we could have much better flexibility of activities.

Another option was to get a 2010ish $5K car just in case of rare needs. The downside is that this could cause more headaches in repair.

The bottom-line - it is about the uncertainty of the coming retirement. We are going to do some reviews with our FAs next week. With our pensions, potential SS, and millions of investments, we should be able to afford some nice cars. As of today, the uncertainty is making us unsure about spending any $.

A $5 K car is just one foot out of the scrapyard these days.