All in the name of being a stay at home mom, Wesley and I made a thrifty decision in April of last year to sell my Tahoe and have one family car. It was just another one of our many sacrifices for me to stay home with Lincoln and cut back on expenses. You see we were saving for a down payment on a house and since I only left the house a few times a week it didn’t make sense to have 2 car payments when we could be putting the money into savings and get our house sooner. And with a little planning for my weekly errands we knew we could make it work.
The downfall of selling the Tahoe, other than having to share a car, was that Wesley drives a big truck with a grill guard, a lift, etc. Let’s just say it’s not exactly the most feminine vehicle for me and I definitely get strange looks (mostly from men) when I’m driving it. The upside to selling the Tahoe, other than saving money, was that Wesley only worked 5-10 minutes from where we were living so if I ever needed the car it was super easy to take him to work or for him to come home for lunch and pick me up and take him back to the office. I definitely don’t LOVE not having a car of my own, but I do love that we reached our goal several months sooner than we planned on and now we are in our beautiful house!
Now that we are thinking about Mother’s Day Out programs for Lincoln and growing our family is in our forecast, getting me a car is a must! In my opinion (which my husband doesn’t share), the truck is a complete waste. I can count on one hand the amount of times Wesley has actually NEEDED the bed of the truck. So to me it just makes sense for him to sell his truck and for us to get another Tahoe and for him to get something smaller. Ahhh, we’ll see who wins this one.
We’ve been making this whole one car thing work for almost a year now and thank the Lord for fabulous friends and family that pick my booty up to run errands, or bring me prescriptions, or take me shopping otherwise the last 9 months could have been pretty miserable. But since we’ve been able to make the one car work now I’m torn as to whether we really NEED two cars. I mean there’s so many things we still want to do to the house, shutters in all the rooms and a pool just to name a couple. I always justify having only one car by saying that we are helping save Mother Earth. I often wonder if other families have only one car or are we the only ones that are crazy enough to share a car? It really hasn’t been as bad as one might think and like I said above, with a schedule of when you’re going to run errands so you can coordinate who gets the car and some great friends that live close by, you can definitely make it work!
What has been the BIGGEST sacrifice you have made as a mommy?
Wow. I am so impressed that you have been able to make one car work! I am just getting started being a stay at home mom and one thing I gave up was my android phone. I can’t justify the extra $30 a month to have the internet on my phone when I am almost always within arms reach of a computer. Luckily we had several older cell phones laying around so I just re-activated one of them. I can still text and talk and to be honest it is a little freeing not to be connected to my phone so much. I am not constantly checking facebook just for the heck of it. I have also let most people know that if they e-mail me something important, just let me know by text so I can check my mail right away.
Another thing we will be giving up soon is our AT&T Uverse TV. While I like being able to record, pause and rewind TV, it just isn’t necessary! We’re not sure what we are going to do instead…netflix, get an antenna. Something like that.
We also don’t go out to eat very often anymore. I have been pretty diligent about making dinner most nights of the week, and use the leftovers for lunches!
I am inspired by your sacrifice! We hope to save enough to be in our own house by the end of the year!
Rachel, I’m astounded at your sacrifice to give up DVR… Personally, I’d die so I’m the one who is inspired!!! My girlfriend makes it work though… they have no cable and watch everything on their Apple Tv through things like Hulu and Netflix.
You can also make casseroles, which are great for lunch the next day and again for dinner if you can stomach eating the same thing 3 times in a row 🙂
Good luck with saving up for the house! I know it can be stressful…
I sacrificed my stretch-mark-free stomach!!!! Kidding but not really…My sacrifices do not add up to half of one of yours! You’re a mommy-rock star!
<3 you and your tummy 🙂
Congrats on the new blog, I just started reading it daily. I definately agree that you can get by with one car and the truck might be a waste, sorry wesley.
You are definitely not alone in being a one car family! My husband and I actually became one car before we had our son when I worked in downtown Austin and he could walk across the street to work. And, your hubby may not like to hear it, but that truck might have to be sacrificed if you want to remain a one car family. Imagine my husband’s sorrow when we traded in his precious baby (BMW 135) for a Ford Fusion! We just moved into a new house in September and he commutes, so we’re back and forth on whether we should get another car or spend our money on the house. If we did get another car, it would likely be something that doesn’t go past 65 easily and probably a couple of years old since I don’t do very much outside of Round Rock as it is.
Your comment cracks me up!! BMW for a Ford… that had to be a transition 🙂 Like my husband always says, it’s JUST a car.
I don’t mind the one car thing…. my husband works from home 1-2 days a week, which gives me the time to get errands taken care of. I’m glad to hear we aren’t the only ones!!!
Kudos for making one car work! We are getting rid of cable and relying solely on netflix/amazon prime with a roku device. Sports will be the hardest thing. My husband also sold his bmw (manual which I couldn’t drive) for a four door mid size truck. He got to keep a manly truck, it’s big enough for both kiddos and it was not exepnsive (toyota tacoma)! Once I look down at my precious sleeping babies – every sacrifice down to my weird wrinkly belly are worth it!!!