SAHM's how do you afford a car?
I am a stay at home mother and I don't like to drive. Even if I did, I don't see what the point of having 2 cars would be. With high gas prices, insurance and car payments I am always wondering how mom's can afford to drive??
Update:I didn't mean the woman should pay for the car herself. If she is married then it does come from joint funds but with only one income I was curious how most people afford 2 cars. I think this is a huge reason so many people are in debt. Owning a car costs hundreds each month, thousands a year. If you stay home with your kids you don't need to be driving all over the place. Schedule grocery and doctor visits when your husband is home.
Comments
we can't/don't.
i quit driving 5 years ago.
we just got an old toyota for my partner to drive with our tax return this year, before that it was strictly public transportation for us.
i prefer it this way.
much less stress.
I'm disabled, not a SAHM mom yet. However, you can afford a car if you don't buy it on credit. It's called SAVING and you can save thousands by not paying interest. Insurance depends on where you live and your liability levels. I pay a lot more for insurance in the suburbs, but because I have a van, I pay a lot less than my neighbors do. Mini-vans lack the coolness factor and tend to be driven by safer drivers, thus lower insurance rates. Ask your insurance agent what vehicles typically have the lowest insurance rates. My sister lives in a rural area and pays only $200 a year for car insurance. While her gas is high, she gets great mileage on rural roads because there is no stop and go traffic signs every 400 feet.
Having no vehicle isolates you. It isolates your kids especially today when so many neighborhoods have nobody home during the day. Yes, I know some families who only have one car. Twice a week, Mom and kids bring Dad to work (and pick him up) so that they can go places. My parents sometimes only had one car. My Dad was in a carpool for work, so that worked great. He drove only one day a week most of the time, leaving the vehicle at home for mom.
My aunt also didn't drive. She used neighbors to drive her places. My cousins missed out on a lot of opportunities because they had no means to get home after school (no money for afterschool bus).
I am a SAHM now but wasn't the first 7 years of being a parent. The first 5 years was being a single mom. I somehow managed to pay it on time or not too late. We currently have two vehicles, mine was just paid off and we have 6 more months on the other loan. We are easily affording our car and insurance payments right now but it hasn't always been this easy. We had to refinance one after almost getting it repo'd. But they really worked with us and got a payment almost $100 lower than what it was originally.
The most expensive part for us was the insurance but after we got married it actually got cheaper. Like alot cheaper. I was paying almost $200/month for just me and my car (fully covered). Once we got married it dropped down to about $160 for both of us and both cars. Now, I just switched from Nationwide to Progressive and we pay $71 a month for the same exact coverage. I am actually mad at myself for not switching sooner.
Having two cars is a necessity for us. My husband leaves at 4:30am and gets home between 2-4pm, depending on the day. Besides the normal daily things like taking my son to the bus stop and checking mail there's always doctor appointments, running to the store for milk, baseball practice, etc. We live in a very rural area so taking a bus isn't an option and everything is too far to walk. I try not to run around too much, because of the price of gas, but I like the feeling of being able to get it the car and go somwhere now...not wait until my husband gets home.
My husband has a great job and we have money saved from when I was working too. We put all the money into savings I made while working since it wasn't needed for bills. We have to have two cars because even though I'm a stay at home mom there's not much stay at home about it. I'm the one who does all the grocery shopping, doctors appointments, I take my daughter to the park or beach, and I volunteer doing different things. I'd go crazy sitting in my house all day and having no chance at leaving.
My husband has a good job. He worked his backside off to become a research scientist, and went without for years. He now works for NASA. I also went without for years, so I could save money.
We live simply, we keep our cars until they fall apart, (over 20 years), and we buy for cash through an auto broker. It's much less expensive to put money away to buy for cash than to make car payments. We both get good driver discounts on insurance.
Our newer car is a hybrid that gets over 40 miles to the gallon. We always drive economically: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drivehabits.shtml which increases our mileage even more. We buy our gas at cash-only stations, which are much less expensive.
The point of having two cars is: my husband needs one for work, and I need one to take our daughter to all of her homeschool classes and activities. Our area does not have very good public transportation.
Why would it be up to me to make the money to pay for a vehicle? No, really, why the hell should I have an income in addition to my husband's to pay for the household expenses when really he needs to pay for the cost of me being home and taking care of OUR household and OUR children?
Our money is made by my husband, we pay for household expenses, my share is not measured monetarily since normally women are not paid for the work they do and if they were it would bankrupt most households. We have two vehicles, one for my husband to commute and one that serves us as a family, usually I drive it and transport three kids, the cost in time and energy to use the poorly functioning transit system in our town makes it the best use of resources - otherwise it would cost lives for us. We drive less but when we do it is for essential reasons like doctor visits or grocery shopping.
Well, my husband pays for it of course. The reason why i have a car is to take my child to go do things and in case of an emergency i have a car...this is really a pointless question. sorry.
Your right and it is getting to the point where less people are driving. I know college kids who are investing in bikes and mopeds this summer instead!
**** bill gates?