anon discusses car dependence
anon discusses car dependence
100 comments
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"walk to a store" lol okay bro doesn't know wtf they're talking about.
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My Costco is physically less than mile away but you have to cross two major strodes and a four lane bridge thats only for car travel. There's an alternative route but I have to backtrack 2 miles to get to the pedestrians safe bridge then the two miles to get to Costco from the ped bridge. Why can't the four lane strode have a partial bike lane?? It would save me hours of commute and I live in pretty bikable city. I'm doing Critical Mass for the second time this Friday, I highly recommend it, its a lot of fun
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They’ve clearly never shopped at Costco. I can’t get out of there without dropping at least $200. Because, you don’t know you need a package of 50 AAA batteries, a gallon of mustard, 300 allergy pills, and a dozen rolls of Christmas wrapping paper until you’re there. Inside Costco that just makes sense.
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Sure, but how much do you save long term by having those in bulk vs doing multiple trips to the store to pick up one thing at a time?
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And a gigantic box of frozen spanakopita, every time
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That's our go-to lazy Sunday breakfast.
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It would be so nice to live somewhere I could walk to the store. Or anywhere.
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The non-American mind cannot conceive of living in a place so vast.
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Europe is relatively small but their towns are waaay more compact because they were built before cars came around so most towns are already in favor of walking/biking distances.
But yeah America is huuuge. The drive from Paris to central Switzerland is about 12 and a half hours and it's a total change of scenery. For the US that's just California to Utah. Or Washington DC to Charleston SC.
What the US needs badly is high speed rail from city to city
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More like living in a place where it can be impossible to cross a short distance on foot when it wouldn't be impossible to add a walking path.
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Sounds so... Odd to me.
My entire life I've lived in a very dense city. Everywhere I look are stores, people, traffic. There's never a single moment of silence, not even at night.
I low-key feel jealous to people who live in a quiet place...
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Where in the world can you buy a week's groceries for $50?
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1970ish?
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Yes, we were all buying $300k cars in 1970.
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Depends on how many people live in your household and what you eat. You can probably spend even less if you're only cooking for one and most meals are 'beans and rice'-level.
I'd assume that the hard part is finding an affordable place in a somewhat walkable neighborhood in the US, especially if you don't want to live in a one-room apartment.
Either way, the $50 are really not the important part. It would still be true if you paid $200 and could save $50 by shopping at cheaper supermarkets that are further away.
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If you are extremely frugal everywhere, even the US
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Yeah, that's just over $7/day, which is doable.
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in my country if you ignore meat its almost that
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I want to know who's able to spend only $45 at Costco.
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Get a week's worth of rotisserie chicken. 😀
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I reckon I could do it for one person, but I'd have to cut down on bacon.
But it depends on where you live.
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Usually I manage $40-$67 (£30-£50) in the UK - usually it depends on if I need bonus things that aren't weekly (cleaning supplies etc) :)
edit: this is for just two people though :)
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This week's groceries for my family of 4 was only like $70. For a single person who's not buying microwave ready meals, that's easily doable.
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Where do you live? Where I live, $70 is one week of frugal meals for a single 20-50 year old male. A family of four is $230 a week, per the USDA.
https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/cnpp-costFood-tfp-july2025.pdf
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I never thought about it like that! I did in fact buy the car specifically to go to the grocery store and don't use it for anything else
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Can't you just order groceries? Isn't that a thing in the US?
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Have you considered renting? Depending on the business model, that could be very cheap if it's just a couple of hours per week.
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This is b8
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Who's putting $200 of gas in their car per month, what you doing driving the Route 66 on a weekly basis? The shops all of 5 miles away if it's that.
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Average US driving distance is about 14k miles per year, or about 1200/month. At 30 mpg, you need 40 gal per month. Current price per gal in the US (according to AAA) is $3.193/gal, which gets us $130/month in gas.
Wouldn't have to be crazy above average to get to $200/month. Or have a car with kinda bad fuel efficiency.
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I did when I had a really shitty commute for about a year and a half. Crazy thing is it wasn’t even that bad compared to some of my coworkers there.
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This sounds like a guy who is upset that he cannot afford a car so he comes up with reasons why its bad to own one and better to be in his position but due to lack of car owner experience just fucks the numbers all up and then looks stupid.
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This sounds like a guy who is upset that he doesn't live in a walkable city so he comes up reasons why it's bad to live in one but due to lack of walkability experience just fucks the arguments and then looks stupid.
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I am assuming thats in reference to me? If not then im not sure what your comment is getting at. I didn’t say anything bad about living in a walkable city. I do live in a walkable city. We have public transport though so I usually just take the bus to work.
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some people don't like having overpriced housing costs that don't include even a quarter acer of land
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Doesn't sound like that at all. Ridiculous that there are people who think a car is a necessity. It might be a necessity in most of the US, you can thank car manufacturer for that. I'm fine using my feet, bicycle or train. If I need a car I'll borrow or rent one.
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100 comments
The closest grocery store is 1.5 hour walk. I'm not doing that in a Canadian winter or with hands full of groceries. And no, it's not bikeable 5 months a year.
Also, I've bought four cars in my lifetime. I spent a combined $13,000 on them. My first car was $1400 and I still have it.
Also, 200$ a month for gas is high. If you can walk back from the store carrying stuff then you probably only need to fill up every 3rd month. If you use the car for other stuff, then your argument is bad.
I've bought two and cumulatively they were 30k. I have neither of them now and I just filed for bankruptcy my first time at 25. Going strong 💪. My first car was less than a decade old and died within a year of owning it. Cars suck!
I've bought 2 and have spent ~$13k on them. I still have the first after more than 10 years, and have had the second for almost 5. The first car was ~$10k, and it had 60k miles, and I've put on about 100k miles.
Buying used direct from the owner has worked well for me. My parents bought my first car for me for about $1500, though my siblings also drove it. I kept it for about 5 years before buying a replacement.
ehm Canadian winter will make sure the food does not spoil on the way ☺️
Neither will op's corpse until they find it next spring.
where are you buying a drivable car in canada that cheap
In Ontario. It was my first car, so 10 years ago, so not quite the same market as today. It was a '96 Tercel. No AC option, no airbags, no ABS, no cruise control, crank windows, manual locks, manual transmission. Needed brake lines and a windshield.
ride a bike in order to automatically don't be fat
That's how it works obviously