Can't decide whether to ditch my family car and go without. Anyone done it?

pitkin2020

scotsman4th wrote: »

I dont disagree with you (in that people get hypnotised with small diesels) but part of the the answer to your question is cheap road tax.
People see free or £35 a year and go nuts for it.

In this country we're taxed on both really.

A small diesel will always be more beneficial than a small petrol if you are doing the mileage (over 10k a year) though. What i'm saying is though the government are giving you with one hand i.e low car tax because your car has low carbon emissions. Then some num nut from a local council is saying it produces a different pollution that is higher than petrols so we are going to charge you extra for that.

It would be like them saying if you have sky tv you won't have to pay for a tv license because you are paying for sky, yet those that don't have sky have to pay for the TV license for the privelage of not having more channels. Its ludicrous lol and they just seem to make it up as they go along.

Alette

one thing no-one has mentioned is what i am going to be doing soon... which is hiring your neighbours' cars when you need them. try www.whipcar.com which explains the kind of thing.

OR if your car meets their criteria then YOU could be making money out of your vehicle.

excellent idea for me. will save me thousands as the only thing i currently ever need a car for is carrying my PA for the odd gig. i use a bike around town otherwise, and train / bus for longer distances. i live in an area where there are not that many cars registered on Whipcar.com yet, but after a few plugs on facebook i've persuaded several people to either register on the website or deal with me directly if their cars are too old.

it's more than possible.

pitkin2020

Alette wrote: »

one thing no-one has mentioned is what i am going to be doing soon... which is hiring your neighbour's cars when you need them. try www.whipcar.com which explains the kind of thing.

OR if your car meets their criteria then YOU could be making money out of your vehicle.

excellent idea for me. will save me thousands as the only thing i currently ever need a car for is carrying my PA for the odd gig. i use a bike around town otherwise, and train / bus for longer distances. i live in an area where there are not that many cars registered on Whipcar.com yet, but after a few plugs on facebook i've persuaded several people to either register on the website or deal with me directly if their cars are too old.

it's more than possible.

Never heard of this before sounds quite interesting. I certainly wouldn't rent my own car out but would be tempted to use it if I needed a car but in fairness the closest car to me is 22 miles away and is £34 for the day, my local hire centre is 2 miles away and is cheaper. I could see it working really well in larger areas though.

Just to add, it would be a great if your looking to buy a new car as you could effectively hire the car your looking at and try for the day!! With normal hire centre you get what they have so can't usually pick and choose.

Just registered after seeing you need to pay the hire charge plus an insurance premium, i was expecting the inusrance premium to be high but was pleasantly surprised I could hire a car (not in my area though) from about £25 for the day inc insurance which is pretty good. If you don't really care what the car is just go for the cheapest and it could be a very good alternative to owning a car if you only use it once a week say or even less. Nice find alette

grizzly1911

Having had just two kids through to teenage/adult I would just say IMO think you will miss not having a car.

Maybe not so much in the summer but certainly in the winter trying to bundle them around on public transport when they aren't feeling to good - or you for that matter when you need the pay.

Do you have supermarkets locally? Are you likely to push up the cost of shopping if it is done locally?

Moving the shopping for a growing family isn't easy either. maybe cut down some of the monthly trips or make them closer to home.

i know a bike has been mentioned but if you are reasonably able then 6 miles each way isn't that far (except for hills), 30/35 minutes. Not dependent on buses/taxis either.

As others have said try it without for a bit first.

TUS

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Having had just two kids through to teenage/adult I would just say IMO think you will miss not having a car.

Maybe not so much in the summer but certainly in the winter trying to bundle them around on public transport when they aren't feeling to good - or you for that matter when you need the pay.

Do you have supermarkets locally? Are you likely to push up the cost of shopping if it is done locally?

Moving the shopping for a growing family isn't easy either. maybe cut down some of the monthly trips or make them closer to home.

i know a bike has been mentioned but if you are reasonably able then 6 miles each way isn't that far (except for hills), 30/35 minutes. Not dependent on buses/taxis either.

As others have said try it without for a bit first.

Thanks. We do all of our shopping at Asda, so I would probably just use home delivery for a large monthly shop and then do small weekly shops for fresh items at my local Sainsburys which is on our doorstep.

Had a chat with the wife and we have agreed to do a 1 month trial without the car starting 21st June (my pay day). The car will remain on the drive, but the keys will be going to my father-in-law for the duration to avoid temptation.

For the trial period I will use public transport for work, although I am going to try Freecycle for bike and see how I feel about the ride to/from work.

I'm actually looking forward to it :-) I think I'll blog the month on this forum, as I'm sure it may be of interest to some.

opinions4u

This is a brilliant idea and I really do wish you luck with it.

You're braver than me. The nearest I got was buying a Corsa instead of an Escort a few years ago. It saved £5k plus fuel and insurance. The original plan was to hire a big car for the British holiday each year, but we found we never needed to in the end and just travelled light.

Remember you can usually find a money off voucher which will save on supermarket home delivery (www.hotukdeals.com - at the moment they're all for new shoppers, but perhaps changing the adult making the order can make a single saving). Register with www.maximiles.co.uk (PM me your email address and I can refer you for extra points for me ) and then shop online via www.mysupermarket.co.uk - you'll earn points which equate to around 0.35% of your spend. Not much, but it will add up (and might highlight occaisonal savings if you take delivery from other supermarkets at times). I find online shopping saves more anyway because the unhealthy impulse purchases don't happen.

Days out: Get a bike each - a family biking day can be great fun. Family railcard costs £28 and saves a third off most fares. Our local bus company charge £7 for a weekend anywhere family bus ticket (or at least they did last year).

Use the savings well - debt reduction. Clear any high rate debts first. Perhaps overpay the mortgage. Consider pension contributions too. Oh, and enjoy a bit of the saving too!

Finally, enjoy the trial. Even if you're not finally convinced and choose to keep the car you can still cycle to work and save a few quid on petrol.

mhifoe

I did this three years ago and it had gone very well.

I decided to ditch the car because I wasn't using it that much and the fixed costs of having an little used car are very high.

We shop on foot and I cycle to work. We typically rent a car 3 times a year (2 weekends and summer holiday). The nice thing about renting a car is that it is new, reliable and can be large enough to fit the stuff in it.

I recommend trying it for a month to see how you get on.

The best part: No more letters from the DVLA