Ok, so we didn’t flood our car, but hurricane Sandy sure did. Thanks to an excessive influx of water in the garage we rent, our jeep was partially submerged in 3-feet of the Hudson River. The insurance company deemed it a total loss and we’d been car-free since late October (we just got a new to us car last week, yay!). Although not having a car was initially pretty frustrating, OK it was frustrating everyday, it saved us a decent amount of money during those months.
Ways We Saved Money Without a Car:
- Gas-No need for gas when you don’t have a car.
- Shopping- I refuse to pay full retail for anything (well a few things only), so mall shopping or shopping at boutiques is sort of out of the question for me unless there’s a big sale. The places I do love to shop are the TJ Maxx and Home Goods in the suburbs. Because we didn’t have a car we haven’t been able to go since October. I suspect not being able to go to my favorite discount stores saved us a ton of money this Christmas.
- Groceries- No more impulse shopping and no more of the bf’s, “they were on sale” purchases ended up in our cart. Since our car was destroyed, we did a lot of our grocery shopping online and had the food delivered. We do have a local grocery store that’s sort of walkable, but then we would have had to carry them or get a cab back. So online shopping was actually a good alternative for us.
- Car Insurance-Until last week, the bf’s policy was, “suspended” since we didn’t actually have a car to insure.
- Dining Out- We love to go out to eat, but it’s been so damn cold lately I refuse to walk more than 10 blocks at a time. As a result, we haven’t been doing much eating out. We do try to do a “date night” a couple times of month, but we certainly weren’t going out weekly, or driving to our favs in the suburbs like we used to.
Ways We Aren’t Saving:
- Car Rentals-When the dog needed to get groomed we had to rent a car to drive him there. When the parents/grandparents came to visit we had to rent a car to drive them around (papa can’t walk for long periods of time).
- Garage Rent-Our garage spot is leased on a yearly basis, so the bf was paying for an expensive parking spot that we weren’t
using for 3 months.
Did having a flooded car really save us money? I’m not sure. But we definitely missed the convenience of having a car. Unfortunately his jeep we were driving was paid in full and in really good shape, with really low miles when it was flooded. We were hoping to drive it for many more years to save money. But fortunately, we do have an emergency fund that money enabled us to buy our, new to us, car in cash.
Could you live without a car? Would it save you money?
Image: Is mine. Taken from our condo window during the flood.