Well, I'm clearly strange in the same way as ewx, as I've never owned a car in Cambridge and have no intention of doing so. I've been insured on my housemate's car for a year, which he's just sold, and barely used it.
I live within walking distance of food shops, I get milk and vegetables delivered, I have too many unread books already, and my employers have always arranged return of computers themselves. I hire cars if I want to go somewhere where public transport is completely impractical, and that way I get the pleasure of driving something shiny and new when I do. For most weekends away, the train is far cheaper than car hire+fuel, especially if booked in advance (as most of my weekends tend to be). And that's before I factor in having to be sober and awake for the duration of the journey.
It's only really the guitars and amps that strike me as really requiring a car. I'm reminded of my friend who said he couldn't give up his car because he wouldn't be able to play golf any more.
I think it's starting from different assumptions. I start from the assumption that not owning a car is saving me 1k a year (at least, that's what my housemate calculated as the minimum cost to him) and regard the expenses of my workarounds as coming out of that saved 1k. I suppose it helps that I don't actually like huge supermarkets or driving in cities, so I regard avoiding both of these as extra bonuses.
You could probably manage to run a car for a bit less than £1000 a year if you were careful (or a lot less if you didn't mind an unreliable crock).
An important observation is that public transport in the UK is shockingly expensive. Especially if you sometimes take a passenger or two along for the ride, it's cheaper to go by car even in the cases where you could have gone by train or bus.
Once one has made the large initial outlay for a car, the savings steadily mount up if you use it whenever practical and economical to do so; to break even, you only need to save an average of £3 a day!
Think of a car as a really flexible season ticket you can use for groups of up to five people travelling together. (-8
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 04:32 am (UTC)I live within walking distance of food shops, I get milk and vegetables delivered, I have too many unread books already, and my employers have always arranged return of computers themselves. I hire cars if I want to go somewhere where public transport is completely impractical, and that way I get the pleasure of driving something shiny and new when I do. For most weekends away, the train is far cheaper than car hire+fuel, especially if booked in advance (as most of my weekends tend to be). And that's before I factor in having to be sober and awake for the duration of the journey.
It's only really the guitars and amps that strike me as really requiring a car. I'm reminded of my friend who said he couldn't give up his car because he wouldn't be able to play golf any more.
I think it's starting from different assumptions. I start from the assumption that not owning a car is saving me 1k a year (at least, that's what my housemate calculated as the minimum cost to him) and regard the expenses of my workarounds as coming out of that saved 1k. I suppose it helps that I don't actually like huge supermarkets or driving in cities, so I regard avoiding both of these as extra bonuses.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-16 07:07 am (UTC)An important observation is that public transport in the UK is shockingly expensive. Especially if you sometimes take a passenger or two along for the ride, it's cheaper to go by car even in the cases where you could have gone by train or bus.
Once one has made the large initial outlay for a car, the savings steadily mount up if you use it whenever practical and economical to do so; to break even, you only need to save an average of £3 a day!
Think of a car as a really flexible season ticket you can use for groups of up to five people travelling together. (-8