SPECELIZEDRIDER

I' thinking with all the money you save not owning a car, you guys must have serious cash saved up, especially if you have been doing this a few years.

wahoonc

I save cash regardless, if I was car free I would have more. In reality I think many people just do better financially without the added expense of a car, especially if they are in the lower end of the wage spectrum. Americans personal saving rate is only around 3.5% of their total income. I know mine is a lot higher than that, so that means there are people with no savings or even negative savings where they have spent their future earnings, via credit card debt, HELOC or other financing schemes.

Aaron

Commodus

Not really, I spend it on beer and ladies. Well just 'lady' now.

SPECELIZEDRIDER

lol

charbucks

Some people save money, some do not. I don't think it necessarily has to do with the income/expenses, unless you're just scraping by.

I'm kind of a compulsive saver, so even as a student I'm socking away a decent chunk of my scholarship. However, I know people who work as engineers with decent incomes who don't save very much - their expenses grow with their income. For me, not having a car means a bit more saved, but for some people, it might mean more shoes (or whatever they're into).

bjjoondo 

Every time we SAVE money something happens and we end up spending it so we don't call it savings anymore, it's just the: Emergency Fund!

RaleighSport

All this biking I do should save me some serious cash.. but it all seems to go right back into the "toys" for the cycling.

SPECELIZEDRIDER

Yeah I cant stay away from the REI store.

wolfchild

I have tons of cash saved up for emergencies and retirement...but I ain't saying how much...Seriously, I am just a middle class single guy and it's damn expensive to live in Canada. I am addicted to outdoor gear, I also have a 19 year old daughter who is going to university next year, that means lot's of $$$$ to help her out.

cyclokitty 

Never had a car before but since I took up cycling as my numero uno main source of commuting, the $120+ bucks I've saved per month since 2008 has gotten my family out of debt. Now we're building up our savings and we've learned all kinds of ways to cut spending. The big one was getting ride of our landline telephone and switching to an unlimited cell phone plan for each of us. It's still cheaper to have phone and data plan for the two of us than for 1 landline. Getting rid of the landline meant we were able to upgrade our internet connection for faster service at the same rate as before with a telephone line. Weird but if you start asking pointed questions and do some research, you can improve the services you pay for each month.

iheartbacon

I have about $600 in the bank. My source of income is my disability from the VA. When I was in the military I got exposed to a chemical spill and it's causing serious long term health problems. This year I reached the point where I'm too sick to keep a job. My $11,604 a year pension is all I have to keep me afloat. Just because I'm car free doesn't mean I'm rolling in dough. Some of us are car free because we're poor. My food stamps got cut and it's seriously affecting my monthly budget. Luckily I'm rent assisted so only 10% of my income goes to rent. Also Avista Utilities gave me a grant to pay for my electricity and natural gas, which is a real lifesaver. The VA only pays for some of my medication and I spend about $2,800 out of pocket for that every year. They also only cover a percentage of my non VA hospital visits and I spend about $1,900 a year on doctor visits. Everybody seems to think that when you get messed up in the service of your country Uncle Sam takes care of you and you're set. That's not how it works.

agent pombero

$17,400 in the bank account (7 years of savings). I refuse to ever own a car.

gerv 

I have enough money saved up to retire uncomfortably.

Here's hoping Social Security doesn't evaporate.

Chesha Neko

Nope. Just bought a bike repair stand, bottom bracket tool, crank pullers, torque wrench, new crankset and bottom bracket, chains ... when am I supposed to start saving money? And I really could use a second bike, y'know, just in case.

Dahon.Steve

I used to have a lot of money but now it's going into my first home, a money pit at that!! LOL!

I suppose if I sold all my bikes, it would bring in another 5K but I'll hold onto them! Heck, with the price of new bikes going up each year, they are holding their value better then my so called 401K plan!! My real savings comes from my income tax refund. Thank goodness they haven't eliminated the real estate deduction or I could be cooked!

agent pombero

The biggest savings came from not eating out. Cook at home! Go to the bookstore and spend $100 on cookbooks and be set for life.

bragi

Sadly, for me this is not the case. I'm not an idiot; I avoid debt like the plague and I live well within my means. But I never spent that much on cars to begin with, and the relatively small amount of money that I save from not using them now just goes into bicycle/running/outdoor stuff, or maybe a few extra trips to the pub. I'm afraid I've viewed my car-free/car-lite "savings" as an allowance to indulge myself in myriad minor ways.

Chesha Neko

Living well has its own merits.

Artkansas 

The cash I have saved isn't serious. It has a good sense of humor.

wahoonc

I don't buy cookbooks anymore (well not many) I print recipes I like off the internet and put them in a file box. I also pdf them and store them in a folder on my computer for future reference.

I do agree that it is much healthier and in most cases cheaper to cook at home.

Aaron

Ekdog

Agreed, cooking at home is the way to go, and the internet is the best cookbook ever.

There's a great program called Evernote that allows you to capture any recipe you come across with a couple of clicks. It immediately becomes accesible from your smart phone, so you can capture a recipe, refer to it when you go shopping to make sure you have all of the ingredients, and then refer back to it once you're in the kitchen.

acorn54

probably one of the two biggest variable expenses is using a bike for me. i still have a car for bad weather, but it only costs me about $1500 a year for the car.
in nassau county-long island new york, you really don't get around any faster, with all the red lights you have to stop and wait to turn green using a car.

bjjoondo 

No Way!!! We Love to go out to eat, it's the main bennie on being car free, we can actually live a little, where otherwise the car sucked all our extra funds and we were always, "stuck at home cooking"! To each their own folks, as they say, you can't take it with you, Happy Holidays!

I-Like-To-Bike

Exactly. If the chief goal in life is not spending money, I'd recommend not "wasting" money on a smart phone and its associated monthly bill or an Internet connection plan. Or on anything else beyond living at subsistence level. The free library is full of cookbooks and the librarian will probably provide a pencil and piece of paper to write down any recipe the reader would like to try. The piece of paper can even do double duty as a shopping list. Think of the money saved!

Probably "serious cash could be saved" after a couple of years of sitting in the dark, alone, after meals of gruel and beans.

zonatandem

Back in the '50s as newlyweds and serving an apprenticeship, money was in very short supply.
Decided to do without a car and instead put the money into house payments.
Pedaled an English 3-speed to work or walked.
Bought a 100-year old house that had been converted into a 2-family set-up.
The renters actually made our housepayment. By not having car payments/insurance/repairs we paid off
that old place in 10 years and 8 months.
While we've had a car for years now, we still bicycle regularly.
Now on house #3; but we still avoid debt or paying interest on credit cards.
While we are not rich, we have no debt and are living comfortably/retired in our 'old age' (now 80 and 77 years old).
As the old saying goes: Plan ahead!