Recently my husband and I decided to sell our car and go car free. We live in an area that is fairly accessible by public transit. As it was already, my husband was taking the train to work and I will be starting school soon and will be taking the bus there (only 1 bus) and free public transportation is provided with tuition for the year. We figured we can get by pretty easy this year by public transit and biking (we just bought new cool bikes!!!)
So the reasons why I decided to go car free were 1) environmental (I've begun recently to feel very passionate about environmental isues) 2) Lifestyle (I feel like I need a change...growing up we never had a car and I loved walking everywhere and taking transit....wasn't until I got married I started driving) 3) Health (I gained 10lbs when I started driving...would love to loose it) 4) Money (our car was costing us about $1000 a month...I can think of many better ways the money can be spent or would love to see it sitting in the bank
)
So this decision is fairly new and a lot of our friends and family don't know yet and are just beginning to find out and they think we are absolutely crazy. We keep getting asked How are you going to get everywhere...what about groceries etc. Or people think we are broke....my husband actually just got a promotion and raise recently and makes a good income. How do all you car free people deal with the outside pressures from people? I don't wanna give in...feel really good about the decision and am really happy with it....but I hate having to explain to people. I just don't want to live in a box and live my life a certain way just because everyone says I should.