Its over. Our time as a 2 car family is cactus, kaput, gawn. We made the decision last night to get rid of one our cars;the Peugot, affectionatley known around here as 'the Poo' and finally pare ouselves down to just 1 gas guzzling energy sucker which we will convert to liquid gas. We did the numbers and reckon that even if we spend $1000 a year on taxis' or hire cars we can save about 4 thousand annually with all associated costs. Its pretty easy for us to have one car really, even with 3 kids. Our logic...1# we could just get a little better organised with our time
2# B1 already busses it to school
3# B2 bussess home from school
4# we live within walking distance from the centre of town
5# there is a bus stop at the end of our street
6# I only need to catch 1 bus to work (when Im not on maternity leave) and the bus drops me nearly right outside the door
7# if we need to pack the car with gear for a family of 5 for holiday travel we just hire a bigger car or borrow one from my mum (thanks mum, havent asked her yet to be a part of our downsizing equation)
8# Simon is a stay home dad so no need to shuffle work/kids and car
So, when ya look at it, its hard to justify having had 2 in the first place!
Now comes the big dilemma... when we decided to sell the car we all went 'great 4 grand saved, lets go to Indonesia for a family holiday!'. Ummm, hello!
Is it all just swings and roundabouts? Can we ever justify another OS trip when using our carbon footprint/consumption of resources as a measure against which to evaluate and live our lives? We sponsor 3 girls in India and Thailand, 1 monk in Tibet, sank a well in Africa when we married, make loans via Kiva, monthly fund medicins sans frontiers and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and Greenpeace, are life members of Trees for Life, never eat red meat, restrict our fresh fish intake, purchase only biodynamic hormone,antibiotic free chook n eggs, run the house on PV solar, harvest thousands of litres of rainwater, grow some of our own food, compost, recycle, buy second hand for almost everything (we love eBay), shop seasonally, buy locally, line dry ( can you believe its ILLEGAL to dry using outside clothes line in some
2 comments:
Good for you on getting rid of one of your cars!
I live in the States and it's crazy how almost no one line dries. To be precise, it's not that it's illegal in certain states overall--just some newer neighborhoods have rules that you can't line dry your clothes. It's associated with poverty over here, so fancy subdivisions often won't allow it. Crazy, eh?
Dammit Rixa! You pick me up on the one comment that had me awake last night knowing it was technically incorrect! I was being lazy (bad me)! But overall, totally...CraZY
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