No Car No Problem! #242

it's gotten out of hand. We can all agree, but as we know, there are lots of benefits from from having one less vehicle, and there are more ways today than ever to make that happen. So I'm excited to talk about owning fewer vehicles with you today. Man. Yeah, I don't want Henry Ford to roll over in his grave or anything, but I think even he didn't intend for us probably to have as many cars as we have typically, And I think a lot of people can

benefit from having one fewer vehicle in their lives. And so we're gonna talk about that and get into some depth on what that might look like, on how much money you can save, and think outside the box on how you can actually make it happen. Today on the show. But Matt, before we get to that, I want to let you know I had to hire a plumber recently to come out to a rental property to fix a

couple of things. They did a great job. They were responsive, and they were quick and thorough, and yeah, it was a good experience. But I will say I paid for that experience, and I was out of town, so I didn't really have another option. I was gonna say. I was like, normally you feel like you handle your own plumbing, but when you're out of town, that's definitely an instance where you want to be hands off. You wanted to be taken care of where you don't have to worry

about it. Yeah, for sure. And I will say I take care of my own extremely basic plumbing, and this was pretty basic. I will plunge that's about it. But I talked to the plumber afterwards and he said, you know what, you might need a toilet rebuild. And I was like, what do you What do you mean gotta flush the fluids because basically, if any little rebuild, put some air the tires. Because if you know what a toilet,

how a toilet works, there are essentially two parts. The flapper in the phil valve and they are extremely inexpensive parts and they are incredibly easy to replace, and so yeah, he explained to me what this toilet rebuild would look like and made it sound a whole lot more fancy than it actually was, and he quoted me a price of three fifty dollars, oh my gosh, to do the work, and uh yeah, so I decided off against that. I actually because I have way too many toilets in my life,

because I own multiple properties. In our own house, I had to replace the phil valve and the flapper at my place on one of the toilets just the other day. It took me about minutes and the parts cost me eighteen dollars. So yeah, the difference in price between hiring the super professional plumber who does a great job and

is very nice and very skilled. And I'm not against paying people for work that needs to be done if you don't feel like taking it on yourself or you can't, but I think it's important to know that sometimes when someone is trying to do a service for you, they might even make it sound a little fancier, a little more in depth than it actually is. Like a toilet rebuild is a really fancy way of saying, I'm replacing the two most basic and easy to replace parts of

your toilet. Yeah, definitely he was looking for the up charge to maybe get a little bit extra out of you. But yeah, I'm with you, and especially too, I mean, three fifty bucks. That's ridiculous. One because you know he was trying to pull that over on you. I wasn't gonna happen. But secondly, because you can get a lot of new toilets for a hundred bucks exactly like ninety bucks if you've got a like a Lows or hone

depot coupon. And then not to mention a lot of cities like oftentimes you can get a rebate if you haven't changed out that toilet in your home. If you have proof that you've purchased a new toilet and you've replaced it, you'll get a rebate for that toilet on your water bill, and it'll pay for that toilet completely in a lot of cases and so and I've even replaced a toilet full on, and it's not really all that hard you do once you do it once and you know kind of how the little work and the

wax that. But speaking of toilets. So actually I discovered something recently. So do you do you have dirty toilets at your house? I mean my dirty dirty, I mean so dirty from the sense of stains that you can't get off. Because we've had this one toilet in the house when we moved into the house. It's always been dirty and we've never really seemed to be able to get it clean down in the like the lower part of the toilet. Uh. And we've tried bleach and all

sorts of cleaners before. And I did a little bit of research and it turns out it's not a stain, it's a mineral deposit. Yeah. Is that something that just happens over time because you've used the toilet a bunch? I mean either that or like, in my mind, it's maybe from like the water as well, maybe if you have hard water. But I did a little bit of research and turns out all you have to do to get rid of that is, uh, use acid. By acid,

I don't mean fancy acid, I just mean vinegar. And so you turn off the water using the water cut off valve, and you flush the toilet, try to get as much water out of there as possible, and then just dump some vinegar in there and let it sit in the The acid in the vinegar kind of breaks down the minerals a little bit, and a lot of times all it takes is then just using a brush and those calcified mineral deposits on there get flush right

down the toilet. In our case, we got a lot of it off, but there were a couple of spots that I swear must have been there for like ten years or something, maybe twenty years. So I had to get like a little plastic tool and got some gloves on, and what's a town on. I had to like scrape it so hard to to kind of pop them off the porcelain. But once I did, man, I was I couldn't believe how brand new the toilet looked. But just a little tip if you ever have some some toilets

that you can't get clean with bleach dry vinegar. There we go. So it sounds like now our listeners they don't even need to go buy the hundred dollar toilet. They can fix up their old toilet for eighteen bucks in a little elbow grease. So exactly, all right, that's enough toilet talk. Yeah, we're not even this old house, Like, what are we going? We spent wait too much of time talking about toilets. Let's talk about our beer this episode, we are drinking ourson. Oh you are I s O N.

How would you say it? Eison? That's like, uh, eurison, maybe arison. But this is a beer by Tired Hands Brewing. Uh, this is a says on And I'm looking forward to enjoying this one on the show, buddy, and we'll talk about it at the end of the episode. No doubt, man me to love Tired Hands. Looking forward to having this says on with you. All right, but let's get onto the subject at hand. Today we're talking about no car, no problem, and obviously reducing your car ownership is not

something that is going to work for everybody. Right, Let's say you're a traveling salesperson. You need your car. It's part of your livelihood. So we're not talking to you necessarily in this episode. Single people that they might find going from one car to zero cars even more difficult, right than a family, let's say going from three to two or two to one. But singles, you're still not off the hook, though. We're gonna challenge you as well

later on. Yeah, exactly. So today we are going to think through why ditching a car might make sense for you and the benefits you'll find from having one less car in your life. And people also, Matt, are thinking a whole lot more about this topic right now. Working from home has caused a whole lot of us to

use our cars a whole lot less. Some of us might not even have opened the door of our vehicle for months, and that's not great for our cars either, Right, you might find a nest of squirrels or something, or ants, like seriously, like this summer we had an ant infestation. I don't think we We had gotten in the van for like close to a week, which was maybe close to a record for us. But yeah, we opened the door and there was a freaking ant infestation in there.

Oh yeah, you can't let the kids eat in the car, or if you do, you gotta like vacuum up all the chromes. True, yeah, but yeah, a lot of people are having car problems because they haven't used them for such a long period of time. Right, But yeah, that's part of the reason we wanted to tackle this subject on today's show. Right now is actually probably the perfect time to consider if the number of vehicles you own is actually best for you and your family. Yeah, man,

that's what we're going to discuss today. And here's a little stat for you. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, transportation costs are typically the second highest budget category every month, the average American spends nine thousand, two or and eighty two dollars annually on average in vehicle ownership costs. And this is according to Triple A. Dang. Yeah, that's a

lot of money, dude. And so while we're all four smaller moves to to put a dent in your budget every month, you know, like fewer lattees, maybe ditching that licks getting rid of a car can have a massive effect on your monthly spending very quickly. And then, on top of the positive financial ramifications of eliminating a car from your driveway or you know, the street in many cities,

there are other awesome side effects as well. So we're gonna get into all of those, and who knows, you know, even if you love your car, you might find some reasons to think again about whether or not owning that car still makes the most sense for you. Yeah, for sure. But it's important to note too that eliminating a car from your family's life isn't for everyone. Well, for one, if you live in New York City, it's super easy

in all likelihood to own zero cars. But if you live early dropping a car may not make much sense depending on your availability to work from home or your kids activities. It's gonna differ based on kind of your lifestyle. Right. Also, if you do decide at the end of this episode that ditching a car doesn't make sense for you, at least do your best. Matt and I would suggest to limit the cost of the cars that you do own to Really expensive cars in the driveway can put a

major strain on your finances. It can inhibit your ability to save for the future. Well, so you would suggest if you do have to have multiple cars, think reliable and inexpensive. That's the sweet spot of car ownership. Well, and Joel, you just mentioned cars being parked in the driveway. That's something else to consider because the average car is part of the time in your driveway, so most of

the time you aren't even using your car. You know, our our cars are certainly one of our most underutilized but also most expensive assets. And that's even more true. Because of the coronavirus. You know, many folks have found a new normal working from home, and that could continue for years to come, making it even more likely that you can ditch a car. So, you know, we're gonna challenge ourselves to think creatively and not just assume that we need our our very own personal vehicle just because

it's a societal norm. Especially if we have big financial goals that almost ten thousand dollars every single year, that would be much better off in our savings, uh and investment accounts. I just said personal vehicle. It actually kind of made me think of personal pain pizzas also not a lot of value there, you know, like you want to get the big pizza. We're you're all sharing it together. But I understand why they're appealing. I like a good

personal paying pizza. I don't order them anymore, but they're too expensive. That's the problem if if everybody gets their own personal paying pizza. Remember we're arguing against vehicle to uh. So we're gonna discuss more about the reasons that you should consider cutting a car friend your life, and then how to accomplish it without too much difficulty. We're gonna get to all that right after the break. All right, Matt,

we're back from the break. We're talking about how to ditch your car and save money and other things too. Write there. There are a lot of benefits, we think to eliminating a car from your daily life, and of course our biggest concern is money, right, the upkeep costs, the insurance cost the depreciation costs. You mentioned a statues a second ago. The average car costs almost eight hundred dollars a month when you factor in all those costs. So much money did It's so much money sunk into

something that is idle. Most of the time. You likely won't realize the full amount of that savings if you do ditch your car, because you'll still need insurance on the one car you do have, and you might have other increased commuting costs. But you'll definitely see big money back in your life every year. Right, We're paying for these cars. Even if your car is paid off, it is depreciating, and you're paying for insurance and taxes every

single year. So the financial impact of acting that car is the biggest check mark we would say in favor of making that decision to downsize your vehicle fleet. Yeah, j will certainly the financial implications, you know, the money saved, that's gonna be the top benefits. This is how the money after all, But there are lots of other benefits when it comes to, you know, reducing the number of vehicles in your life, and one of those is the

health reasons. Right, If we can remove a car from our lives, that's gonna likely mean that we're gonna be walking more, that we're gonna be biking more. And you know, like both of those things counts as exercise, which we need in order to stay healthy. Sitting in a in a car commuting is rough on our bodies. So the more changes that we can make in our life to decrease the time spending a car, it's gonna pay off

in us feeling better and being healthier. You might even be able to drop that gym membership to you know that you're gonna realize even more saving uh. And then you know, don't forget about the increase in your mental health as well. For a lot of Americans, their car community is probably the most stressful part of their day unless they're listening to how to money, in which case it's just pure bliss. It makes it commune a little bit better. I love podcasts, and now everybody wants to

clean their toilet when they get home. I'm sure they're inspired. Right, maybe so, But Matt, let's talk a little more about the happiness and driving a car and how that commune affects us. And we actually talked way back in the episode twenty about how commutes are killing us. And there was a lot of evidence that came up against long commutes because they are really really bad for for us

as individuals. Right, And there was this book called Happy City by Charles Montgomery, and he writes that a person with a one hour commute has to earn forty more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to their office. On the other hand, for a single person, exchanging a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as finding a new love. I was like, it's pretty cool, astounded

when I read that that that commute. It's that it's that big of a deal that it influences your happiness level to that amount. You just have to make a much much bigger salary to make it mute feel like it's worth it. And if you're single, finding a new love, like that's like one of the greatest things that could happen to you, right, And eliminating your commute and being able to walk or bike ride or something like that to the place where you're gonna go five days a week.

It's amazing that I can have that much of an impact. But I believe it does. Like I think, the less we commute, the happier we are going to be. And it's not just this minor increase in happiness, it's it's a pretty overwhelming amount of happiness that gets added into our lives. Yeah, it's so good man. Hopefully we're starting to convince some folks out there who are considering dropping a car. Another benefit, you know, Joel, is something that sucks.

Oil changes, car repairs, check engine lights, all those things. Uh. Life is simpler when you have one less car to think about keeping clean, uh and in good working order. I couldn't imagine if I had two vehicles that I had to deal with an ant infestation in because of all the crumbs left there from eating in the car. Yeah, I've got two cars, right, And so actually, this episode I think is partially to help me convince myself to

ditch your car. But I will say one of the cars is an electric vehicle, and those are much simpler vehicles, and so there's a lot less to worry about when it comes to maintenance and stuff like that. So that does help. But but even still, I'm feeling the poll I'm feeling the I'm feeling the need to ditch one

of those cars in favor of a simpler life. Yeah, you know, so, like whether you do the work yourself or if you just have to take it somewhere to get worked on by a mechanic car issues like regardless if you have a gasoline vehicle, if you have an e V. These car shoes, they cost headaches and inconveniences in our lives in addition to the money that we

have to fork over to fix them. You know, back in episode to fifteen, we talked about simplicity when it comes to our finances, and we know, we talked about how we gain so much more focus and clarity of mind when things are simpler. And so we believe that if if you have one less car in your fleet to worry about, that you're going to be able to to have increased clarity. Uh In life is gonna be

a lot better just because of the simplification involved there. Yeah, you know one other thing that will make your life better if you have fewer cars, you can have a nicer car. I feel like, right, you can have one nicer car than the two cars you currently owned. Yeah. Possibly. Yeah, we're still not in favor of spending bookoo dollars on a vehicle because its appreciation costs in particular. But Matt, we're still a two car family and the two cars

that we own are pretty cheap vehicles. But you guys chose, obviously not to break the bank, but you did choose because you are a one car family, to have one vehicle that's a little bit newer with a few miles and that's just gonna be a reliable car for you guys for years to come. Yeah, Like we almost thought

as a sort of like a reward. You know, it's like, all right, you know what, we only have one car, and so there are some slight difficulties and we'll kind of get to some of those hurdles that you have to overcome when you do have one vehicle later on in the show. But almost as a reward for that though, it's just like, you know what, we can spend a

little bit more and get a slightly nicer vehicle. We've been a one car family now for for over twelve years, and for the most part, you know, we've driven like very old vehicles, typically around like ten years old. But when we finally decided to upgrade to a van, you know, we decided that we wanted to spend a little bit more on something newer, and so the van we got was about five years old. Because of that, you know,

we saved a ton. It had already depreciated about but it was still by far the most expensive vehicle that we've ever purchased. We probably, we know, would have gone a little bit cheaper, maybe a little bit less fancy if we did have two cars sitting in the driveway. And so that's maybe just another sort of side benefits of having one vehicle versus having to, yeah, get a

slightly nice for one, Matt. And another big bonus of ditching a car and going down either from two to one or one to zero is that it's going to have major benefits for the environment as a whole. Cars and vehicles are actually responsible for about one third of our current pollution levels, right, And we've actually seen since COVID started a lot of major cities, the guys are clearing up above those cities because there is so much less traffic, fewer cars on the road, right, I've seen

those photos pretty remarkable. It is in just a small amount of time. So if you are in favor of like a greener future with less smog for all of us, then taking a car off the road has this meaningful impact on the environment around us, right, Yeah, and not just emissions as well, but the manufacture of vehicles. If you have one less vehicle, that's one less car that needs to be manufac acture that gets used and put

on the road, that then ends up in a landfill somewhere. Yeah, completely all right, So I think Matt, we've given some solid reasons for people to consider getting rid of a car. It's not necessarily going to be easy, though, right, So let's take a break, and after the break we'll talk about the hardships of owning only one car. You in particular can give some horror stories maybe, and then how to actually make the one less car thing, uh in

actual reality in your life? How do you overcome those hurdles. We'll get to that right after this. All right, Gel, we're back from the break. We're talking about dropping a vehicle, right, removing a car from your life. And right before the break, you kind of hinted maybe at horror stories, do you have any good ones? No? I know, so you said that, and I was like, well, I don't have any great stories one coming. I feel like that that that's a testament that it truly is possible to be a family

and only have one vehicle. In our case, we're a family of six. There's so many of us that we four kids, and even still we are able to have one vehicle. Granted, and I work out, you know, I work from home, and before that, Kate and I, you know, we were self employed. We we own our own business. But even still there's times when we wanted to do our own things. And so while we don't have any horror stories, maybe that's because we did a lot of planning.

And that's one of the things that you're going to have to do in order to have one less vehicle. Right. Uh, if you're single, you know, having one less car like that will will likely force you to do more planning in order to avoid getting strained it or calling an expensive uber after maybe the bus stops running, or maybe

just relying on a friend. And if you're sharing a car with a partner, you know, just remember that they have a schedule of things to do in places to go of their own and then of course not to mention if there are kids involved. So it will take increased communication in many cases to make this work for everyone involved. But I really do think it's pretty amazing that you know, in over twelve years of only having one vehicle, like, we really don't have any horror stories. Man.

That's good to know. Man. Maybe it puts some people who are like I don't know, the sounds crazy a little bit at ease knowing that you don't have any terrible things to share, at least from your experience in twelve years. That's a long time. So another obstacle to owning a car one you gotta play in further head to you gotta push through annoyances sometimes. Right, you might need to have a change of clothes on you after a sweaty bike ride because you dished a car, and

that's how you're getting around in the summer heat. Right, If you're buking more an inclement weather, You might need to buy some gear so that you can stay committed. You might need to get dropped off super early for something and maybe twiddle your thumbs for an hour, be bored for a minute, and and that's not too bad. Yeah, us as individuals being quote unquote boards might be a good thing from time to time. Yeah, oh yeah, we get all use a little bit more bored of in

our lives, that's for sure. You also, you won't be driving in a comfy car with climate control, so get ready to push through some annoyances as you make that switch. But of course you also won't have to pay big bucks every month for that car any longer either. So just remember tell yourself over and over as you're sweating in the summer heat, or as you're getting grained on whatever it is, that you're saving eight d bucks every single month, or six hundred bucks every single month, whatever

it is. Do the calculations so that you could remind yourself as you're pushing through the pain. My bank account is getting way fatter because of this decision. Yea man, that eight hundred bucks a month, that's so great, and it's good to remind ourselves of that because excuses are easy. You know that they let you off the hook doing things that that seem a little uncomfortable. But you know,

as I tell my girls, no pain, no gain. And we we often find out a lot about ourselves when we encounter increased discomfort, you know, when we are bored for a little bit. Sometimes these can be good things that that kind of add to our character. Yeah, so we might actually find that we save some money and we learned a little bit about ourselves. We've grown in some ways by ditching a car. Maybe I'm tougher all

in one fell swoop, Yeah for sure. All right, so let's talk about kind of nuts and bolts Matt of how to go about cutting a car from your life. The first and most important thing to discuss is location right where people live. It's obviously one of the biggest

factors for or against making this change. As I mentioned earlier, if you live in a rural area with tons of miles between you and your home where you need to go, maybe your church, maybe it's activities, the baseball field, then there's a chance it won't work for you, and you might not want to move, and it might not make sense for everyone to move, but for other people, depending on their current housing situation, changing your location, especially being

closer to where you work, is gonna have a massive impact on your ability to downsize the amount of cars you have to own. I know, not everybody lives just two miles from an aldi like I do. You know, in particular, jib being close to work like that's one of the major factors that will help individuals be able to to make this move. Most of us work five days a week, and so you know, moving within a few miles of your job site can really pay off in a big way, even if it means paying a

bit more for your housing. Maybe in that case, like you're kind of exchanging costs a little bit, but don't forget of all the other benefits of not driving that additional vehicles. Not just about money, And we said, it's like making more right, so you kind of factor that into the decision, and plus the happiness of gaining a new love. And you know, the thing is too this is again if you're having to go into work, and so if you're working from home, it's even easier these

days to drop a car. And that might even continue

into the foreseeable future. Yeah, if you, in particular work for Google and you're working from home, you don't have any excuse man time to ditch the car, right But in reality, now that is going to be the case for a lot of people, and I think it makes this decision a whole lot easier for people, um especially now that Pandora's box is open, and you could probably ask your employer if you can work from home three or four days a week even once office life kind

of resumes, all right. Another thing that's going to be important in ditching a car from your life is finding alternative modes of transportation. And one important method that's gonna be helpful to a lot of people who are trying to get rid of a vehicle is public transportation. And really that's only an option in some cities. I know there are lots of smaller towns in particular that don't have a robust transit system and it's not something that

you can count on. But don't dismiss it out of hand either, Right, many people don't consider taking the bus, and that is a perfectly viable option for a whole lot of people. For instance, mat where we live, I guess we could walk, or we could bike to the Marta um and that could help us get aroun town. But we can also take the bus system because it's actually pretty good, and I know some of our friends take it, but I know other people it's just not

on their radar. Yeah, Man, our friend Andrew, he used to always take the bus and then hop on Marta, our Atlanta train system, to take that up to work. But more recently he's been biking taking his daughter to daycare and then biking to the Marta station and then getting to work. I mean, so many options, right, And yes, if you live in the city, of course, right. Yeah, So I think public transportation for a lot of people,

it's something they can consider. Other people, right and just obviously dismissed out of hand, it's not gonna work for you. But I think for a lot of people who live in the city or even a lot of suburban locations with decent bus service, I had a friend who would take the bus from the suburbs every single day down into Atlanta and it worked great for him, man, and he was able to eliminate a car that way. Also, to let's just quickly mention bikes. Obviously, we talked about

bikes a lot on the show. We won't overdo it, but a regular bike or an e bike, I'm seeing so many more of those around these days that that can be the thing that allows you to get to the maybe semi far away train station, uh three or four miles without breaking a sweat. So don't write those off. Definitely consider adding a bike into your routine somewhere so

that you can make it commute without a car. Yeah, I am hearing more and more individuals getting e bikes who would never have considered biking to work, but because it is the assist, it's so much easier. And yeah, like you said, they're not completely you know, drenched in sweat when they arrive at work, and so you might consider, you know, e bikes as basically like a personal commuter vehicle.

Within that vein there's folks who you know, use like those little mopeds, like the little fifty c C engines. That's a great secondary option. You know, you can get around town pretty quickly, and you don't have to get them registered, you don't have to have insurance on them. I had one back in the day. It was wonderful. You know, they have electric versions of them now as well. You don't have to worry about insurance. If I didn't have the bike, I'd totally go emo. Ped would I

wouldn't and I'll not. Note more folks are getting their own electric scooters like the kind that you staying on as well, um you know bird Jump in line. They've all made those electric scooters more popular, but companies are selling them directly to commuters as well. I saw recently that Wirecutter they reviewed electric scooters and your favorite one, the one that they thought was best, only costs six

seven bucks. It was one made by Segue. And you know, when you're able just to hop on that, give it a little kick and get rolling, you're not breaking a sweat at all. And so we definitely want to encourage folks to consider some of these alternate means of transportation,

some of these micro commuting methods. Yeah, for sure, I think you know, technology has just changed so much in in the last decade that makes commuting without a car so much more of an option, whereas it felt like cars were the only option ten years ago, and that's just not the case. And Matt, you just mentioned a couple of reasons why on the technology front with micro scooters,

with electric bikes right also to ride sharing apps. They are awesome for for one off events, and you know, calling a taxi used to be a huge pain, but now everyone's got the Uber or Lift app on their phone and they've had a big time impact on helping us be able to get around town without the need for our own car. So obviously, if you're using these services multiple times every day, you're gonna be sucking that

one fewer car savings right out of your life. But if you use them sparingly, just on occasion, those services are going to ease the pain of single car ownership or or even owning no car at all. Right in particular, takes the stress out of last minute inconveniences that pop up. Knowing that you can have a car right to where you are in five minutes to take you where you need to go. Again, you don't want to rely on it constantly, but it's not nextually know that it's in

your back pocket just in case you need it. And I totally agree. Right sharing apps make it very possible to drop down to a single vehicle if you have a family. The few minor inconveniences that we have had were quickly solved by being able to quickly call an uber, you know, hail a lift that, like you said, showed up in five minutes and Joe. Sometimes it's not a new or alternative type of transportation, but it is instead a different approach or a strategy to get to where

you need to go. So, for instance, you can car pool with a friend or coworker. And this isn't something new, but I feel like lately it's kind of gotten more steam because of some of the different apps. You can even car pool with someone you don't even know, you know, via ways car pool. There are a lot of cities that will even pay you to car pool in order to reduce congestion on the roads. You know, So think through, like how creative can you get when it comes to

you know, right sharing? As you think through that, that will give you, you know, another massive boost and making ditching a car possible. GEA have car pooled with a coworker who lives just one neighborhood over, and you know, at times it's not quite as convenient if I, like want to run to the grocery store on the way home. But that's one of those things, right, Playing a little bit further ahead, pushing through some of those annoyances in

order to make something like that work. They're actually really simple solutions, Matt that most people just don't consider because you know, two cars is simple and easy and you're fully autonomous, so why not just keep going in that direction? Well, we would say, thing outside the box, and these are some helpful ways, different approaches to actually help people get there. And also, let's talk about car pooling for your kids. Right,

that's we just talked about car pooling yourself. But do you have to pick your kids up from school every day? I mean they might not even be going to school right now. Right, it's probably doing virtual school for a lot of kids. But it's important to consider whether or not you can share these duties with a friend who also has kids at the same school or kids who participate in the same activities, and that oftentimes that saves

you time. It cuts down on some of that frustration of having to be in the car all the time by by splitting the duties with someone else that you're friends with. That's something that's easily done but just not often considered. Yeah, so car pulling, it's a great practice when it comes to uh implementing, you know, moving down to one car. Another good approach is to actually give

it a shot before you sell a car. Right, See, if you can go a few weeks or maybe a couple of months even only using one car, you can even make it a challenge. You might just see that it's completely possible before you force this new lifestyle on yourself.

You don't necessarily have to go cold turkey. But you know, maybe on the other hand, if you know that you can ditch a car, then then going all in and going ahead and selling it, that might be the commitment, you know, where you go all in, where you force yourself to only rely on a single vehicle, if you know that keeping that second car or even that one car around is going to cause you to to use it more often, which it most likely will if if you have a perfectly good set of wheel sitting there,

it's it's hard to say, you know what I'm gonna about bike this time. Uh So, if you know that that's there, sometimes you're gonna over rely on it, and so maybe even committing to getting rid of that that might be unnecessary step that that makes losing a car a reality for you. Yeah, man, we covered a lot in this episode about ditching a car. I think there are a lot of people out there listening who should

be considering it. And for those of you out there who have listened to this whole conversation anyway and you're like, that's ridiculous, I'm not going to do it, well, I've got one final suggestion, And for people that don't feel like they can downsize a car at all, I would strongly suggest looking into renting one of your cars out when it's not in use on a site like touro

dot com or get around. And if you can rent your car out and actually make some money from it, it's not nearly as much of a drain on your bank account if it's working for you on the side when otherwise it would have been parked. And so look into that. Make some money from your vehicle as opposed to letting it sit there and just costing you money and you're in the line item of your budget every month. Yeah,

that's a great thought, Joel. And so again, becoming a one car family, or maybe cutting a car all together, isn't for everyone. You know, some folks just like driving like I do, although I don't like driving to work every single day. I like driving on a road trip where I'm going on vacation, But the pandemic has forced our lifestyle to change. So for many that means more working from home, which is great if you want to

ditch a car you currently own. And at the same time, technology has brought improvements that make it so much easier to only own one car in many cities and even in suburban context as well, So we hope that you consider making a change for your finances and for so

many other great reasons as well. Yeah, man, I feel like a bum right now, and I feel like we've gotta list our second vehicle immediately on Craigslist or something like that and or Facebook, yard Tale, trying to try to sell it because we really, we really could go down to one car. I think it's easily doable for our family. It's I definitely see it in your future. I mean too, once your new bike comes in as well. You've got kind of got that fresh battery on that

e bike. You're gonna be scooting around no problem, barely even peddling at all, you know, like like they're doing the little video that when they're trying to sell it there's like only three shots where somebody's actually peddling. I STU like to pay all that's part owning a bike, Man, is the peddaling? I like it. You got a pedal? Yeah, but I need to take a dose of my own medicine and make it happen. All right, Matt, Let's get back to the beer that we had on the show today.

This was a saison from Tired Hands brewing company called Eurason. And so, yeah, what were your thoughts on this beer? Man? Or maybe you say it ours and I don't know, but not too sure. But yeah, man, this was a freely stinking good beer. I was gonna say, a fantastic beer. It was tart and acidic, while it also had that kind of light and fizzy body going on that a

lot of times you can expect from a Sayson. And it also had that distinct funkiness that you get with this says on in particular one that's been barrel aged. You know, it had so much depth and funkiness going on. Um, we've we've said this before, how you and I we need to drink more barrel aged Sasons. And this has completely convinced me that I need more of this type of beer in my life. But yeah, man, I really enjoyed it. I'm glad this is one that you were

able to pick up for us. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I don't think I can add anything to the tasting notes. I think you described it really, really well. All I can say is it was delicious and I would like to drink more beers from Tired Hands, particular from them seriously, and not to mention. So the label, the artwork on this one is awesome as well. It's like an illustrated moon that kind of has a skull face on it.

It actually reminds me of like there's this old French film it's called like to the Moon or something like that, but it's like the rocket ship lands and hits it in the eye. I'm sure you've seen that illustration around, but it kind of looks like that, like after the moon died or something like that. It's got the skull on it. But like that's kind of the visual on the on the label there. But I'm with you, man, I'm a huge fan of of this beer, and in

particular tard Hands in general. Me too. Man, all right, that's gonna do it for this episode for folks that want show notes for this episode, just go to our website at how to money dot com. And you know, it would really help us out as well if you would leave us a review. If you haven't done so already, head over to Apple Podcasts where you can leave us

a little message there. And Jel and I we actually read every single one of those because we're also looking for feedback in case someone says something in there that's a little bit more constructive. Write. Some constructive criticism is always good. We can always get better. So yeah, if you haven't done that already, head over and do that really helps us out, Joel. That's going to be it for this episode, Buddy. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,