anon discusses car dependence

a year ago by rumschlumpel to c/greentext

duane_d_bathtub 68 points a year ago

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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sugar_in_your_tea 5 points a year ago

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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Amnesigenic 3 points a year ago

And a gigantic box of frozen spanakopita, every time

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lemming741 3 points a year ago

That's our go-to lazy Sunday breakfast.

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salacious_coaster 53 points a year ago

It would be so nice to live somewhere I could walk to the store. Or anywhere.

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RightHandOfIkaros 41 points a year ago

The non-American mind cannot conceive of living in a place so vast.

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SomeAmateur 24 points a year ago

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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tyler 28 points a year ago

I mean we do need that, but that has nothing to do with the problem. the majority of people don't live in those vast expanses of nothingness. Most of our cities are just as populated as most European cities, we just have shit laws around zoning, single family housing, population density, NIMBYs blocking any change, and people that think public transit is for poor people. They don't travel to other countries and so have no clue how good things could actually be.

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echodot 13 points a year ago

we just have shit laws around zoning

Yeah above all else I think that is the biggest issue. There are daft rules about the size of carparks that mean that, what would be a local store in the EU, becomes this vast strip mall in the US with 12 acres of parking lot to walk across so you can get your milk.

You practically need a car to just drive across the vast expanses of car infrastructure. Crossing the road in the US is something you have to plan your day around

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DesolateMood 5 points a year ago

Or California to California

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captainlezbian 3 points a year ago

Yeah but you did just describe massive changes in scenery in America. You can do 12 hours of the same here for sure, the great plains are really big, but usually 12 hours of driving later the scenery has changed. It's 14 hours from Duluth Minnesota which is on Lake Superior to Sundance Wyoming which has the devil's tower monument and is past the great long stretches of nothing that makes up the bulk of the Dakotas. Des Moines is a city surrounded by nothing but corn and open road (with a distinct feel from the Dakotas) and is 12 hours from Memphis Tennessee which is adjacent to Appalachia. Baltimore Maryland, a coastal city on the Chesapeake Bay and near a bunch of swamps driving 12 hours west and north can get you into and out of the Appalachian Mountains (and not a short cut of them), barely dodging Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Toledo (with an optional roller coaster detour at Sandusky) while you hug Lake Erie, do the entire border of Michigan and Indiana before landing in Michigan City, Indiana on Lake Michigan, which looks like it's just outside Chicagoland.

And out of curiosity I checked what a cross country trip looks like, NYC to Los Angeles is 50 hours, while the longest road trip between frequent destinations is Key West to Seattle at 63 hours. The latter of these begins on a tropical island, goes through swamps, deep south agricultural areas, Appalachia, Midwestern agriculture, the Mississippi River, Midwest agriculture, great plains, badlands, Rockies, pnw valleys, cascade mountains, and ends in a rainy ass wetlands, but this one has wild disparity between day length over the year.

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Jiggle_Physics 2 points a year ago

In, roughly, 12 hours I can get from pennsylvania to florida. DC to Charleston should not take that long.

I actually looked up my last trip from where I used to live. it was 14 hours and 12 minutes. So a little over 12, but point still stands.

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hanrahan 1 point a year ago

Thaya got noting to do.withngorceey sjopping thoigh.

I just.saw the opening scene of Tomorrow War (Chris Pratt movie), it starts with a scene of a drone shot over a US suburb and I was horrofied, a literal shit hole of a place to live and this horror is normalized?

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zout 17 points a year ago

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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Yuki 8 points a year ago

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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Ilovethebomb 44 points a year ago

Where in the world can you buy a week's groceries for $50?

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Psionicsickness 29 points a year ago

1970ish?

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Mac 1 point a year ago

Yes, we were all buying $300k cars in 1970.

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rumschlumpel 21 points a year ago

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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jaybone 15 points a year ago

Also if you are walking to the store, you are limiting the amount you can buy as you have to transport it back home. I have a nice little collapsible cart I use. Even that fills up and gets heavy once you are adding beverages.

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trxxruraxvr 8 points a year ago

Adding beverages is wasting money anyway, just drink water

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naeap 9 points a year ago

The stuff from the toilet??

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Bo7a 9 points a year ago

REMEMBER THE ONLY WAY TO BE FRUGAL IS TO NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT BRINGS YOU PLEASURE, OR EAT ANYTHING BUT BEANS/RICE AND DRINK ONLY WATER.

This is what people who say shit like that sound to folks who know that life is not meant to just be survived, but enjoyed.

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jaybone 4 points a year ago

Lol ok buddy

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rumschlumpel 5 points a year ago

True, you're definitely missing out on a lot of bulk items, especially when you're living in a smaller apartment and don't even have the space to store 10 pound bags. And you pretty much have to go to the store multiple times a week.

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OmegaSunkey 13 points a year ago

in my country if you ignore meat its almost that

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Anivia 10 points a year ago

If you are extremely frugal everywhere, even the US

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sugar_in_your_tea 2 points a year ago

Yeah, that's just over $7/day, which is doable.

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echodot 7 points a year ago

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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GoOnASteamTrain 4 points a year ago

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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mephiska 2 points a year ago

I want to know who's able to spend only $45 at Costco.

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sugar_in_your_tea 3 points a year ago

Get a week's worth of rotisserie chicken. 😀

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Bronzebeard -1 points a year ago

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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lemming741 3 points a year ago

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/...

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Bronzebeard 2 points a year ago

Midwest

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lemming741 2 points a year ago

That's a lot of corn on the cob

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Drewmeister 30 points a year ago

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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echodot 6 points a year ago

Can't you just order groceries? Isn't that a thing in the US?

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rumschlumpel 2 points a year ago

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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RightHandOfIkaros 12 points a year ago

Renting a car? Oh... You mean like, subscribing? The type of payment model where the consumer always ends up overpaying when needing to use the service for extended periods of time?

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Schmuppes 7 points a year ago

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rumschlumpel 6 points a year ago

That's only a subscription if you keep the car 24/7, it's a completely different thing if you only rent for a couple of hours per week. Even renting a car for a day (which might be the shortest amount of time you can rent a car in many places) wouldn't be a subscription, though at that point it might not be cheaper than owning anymore.

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zerosignal 6 points a year ago

The car rental place is further away from me than the grocery store.

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Shellbeach 3 points a year ago

Car2go was such an awesome service. I missed it very much when it went......I don't know, where did it go?

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jaybone 4 points a year ago

Or instacart.

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BootLoop 28 points a year ago

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.

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SitD 8 points a year ago

ehm Canadian winter will make sure the food does not spoil on the way ☺️

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qarbone 5 points a year ago

Neither will op's corpse until they find it next spring.

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BootLoop 2 points a year ago

Yeah no kidding.

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eru 4 points a year ago

where are you buying a drivable car in canada that cheap

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BootLoop 2 points a year ago

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.

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domdanial 4 points a year ago

So it was already like 19 years old when you got it, makes sense that it was pretty low cost.

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BootLoop 1 point a year ago

Yep. Don't need all the bells and whistles. On top of that it was incredibly reliable and fuel efficient since there wasn't much to it.

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sugar_in_your_tea 3 points a year ago

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.

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Simulation6 3 points a year ago

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.

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Aneb 2 points a year ago

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!

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nutsack -1 points a year ago

ride a bike in order to automatically don't be fat

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enbipanic 3 points a year ago

That's how it works obviously

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nutsack 1 point a year ago

basically

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Randomgal 16 points a year ago

"walk to a store" lol okay bro doesn't know wtf they're talking about.

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sugar_in_your_tea 6 points a year ago

Yeah, nearest store to me is like 30 min walk each way. Nearest Costco is about the same time in the car as the grocery store (5-10 min).

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Ibuthyr 5 points a year ago

That's a 5 minute bicycle ride then?

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sugar_in_your_tea 2 points a year ago

Something like that, yeah. Costco is more like 10 min, and I've done runs to both on my bike.

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Aneb 3 points a year ago

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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echodot 15 points a year ago

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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frezik 15 points a year ago

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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tigeruppercut 7 points a year ago

If your commute is about an hour each way you're probably spending roughly that much.

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Honytawk 5 points a year ago

Not having a car wouldn't be an option then.

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Amir -2 points a year ago

Trains exist

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_stranger_ 12 points a year ago

Places that are nowhere near a train also exist.

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Tenniswaffles 10 points a year ago

That's completely dependent on where you live. The closest train station to me is an hour and fifteen minutes walk from me.

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ijustliketrains 7 points a year ago

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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SoftestSapphic 5 points a year ago

This is b8

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bjoern_tantau 4 points a year ago

!fuckcars@lemmy.world

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tungsten5 2 points a year ago

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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teletext 22 points a year ago

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tungsten5 3 points a year ago

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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Honytawk 2 points a year ago

You said that the reason is because they can not afford a car. But when you live in a walkable city, you do not need one. It is more of a detriment since you still need to store it somewhere and pay taxes on it, even when you don't use it.

So yes, you were attacking being able to live in a walkable city.

You saying you live in one now just makes you look like a hypocrite.

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tungsten5 1 point a year ago

Nah lil bro, you misunderstood. I never said he couldn’t afford a car. I claimed he didn’t own one. I suggest reading comments more carefully and not trying to jump to conclusions.

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jumping_redditor 2 points a year ago

some people don't like having overpriced housing costs that don't include even a quarter acer of land

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MirthfulAlembic 6 points a year ago

I don't think there's a significant correlation between walkable cities and higher real estate prices. There are plenty of unwalkable cities with high real estate prices and vice versa. That's more a product of a large number of factors, from average income to density to quality of education and beyond. Walkability could be one of those, but I am doubtful it is a primary one, at least in the US.

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Alcoholicorn 2 points a year ago

Rent is 300/mo/2bd here. 2 grociers and a market are 5 minutes by bike. You can park within a few feet of your destination because of how dense parking bikes is. This is the 6th city I've stayed in where this is true, more if you're a little looser with the requirements.

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Unpeeled3828 2 points a year ago

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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Amnesigenic 1 point a year ago

Anon is far too stupid to be trusted with a car

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RightHandOfIkaros 4 points a year ago

Spending only $50 a week on groceries, I dont expect Anon will live very long due to malnourishment.

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hotdogcharmer 5 points a year ago

Wait, what's your weekly grocery bill just for you?

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RightHandOfIkaros 3 points a year ago

I am in California, so it's usually more than $90 each week if I don't get fast food for any meal.

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hotdogcharmer 3 points a year ago

Ah, rough. Groceries can be wildly expensive.

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tyler -1 points a year ago

Man, y'all really have no clue about other countries do you.

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Amnesigenic 0 points a year ago

Other countries have transit systems, they don't have to buy a car to get to Costco, this is obviously written by a stupid american about the US

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