Next month I’ve been without a car for seven years. First you may ask why would I chose to not have a car? I’ll explain why it is a priority of mine. There are several reasons why I’ve made this choice. I love driving, and I love going for road trips, and I love the sense of freedom a car have given me in the past, so the choice to live without a car is one I’ve considered carefully. For those of you that don’t know me so well, I am a single mom with two children. My oldest is an adult and doesn’t live with us anymore, my youngest is a teen and she lives with me.

Four reasons why I don’t have a car

1. I want to reduce my carbon footprint
2. A car cost a lot of money which would require me to work more – I value my time.
3. I don’t need a car to manage my everyday life.
4. Not having a car forces me to walk, or ride my bike every day to get where I need to go. My body thank me for this.

Reason number one, I want to reduce my carbon footprint. (I have not been on a plane since 2019 either for the same reason). Climate changes are real, I want my children to have a future. I want all children to have a future. I am a teacher I need to be an example and show children that we all have options. When they ask me what car I have, or they see my arrive to work on my bike/walking I have conversations with them about options that we all have. I do the same when I teach them about gardening and biodiversity.

Reason number two a car cost a lot of money which would require me to work more – I value my time. If I had a car I would either have to work more, and/or live in a less preferable area. My daughter and I had a conversation about this, in fact we’ve re-visited the topic several times these past seven years. During these conversations we decided upon improvement that we wished to make to get a higher quality of life, which included trying out living car-free at different locations in/near our city, until landing where we live now. I considered my daughter’s opinions when possible, and she is completely on board with the decisions that lead us to where we are. I pay for a monthly bus card ($40/month) for her so that she has the freedom to go places if/when she wants. She can easily walk to school, but if she is too tired one day she can take the bus. The money I save by not having a car goes to me working less. The extra time is spent with my daughter, gardening (producing a large percentage of the vegetables/berries we eat), and studying. I study to improve and expand my pedagogical knowledge, to make my work-life more meaningful. At the moment I am studying SEN (Special educational needs).

Reason number three I don’t need a car to manage my everyday life. This has everything to do with intentional choices over a period of time. Choices of where we live, work, and go to school. My work is a ten minute walk from home (or 4min by bike). The regional hospital, and the center of our city with shopping/library/farmers market/restaurants/train station/main bus station/ my daughter’s school etc) is 0.8-0.9 miles/ 1-1.5 km away. There is also a bus stop two houses away if we for some reason need to take the bus.

Also connected to reason number three is the fact that I prepare our main meals on a monthly basis, and do one big run of grocery shopping online every month. I use abut 2/3 of my monthly grocery budget on that big online order, and reach the spending amount for free home delivery. There’s also a big grocery store 0.3miles/600m from the house where I spend the last 1/3 of my monthly grocery budget, usually extra fruit, yoghurt and if there’s a great deal of some kind there’s room in the budget for that.

My allotment garden is within biking distance, 4.1 miles/6.6km. I am very motivated to go there on a regular basis, most weeks March-October I ride my bike there 3-5 times/week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Which is connected to reason number four Not having a car forces me to walk, or ride my bike every day to get where I need to go. My body thank me for this. When you think of it, all the reasons are connected to each other. I am well aware of that it is not a possibility for everyone to live without a car the way our modern society is built, but right now it is doable for me. I wrote this post as a response to a request from one of my regular readers. I hope this answered your question. Today I am grateful that it is possible for me to make the choice to not have a car.

Sincerely,

Maria