Can Someone Please Just Buy Me a Car?? — 13 Things I Learned By Not Having a Car
In January 2020, my beloved car, a 2011 Nissan Juke that I affectionately named Jayson, finally gave up the ghost. (Little did I know 2020 would get much worse for all of us…)
Me and Jayson In Atlanta, just before we headed off to live in Arizona — pic by me
I was Jayson’s owner for nine years of exciting travel experiences. He transported me safely from one side of the country to the other when I moved from Atlanta to Tucson, Arizona in 2016. He also slogged through a few thousand courteous Uber and Lyft rides given to customers in both Georgia and Arizona.
He was my workhorse and he served me well for the most part, and I know I overworked him until he had nothing left. I hated to do that to him, but I needed him for all of those mobility and financial purposes. And to be perfectly frank — he was an inanimate object, so he was not disappointed with or offended by my raising of him or by my suddenly giving him away one day.
His transmission completely gave out and I was not willing to spend that much money to repair him. I had already spent and borrowed enough to fix him in the past, so I was so done.
I grudgingly made the plunge into the carless lifestyle. I pocketed the $1000 — which I had to negotiate up to — and I kept on movin’… figuratively… not literally obviously.
This is an experiment I was willing to take the challenge to conduct. Here were my research questions:
How would it be to live without my own vehicle for the first time since I was 19 years old…. without accessible transportation at the ready? How would my life be enriched? How would my life be encumbered?
Well, the verdict is that it barely enriched my life at all. It was mostly an adverse situation. But here are my conclusions about what it is like to not have a car.
The Few Positives:
1) It’s has been nice to not have a car note. But I didn’t have one anyway. I had paid it off just before I made the cross-country move to Arizona. But it did allow me to eliminate having to pay car insurance which was about $120 per month. — Ballin’!
2) It cut out ALL the stress of trying to make money thru Uber and Lyft. It really is hard to make a serious profit doing the ride share gig because you are constantly losing money by filling up your gas tank to gain money through giving rides. It is a constant financial quandary… Yes, it provided me more money that what I got in my paycheck, but I was driving constantly to make a small profit. Like a bad relationship, I thought it benefitted me at the time, but once I was out of it…, I was glad I was out of it.
3) The good thing is that in this day and age, with the availability of Uber and Lyft, transportation is readily available. And most of the time, the cars are better than the clunky ol’ cabs of yesteryear, and more convenient to summon.
4) I learned all about grocery and meal delivery services! I had misgivings about strangers handling my food and transporting it to me, but I got over that due to necessity. And in the end, I liked it! It’s pricier because of service fees, tips, and the inability to use printed-out coupons; but they do provide free delivery if you pay for a membership.
The Many Negatives:
5) It takes too much planning and coordination to figure out when to order the Uber/Lyft because you want to allow for enough time to get there in case there are any delays and you don’t want to request it at a busy time when it costs too much — Ugh…
6) It’s harder to be social. You have to debate “Do I really want to spend $20 to $40 roundtrip to go to wherever your friends are, plus pay for what I’m going to do with my friends?” — Ugh…
7) If you want to make a “quick escape” (say, from a bad date), you can’t really do that.
8) I thought about getting a pet this year. But I was like no… I want to be able to take my dog to the vet whenever it needs and I’d feel bad about putting a dog in someone else’s car.
9) If you have your own car, and you want to take a bunch of stuff with you, you can’t. To avoid stuffing my pockets and looking absolutely unfashionable — heaven forbid — , I usually take a backpack to put my stuff in… my wallet, keys, sunglasses (I live in Phoenix), water — Ugh…
10) It’s hard to run a bunch of errands. You have to strategically plan where you need to go, and in which order, so as to minimize the cost of all the separate trips — Ugh…
11) It’s annoying to ride in someone else’s car. I am an introvert — it doesn’t kill me to be in the presence of someone I don’t know, and often I enjoy talking to strangers — but sometimes I’m not in the mood and I’m like — Ugh…
12) I can’t just go for a drive when I feel like getting out of the house. And I can’t take a long trip to Cali or somewhere whenever I want — Ugh…
13) Shockingly, a bike is just not a good alternative. My first bike was stolen from Target. I thus learned to use a sturdier U-shaped lock. My second bike, which was secured with the U-shaped lock, was brazenly stolen from the ‘secure’ locked bike room of my apartment complex. I was so done. — UGH…
So can someone just buy me a car? Better yet, just ‘like’ my stories the full 50 times so that I earn $30K this month so I can go buy one. — Please???
That’s so not gonna happen — Ugh…