I grew up in Haliburton County, about 2hrs north of Barrie, ON. And for anyone who’s been there either to live or to stay for the summer, you know that there are literally zero options for public transportation. The only exceptions are yellow school buses and a CAN-AR bus that goes to/from Toronto once a day.
While growing up there, I could not wait to get my driver’s license so that I could have the freedom to move around as I wished (pending my mom’s need for the car). When I came to Waterloo for University it was so strange to me to meet people who didn’t have their license, or only had their G1 because they were from Toronto where public transit is readily available.
Fast forward over 10 years later and I am living without a car, while running a business that often requires a car. Why would I do this?
It all started in the summer of 2018. I had my business at the time as a Professional Organizer, but it was still in its beginning stages, so clients were very few and far in-between. I was working full-time at a retail store in Cambridge at the time, 17km from my house. I worked there about 40hrs a week, so I was driving there and back 5 or 6 days a week, having the car parked for the entirety of my shift. I started looking at my finances, realizing that I was spending quite a bit on gas every month. For the first 6 months of the year I spent $681.66 on gas, which is just over $100 per month. I realized that I was mostly using the car to get myself to and from work, but that it would just sit there during the day, exposed to the elements.
So I decided to give myself a challenge. I looked up the public transportation routes to get to work. At the time there was the 200 Bus that could get me close to the store that I worked at, and then I would have to walk for about 15 mins. All in all, it would take me approximately 1.5hrs to get to work by transit rather than the 20-25min drive, but I would only be spending $86 for an unlimited bus pass. I started this challenge in the summer luckily, so I couldn’t use the weather as an excuse to not take the bus. There were a few days that I showed up to work soaked from the rain however.
After I started taking the bus, I noticed that I actually liked the bus commute – it gave me the chance to read, watch Netflix on my phone, listen to music, write – whatever I wanted! When you’re driving you have to pay attention to everything, which comes with a lot more stress. On a bus, you don’t have to deal with traffic or other crazy drivers, you just have to make sure that you get to the bus stop early so you don’t miss it!
I noticed other benefits when I started taking the bus. I was walking more, to and from the bus stop, so I was getting in more exercise than before. I was actually getting to work early, because when I drove I would usually leave at the last possible minute to get to work on time, which added to the stress. And then there was obviously the money that wasn’t being spent on gas.
After a couple months of this, I started discussing with my husband about getting rid of the car. We live centrally in the city where we can either walk or take transit to every destination that we regularly frequent. At the time he was working somewhere that he was bussing to. We leased our car, so we were paying lease payments, insurance, as well as gas and car maintenance. We never splurged and got the car cleaned or anything like that, yet we paid $7694.72 over 12 months between Oct 2017-Oct 2018 on gas, insurance, maintenance and lease payments. That’s over $600 a month! This seemed insane, when we were often just transporting ourselves, not anything that would be too hard to carry to our destination.
Yet these numbers are probably quite normal for the average household, which means that people are paying a LOT of money for convenience. And at the expense of the Earth. Check out the website Map My Emissions (mapmyemissions.com). You plug in your address and destination, what mode of transportation you are taking and it will calculate the CO2 emissions as well as the “social cost”. For my car trip to work in Cambridge alone it was creating almost 8lbs of CO2 emissions, at a social cost of 36c per trip. This may not seem like a lot by itself, but considering I was also driving to get groceries, run errands and visit people it adds up! And think of how many people are on a similar commute that day, all contributing 8lbs of CO2. There are also environmental costs of taking the bus, as they do require fuel and do emit toxins into the air as well, but if about 30 people are Sharing the ride that means that 29 vehicles are off the road, or 232lbs of CO2 per one-way trip! That’s pretty incredible.
Before we officially got out of our lease by transferring it to someone else, I had to take into consideration about how I would run my business without a vehicle. At this time I was also in the process of leaving my full-time job to pursue my career and passion as a Professional Organizer full-time. As part of my business, I take my client’s donations with me and often they have a LOT to get rid of, meaning that I am unable to carry it all.
I started looking into Car Sharing. Locally to KW there are a few different options for Car Share companies. I have tried two, recently switching to a less expensive option that wasn’t available for me before. They have quite a few cars around the KW area, the closest one to me about an 8min walk away, so it is incredibly convenient to go pick it up and be on my way! I book and unlock the car from my phone so I don’t need to carry around anything extra than what I would already have.
In addition to Car Sharing, I also recommend Renting cars, because often it is cheaper! If you have CAA or certain credit cards, you may get discounts with certain Rental companies, so look into that if you are shopping around. I can sometimes get a car for $20 a day, unlimited kms, I just have to fill up the gas to whatever level it was when it left the lot.
What I do before making a reservation with either place is I price compare. Car Sharing is almost always the same rate (though it is more expensive on the weekend), whereas Renting changes prices due to demand – so there’s no way to really predict. I’ve seen Rental fees range from $19-$100 for an economy car, so if it’s on the higher end it will be cheaper to do Sharing. With Sharing, your gas and insurance is included, so keep that in mind.
Overall for 2020 I have spent only around $1500 on Rentals and Car Sharing. Since it is now September, that averages out to be $170/month, which is a huge savings. And since I am only using a vehicle for business purposes, I can write it off as a business expense. I don’t even get a bus pass anymore but instead just pay as needed and try to run multiple errands in one trip.
If you are looking to get out of debt, save money and reduce your carbon emissions, look into your options for Car Sharing or Renting! It is such a fantastic option if you don’t need to transport a lot of equipment for your job or business. See if you can bike or take transit more to supplement when locations are closer. You can do it! All it takes is a bit more planning and the belief that it is possible!
