Mot time aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it failed. I HAS MOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alnico

We sold our car last April.
We haven't missed it once and the money we've saved is unreal.
We realised that most of what we used it for now that i've retired was either meaningless and lazy or could easily be done another way and living almost opposite the train station and pretty much behind the main bus station made it a bit of a no brainer. I know it won't suit everyone but to not have anything car related in our lives at all is a blessing. We walk a lot too which in our mid 40's, kind of helps. 

Europcar is around the corner from where we live.
A brand new Fiat 500 is £53 for a 3 day weekend hire or £32 for a single day.
There is literally no point owning one, even if we did want to drive one somewhere.

Oh and the happiness and lack of stress because of not using the roads ?
It's changed us both as people, we've never been so happy every day.

Now as a passenger in friends cars i have to sit in the backseat. I just can't stand being that close to a dashboard after so many years of it and when i'm in the front passenger seat, i look for traffic as if i'm driving, in mirrors that aren't even set up for me, go for pedals that aren't there. Bollocks, i'll sit in the back now and look out of the side window. 

The thought of being made to drive a vehicle now makes me shudder.

speshul91

I need mine for work dude. 

breakstuff

Going off on a tangent i must say I really admire your outlook and the way your living your life @Alnico.It sounds like something maybe we should all be striving for.

I'm 46 now and have been pondering the simple life but giving up all the modern conveniences would,I imagine,be quite hard.The kids certainly wouldn't thank me for it.

Alnico

breakstuff said:

Going off on a tangent i must say I really admire your outlook and the way your living your life @Alnico.It sounds like something maybe we should all be striving for.

I'm 46 now and have been pondering the simple life but giving up all the modern conveniences would,I imagine,be quite hard.The kids certainly wouldn't thank me for it.

It's fair to say i was forced into it medically but it's definitely given me a new perspective. There was a lot of adjustment at first but we started from the bottom when we moved in here so anything was good and all we've done since that is refine things until they were comfortable. We still have a lot of modern comforts but we've become incredibly good at not spending money where it doesn't need to be spent. Selling the car was the first step towards that and then we just applied that to everything else.

We've managed to make it work and by saving and planning we've pulled ourselves back up, ironically we're in better shape proportionally now than we've ever been, mainly through making changes to what we think we need and the costs / savings involved in that.

It's not all Daisy's and Angels with hairy armpits though, there are plenty of times we all get soaked with freezing cold rain just coming home from the supermarket, which by default means carrying everything we need for home by hand. Sometimes i have to pay £30 in fares just to go to Stevenage to visit Coda music and sometimes the bus or train goes wrong. Sometimes we miss out on what might be amazing days out etc.

We made this decision to change life and me stopping driving trucks just coincided with it nicely. It all coincided with us 'Moving' which was a huge change to our lives and we made it work but it wasn't easy to adjust. Now we're used to it but it's not been an easy transition and it takes a few months before any financial benefit gains traction.

breakstuff

With me it's all about lack of leisure time.With my wife and I both working full time,me on shifts working up to sixty hours a week,our weekends are taken up with all the mundane things in life like shopping,housework and decorating.Combined we earn a reasonable wage,but as I get older I do wonder whether it is all worth it.If my wife say,gave up work,yes we'd be worse off financially but we'd gain massively on leisure time.It's a balancing act I suppose.

Glad to see it's working so well for you.

robgilmo

Id love to be able to do without a car but our nearest shop is a good six miles away, I'm still glad I live in the middle of nowhere though, for when the zombie apocalypse happens

speshul91

I know have 12 months mot, been welded had brakes done and got a proper filler cap for the grand total of 90 quid. 

fields5069

I do and don't need a car for work. I could go back to cycling 58 miles, 3 times a week, and going everywhere by train. I think work would possibly force me to hire a car to travel to meetings though, since I would get a company car allowance.

This would probably reduce my leisure time massively though.

speshul91

I literally cannot work without a car, i deliver takeaways. 

roundthebend

Col_Decker said:

roundthebend said:

I tried to take my van for an MOT at the weekend. But the battery was flat so I jump started it from the car, which didn't work because the fuel pump wasn't pumping. So it got loaded onto a truck and delivered to the garage, where my mate found it was just a faulty electrical feed to the pump. He fixed that temporarily, but it was then too late to do the MOT so I drove home, and left his temporary fix in place which flatted my brand new battery.

And we didn't get a chance to look at fixing the dangling exhaust. It's the joys of buying a "project", but I'm assured when we're camping in Cornwall we'll be really pleased that we bought it.

What sort of camper have you got RTB?

I sent a PM, so as not to derail the thread too much.

hywelg

speshul91 said:

I know have 12 months mot, been welded had brakes done and got a proper filler cap for the grand total of 90 quid. 

Jammy bastard mine cost me £650. And I had to pay it as I cannot just get a cheap replacement vehicle as the HMRC rules on Self Employed Cap Asset allowances are quite strict now.

Only cars with less than 130g/km attract the full 18% write down allowance. Everything above is 8% (i.e. fuck all, you'll never get to claim it all back). And I need a biggish vehicle for the stuff I have to carry so it has to be fairly new, and definitely diesel to get that economy, and then theres the threat of a ULEZ in Nottingham so I probably need to get a Euro 6 diesel. Stuffed every which way.

speshul91

@hywelg finally someone else from nottingham. 

hywelg

speshul91 said:

@hywelg finally someone else from nottingham. 

Been here all the time!...... Did you miss my Amp demo days?  Thinking of doing another one now a sufficient time has elapsed so people might have their interest piqued again.

speshul91

I did indeed, if i can sort it around work im there but dont have any interesting amps.