Do you have two cars in your family? And if so, why?

[Homeiswherethedogsare]

Would love my own car one day once I get over fear of driving (another topic) but realise it woukd be a waste of money as I work in central London and don’t need it much apart from the odd days in the weekend.
DH uses the car every day to go to work.
Curious to know, do most families have multiple cars and if so why?
We don’t have a big budget for cars so maybe it would be better to have one nicer one than 2 old and average?

We actually have 3. One each because to me a car is important for independence (even though I do actually WFH most of the time) and then DH has his ‘fun’ car that mostly lives in the garage! DH’s work horse is an old car, mine is a nice car, the car I’ve wanted for years!

We tried to manage with just one for a while but it doubled my journey time to work from half hour to one hour so we got another. We also have teenage twins who are now 18 who have a car each. It does seem excessive, but it makes life easier - they go to different colleges in different directions, and have different sets of friends, so never go out together. None of the cars are fancy though. Mine is 2005, hubby's is 2009 and the girls' cars are 2012 and 2014. Three of them fit on our driveway, and the fourth one is usually parked across the crossover. The girls pay for their own insurance with money from their Saturday jobs.

We have 2. I use one a small electric car for work and general running around, DH has a works van. We went down to 1 for a while but wasn't manageable as DH would need to walk the 2 miles to school to pick up my DD, or he would do the odd home job for people leaving me without a car. The 2nd car is a SUV diesel and barely used day to day but it also has our Tentbox on it so its basically a campervan with all our camping crap stored in it.

I am a domiciliary care worker so need my own car. My partner works on an industrial estate and starts early on the morning.
Public transport don't match up with the employers need for punctuality.

We have two cars, one for me and one for my DH. How could we travel to distant places independently without each using a car? When my DH drives his, mine is free for me to use. For family outings, we all share one car while the other stays in the garage. It seems very obvious and like common sense to us.

We have 2 cars. But we probably wouldn’t if we both lived and worked in central london.

We didn't have two cars during the football playing years. We live in a village and though home games would be walkable, it would a be a rare away match that we could get to easily by public transport. However, it really wasn't that hard to arrange to alternate lifts with another family. With 4 kids doing different activities I can imagine 1 car would be a struggle, but with just 2 kids it really wasn't hard to work around. I think some people default to thinking they need 2 cars when they really don't.

But how often do you really need to travel to distant places independently using a car, unless for work? We did fine until our kids needed another car to learn to drive. We live in a small-ish village. It does have a station (which works for work) but there are plenty of places we can't get to by train. But a combination of doing stuff locally, doing stuff together, and checking with the other person before we plan something that needs the car worked just fine. We do have a second (kids) car now, which in theory we can drive, but I can't remember the last time either of us used it.

We go out independently every day somewhere, and we are retired! The shops, the chemists, the doctors, dentists, etc. Going out to meet friends for coffee or lunch. Actually we rarely go out together, we need time apart in order to stay sane!

All the time! DP is away this weekend, with his car and if I didn't have mine I'd be a bit stuck. There are things I can get to on public transport but this weekend, I plan to go swimming (outdoors, car required!) and do a trip to the tip. Neither are particularly distant but both impossible without a car, or asking someone for a lift.

It's not rocket science, surely? You have two adults, doing different jobs, in different places? Perhaps more than one child, doing different activities, or needing lifts from different schools?

We currently only have one as I WFH and it's really not worth having 2. It's only a problem every so often, and we manage to sort it.

As for your fear of driving.. honestly, get some lessons with a good instructor. Refresher lessons if you've already passed. It makes all the difference. Being able to drive is a complete life changer. You will never, ever regret sorting it.

For us it would be luxury to have two cars, we're like you. London living and I used to work more central london so didn't need the car during the week. I now work more local but more tricky to get to with only bus routes. My husband works from home with occasional meetings in the week. We share, husband has the car when he is working from home as he can then do shopping and take the dog for a nice longer walk (he is is own boss, not company time). If he's away at meetings, I get the luxury of driving to work. So yes I wouldn't mind another car but the cost outweighs the benefits.

I totally believe some families absolutely need their cars to drive to work but I also think there are lots of families like ours that could actually do with less vehicles but are essentially not willing to give up the luxury. I know for a fact that my neighbour falls in this category.

We looked at deregistering the second car during the Covid lockdowns (which were longer and stricter in my country). This was when we both started wfh. We would have saved a paltry €50 a year with the costs involved with de- and later reregistering. And there are always a couple of times a month when we really absolutely do need both cars.

When the second car, now 11 years old, conks out, we may well not replace it. The village has an EV car sharing scheme and DH also has an e bike. But we’re hoping the second car lasts at least another 2 years.

When my husband was alive we had a car each for almost all our married life for entirely practical / logistical reasons, except when living overseas where often, as we were city based, we'd only have one or even no car. Those cars were almost always new or newish vaguely sensible cars. Latterly we also tended to have an old, cheap, fun or quirky sort of car as well. Since he died, some 7 years ago now, I have floated between 1, 2 or even 3 cars at times, but usually two, which is the current situation. The two are a newish largeish EV for covering long distances and carrying people and/or stuff. I also have 15 year old cheap Mercedes convertible as a vaguely fun sort of car for running around in during the spring / autumn :)

Had just one for a long time as dh worked from home and we lived in town so could walk everywhere. I used the car for work
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Now we live rurally. Both work from home but we have two cars. Learned early on that being as remote as we are meant that one car being off the road meant we were all stranded or if one of us took the car, the other was stranded. We are very rural and nothing is close by to walk to. Hours to walk to town..
Happy to have the two cars now oldest dc is driving too as he’s constantly taking mine out .

Yes. Because my husband has to go to work at 2am and u need a car to get the kids to school and do everyday things

We have two even though we both mostly WFH.

We could manage with one car if we needed to, but we tend to organise our life so that we're out of the house doing things separately at the same time - so that we still have time to spend together. A car each means that's possible (limited public transport here). I have a hobby I do basically every day that isn't on a public transport route, so it would be a scheduling headache if we had to share a car. And we can afford it, so why not.

When we lived in London our lives were very different and we didn't have a car at all. The life we currently live, the assumption of car access is built in.