Expect Less

Last week, I sold my car. I am not buying a new one in the foreseeable future either. It’s a strange feeling, and it was scary in the days leading up to the transaction, but I’m glad it’s happened and I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.I put the car on CraigsList, several times actually. There were a few lookers, but nothing took for a few months. I was started to think I’d never sell it, while I was making payments of nearly $500 for the car and insurance every month for something that sat in my garage day after day. I checked the mileage right before I sold it; I’d driven just over 2,000 miles from July to January. That included 4 trips from Minneapolis to Eau Claire to see friends; a round trip of 200 miles.

And so now I’m using public transportation exclusively, unless someone gives me a ride somewhere. In March my friend Adam is coming in to town, and we’re going to build up a single speed bike for me. I have a great mountain bike, but it’s too much for daily commuting to work, and I want something I can easily maintain on my own. I also want something that could be lost without being a huge financial burden to replace.

Right now I live outside Minneapolis, but right on the train line. In two weeks I’m moving near downtown, in to the Loring Park neighborhood. It’ll be about 3 to 4 miles by bike to get to work, and there are several bus lines within a few blocks that’ll take me there as well. I’m also signing up for HourCar for those days when I need to get somewhere quickly or outside the area I can comfortably bike or travel by bus.

I’m excited and a little bit scared by all this. There have already been a few things I might have done if I’d had access to a car, but I can’t say definitively that I would have gone. I took the bus home from St. Paul on Saturday, and it wasn’t bad at all - having a book, my Nintendo DS, and my iPod Touch handy certainly makes the trip an easy one. It may take more time to travel, but if I plan ahead, I get a lot more use out of my time.