Differing Ideas of Freedom

Generally, I try and write a blog about freedom around the 4th of July in honor of my nation’s independence day.  I usually happen to be outside of our nation’s borders during that holiday, and so I’m able to reflect perhaps a bit differently as a result.

Steffani and I moved to our pueblo back in late May and have been getting settled in.  We lived in Salamanca for just about 7 months and got around just fine without a car.  Here in this pueblo that is proving more difficult.  We have been catching rides with our teammates to the next town over to stock up on groceries once a week.  Steffani in particular really misses having a car as she does almost all of the shopping.

For me however, a car has come to represent anything but the freedom I once associated with it as a young man.  All I think about now are the costs associated with it.  Even without a car loan, you’re usually just flushing money down the drain by owning a car.  

By the time you pay for gas (which is a fortune here btw), insurance, taxes, maintenance, etc., it makes me wonder if a car is really worth it.  Steffani wouldn’t skip a beat in saying that it’s worth it, but I’m not so sure.

In the states cars are usually required, but are they worth it?  I mean, most families have 2 cars at least.  How much of a family’s salary goes towards just having 2 cars as opposed to 1?  

I read an interesting book titled Your Money or Your Life that had an interesting take on things.  It asked multiple questions, one of which was how many of your hours at work are spent paying for things directly related to your work?  

The idea is if you make $20/hour and your primary reason for owning car is to get you to work, how many hours are you working simply to maintain the car that takes you to work?  If you worked from home how much difference in cost would there be?  Would you still need as nice of a car?  Would you need to spend as much to fuel and maintain it if you only used it for errands?  Would you need a second car to begin with?  

Also, does your per hour wage go down if you include commute time?  If you drive 30 minutes to work each day you have to add 7 hours on to your workweek to get a more accurate per hour wage, correct?  If you work 40 hours at $20/hour ($800/week) but it takes an additional 7 hours to commute, your new hourly rate would be about $17/hour ($800/47 hours).  

Yes, there are of course reimbursements and all that to make up the difference.  But what about the 7 hours itself?  Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else with an additional 7 hours every week?

All that to say, it was a really good book that made me think a bit differently about purchases.  How many hours of work did I used to spend eating Jimmy John’s or Panera for all those years of bachelorhood?  :)