Stranded: November's Challenge Du Mois

October brought social isolation whether I had hoped it would or not. Without FaceBook and other forms of electronic connectivity, I felt pretty stuck and alone at times last month. However, it was all my doing. I could've left the house more frequently and actually, you know, became a part of the general society.

Well, what a better way to do that than to reduce our vehicular consumption. November brings on the month of being a one car household. And how does this exactly encourage me to become a contributing member to society? Ok, it does and does not. My goal is that it should push me to start walking more. If we're out walking more then we can take advantage of the parks and library within a half mile radius. Yep, we live in a suburban family's paradise--a Starbucks on almost every mile marker (no joke! I Googled it, and we have 20 within a 5 mile radius), four schools within walking distance, every grocery store you could ever need within a 3 mile radius (several Fry's, Safeway, Basha's, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, farmer's market, Albertson's), and almost every type of restaurant and service just a stone's throw away. Where's the need for a vehicle then?

The answer is simple: laziness. Okay that and about half of the year is over 100 degrees--meaning biking or walking anywhere with two toddlers equates to torture. With the temperature finally below 90 on a regular basis, I figured it was time. Time to take advantage of this suburban "paradise." Time to get my butt out of the house and test the Chariot's full powers. Time to live in the parks. Time to put myself in check and live up to my values.

Those powers that be? I guess there was little faith in me. Maybe they saw my efforts or lack there of for no phone and internet weeks. Maybe a higher deity knows my laziness knows no bounds. Whichever option is truth, we came to find that my ghetto-fied car didn't just need to be realigned like we had hoped. It needs another $400 of parts and is unsafe to drive until The Hubs finds the time to get to work and put the ghetto mobile in child-safe order. So truthfully, week one of One Car Family is said and done. Granted, I hope to prolong this little experiment for all of November, but we'll see how restless and lazy I am.

Ok, so now onto the fun part of the why's. Why go down to one car? Here are some reasons:

If you just have one car...

-You have to try out other forms of transportation. We do have a bus near us, but the only problem is that the Chariot won't fit on it. Otherwise, we've got legs for walking and the trusty Chariot. Currently, we don't own any bikes (other than Noah's PINK twelve incher), so riding anywhere is not an option unless we want to invest in a bike AND trailer. Those will surely cost more than the car repairs.

-You can save money. No extra car registration. No extra car to pay repair fees and maintenance fees for. Then there's the biggest cost of extra gas. With gas costing about $3.25/gallon here, that means it costs $50-60 to fill up each car, which is done about every other week. Potentially, gas alone could save us $100+ per month. Insurance for one car could also be less. However, we have the lowest possible coverage with two cars. If we had just one car, we'd get better coverage since there would be no other car to fall back on, and there would be no price difference (we did this for awhile when we moved back to Phoenix).

-You lose a lot more time getting places. And this is my biggest hang up in it all. On days when Noah has school & The Hubs works, I have to drop him off at work in order to have a car to get Noah to and from school. Thus meaning, I have to wake myself and children up early. And the three of us? We are NOT morning people. When we have just one car, there is much more driving back and forth. Not to mention that walking, biking, and buses take much, much longer than just hopping in your car and jetting off to your destination. Since I'm an efficiency addict, I have a hard time coming to grips with all the time that will be "wasted."

-You get to call yourself a green champion! Cars are often seen as a deep root of the Earth-ruining evils. Assuming we actually drive less and use less gas, we'll be lowering our ecological footprint. And telling the oil companies to shove it (well partially).


There you have it--saving money and the Earth, losing valuable time, and building a stronger relationship and appreciation for our suburban community. All brought to you by a broken car.

So how about you? Are you a one car family? If not, have you ever tried living on one car for a period of time? Let's chat! Leave a comment below :)