Newbie saying hi :)

ACarLessFamily

Hi. Just joined today and thought I'd introduce myself.
We have 3 kids (9, 6 and 5) and have just started using the Adams tag along bike for our youngest and so far I'm really pleased with it

My eldest regularly cycles into town, a round trip of @ 8 miles or so, and our 6 year old has also done it a few times (very slowely!)

We live in a very rural area with a lot of hills, our nearest shop is in town (@4 miles away) and we are mostly without a car.

Wondered if anyone else here lived ruraly without a car? Lots of people do it in the towns where you have all the amenities but I haven't come across many in the country...but I guess I will find them here

Any way, look forwards to meeting you all

kelly

dickydulux

Hi welcome to the forum.
I've often thought what life would be like without a car. Everything society wise seems to revolve around car ownership.
Is there a particular reason why you are mostly carless or is it by choice?

ACarLessFamily

Hi dickydulux
We had thought about it for a long time but being so rural had thought it not possible. The our car died and we realised we were sick off only being able to affored old wreaks and then spending loads of money on them only for them to die in a couple of years!!

We have an old landrover but to be honest between the bikes, tesco dot com and a bus once a week, its only been off the place 3 times in the last 6 weeks!

White Horse

ACarLessFamily wrote:

We have an old landrover but to be honest between the bikes, tesco dot com and a bus once a week, its only been off the place 3 times in the last 6 weeks!

Fair play to you. We've got 2 cars but now I've seriously stepped up my bike use, I've used my car about 4 times in the last 7 weeks and I'm considering getting rid of it. I filled it up (about £30 - it's a Honda Jazz) 7 weeks ago and there's still 1/4 of a tank in it. My in-laws use it more than me as they use it when they take the kids out.
To be honest, the thought of being a 1-car family scares me a bit just because we've always had 2. I'm going to see how the winter goes (I'm fully intending continuing the commute on the bike come hell or high water) and then I might get rid of the second car after that.

ACarLessFamily

HI White horse
It is scary..I dn;t think we would have had the courage to do it if the previous car hadn;t blown up.
We are going to see out the winter and see how we go, but I wouldn't be amazed if we are a NO car family once and for all.

Underscore

White Horse wrote:

To be honest, the thought of being a 1-car family scares me a bit just because we've always had 2. I'm going to see how the winter goes (I'm fully intending continuing the commute on the bike come hell or high water) and then I might get rid of the second car after that.

We made the move to being a one car family a few months after our first son was born after we realised that there was almost always one of the cars parked outside the house at any given time. Now, just over 3 years later, son number 3 is due in ~5 weeks and we've never looked back.

The way we approached it - once we'd realised that we rarely used both cars at the same time - was to figure out how much we would save simply by not having the car - tax, insurance, depreciation, etc. - and figuring out how many journeys to or from work that would pay for by taxi. As I live pretty close to work, the answer was a lot! Actually, over the 3+ years, I've only got a taxi to work once - I usually cycle or run to/from work and the times where that doesn't work, my wife can often arrange to drop me off and/or pick me up.
HTH,

_