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A friend of mine recently made a move that I\u2019ve been telling him to do<\/a> for the past four years \u2013 he finally sold his car and is going car-free. To replace his car, he\u2019s using a combination of ebikes, carshare, mass transit, and rental cars.<\/p>\n Going car-free is not a move that will work for everyone, but I\u2019m willing to bet that many people reading this could probably pull this off. Even if you can\u2019t go completely car-free, I\u2019m almost certain that most two-car households out there could make the move to one car if they really thought about how they use their cars.<\/p>\n For my friend, this move is a huge financial benefit for him. His car is his third-highest monthly expense after his rent and food, so making this move will immediately improve his financial situation, reducing his transportation costs down to potentially nothing.<\/p>\n And while there will undoubtedly be situations where he might need a car, having access to a car won\u2019t be an issue since there are so many car-sharing and rental car options available. The difference now is when he needs a car, he\u2019ll pay to use it, rather than the normal way, where you pay to have the car, even when you aren\u2019t using it.<\/p>\n At the outset, my friend has a situation that makes it possible for him to go car-free, namely that he lives in an urban setting and doesn\u2019t need to drive very often. Indeed, he bought his car four years ago and in those four years, he only ended up putting around 15,000 miles on his car. That\u2019s a far cry from the average miles driven by most individuals, which is usually around 14,000 to 15,000 miles per year. For him, his car was really only used for two things \u2013 transporting his dog to dog parks that weren\u2019t within walking distance and playing golf. Both of these things can be addressed by other transportation methods (which I\u2019ll discuss later in this post).<\/p>\n In terms of costs, his car was originally a leased car which he ended up buying at the end of his lease for about $13,000. To pay for the car, he took out a car loan. Interestingly enough, because he put so few miles on it, he was able to sell the car for around $19,000, so after paying his car loan off, he\u2019ll have around $6,000 to work with.<\/p>\n His other fixed costs for the car included the following:<\/p>\n For our purposes, his fixed car costs were about $500 per month when you add everything up. This is fairly typical for most people \u2013 actually a bit below average when you consider the average car payment is between $500 and $700 per month. And that\u2019s just the car payment people are paying \u2013 it doesn\u2019t include the insurance, gas, maintenance, and other expenses that go with owning a car.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to remember that when it comes to fixed costs like car payments, parking, and insurance, you pay these costs irrespective of how much you drive. For my friend, that meant he was essentially paying $500 per month for the privilege of having a car and parking it near him. If he drove more, he\u2019d have additional costs for gas, maintenance, and depreciation, but since he didn\u2019t drive much, those costs were fairly low.<\/p>\n For regular day-to-day trips, my friend\u2019s ebike was already handling most of the load. I\u2019ve written before that ebikes are game changers when it comes to transportation and they may be the best investment you can make<\/a> based on the return on investment you can get from them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nMy Friend\u2019s Car Situation<\/h2>\n
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Ebikes Replace The Majority Of His Car Trips<\/h2>\n