[jammies]

I've spent $2374.69 over the first 7 months of this year, using Car2go exclusively. That includes a couple weekend trips to Edmonton, plus all my driving otherwise, as I got rid of my car last September. That works out to $339.24 a month.

Since I live downtown, I would have to pay for parking at my building @ $100/month. Before I axed my vehicle, I tracked my gas expenses, which were around $120/month; insurance/registration was another $95/month. Add in maintenance, which I'd say is around another $90/month ($1000 year minimum, as for example I'd have had to buy new tires this year) and you're looking at $400/month on a car which I owned free and clear of any loan.

Of course, if you don't pay for parking and have a new car where maintenance isn't such a big deal, those numbers go down, but your monthly payments on the car more than cover that number and almost certainly are much much more. And if you park downtown for work, you're probably spending more than $300 on that alone.

On the other hand, my driving habits are considerably different now, in that if I have grocery shopping or something where I need a car, I try to do several tasks during that trip instead of just going out and back. I also will gladly accept being a passenger if someone else wants to drive, whereas before I always liked to be the one driving. So it's not necessarily that a direct cost comparison is valid. But then you have to ask if changing your habits isn't maybe a good thing - an economic incentive to do what you should be doing anyway.