Do other couples share both cars rather than having one each?

[OhMyGodItsSoGood]

I saw a post on Instagram that was astonished about a set up where a married couple don't have their “own” cars but instead both just share two cars and take whichever one they want when they need it. Monsters, apparently.

I was astonished at the poster’s astonishment because this is our set up and it genuinely didn’t occur to me that it was weird or unusual. We have two cars between us, one big, one smaller, and we just take whichever is more suitable at the time (usually whoever has the kids takes the bigger car). We don’t have or think of them as belonging to either of us.

Opened up a discussion in the WhatsApp chat with my pals. They all think it’s weird too and I am a bit 🤯

I mean it’s not a big deal, it works for us, I’m not upset or worked up. I’m just curious as to whether any other couples prefer this set up?

We do have his and hers cars.

’Hers’ is more practical and has a towbar and tends to cover the longer distances.
’His’ are two Italian cars that are to varying degrees impractical (a convertible, and a Maserati).

We each drive all of them, but most often drive our ‘own’ car(s). We both appreciate different things in cars so it makes sense to have our own.

We share our cars- we have an SUV and a newer small nippy car. We tend to use the smaller car more to keep the mileage down on the SUV which does very long trips several times a year.

Same! We have personal accounts and get £200 each a month from the joint account to spend as we wish. Everything else is family money. I think we are very much in the minority doing this if I talk to our friend group! I think not having joint finances is more weird....

Er? No. He’s not getting the Porsche every day! I have my standards! He’s not unhappy with our other cars though. We have a 5 car pool. We can drive what we want.

We have one each and would check before taking the other person's as we both keep things we might need and only have one of in them. Side by side drive so it doesn't matter who goes out first. We came into the relationship with one medium and one small car (Escort and Fiesta) and have continued that way through bringing up the DCs. We always had car seats in both as one dropped off at nursery and the other picked up. Neither of us has ever been able to commute by public transport. When they were young I had the bigger car so I could put pushchair etc in on my days off but we switched back to me having the smaller car once they were at school as I had a much longer commute and it was more economical. The insurance always asks you to state who is the main driver so that's straightforward in our scenario. Both paid for out of family money and both fairly basic workhorses, safe, economical and reliable are the priorities, neither of us wants anything high-performance.

We have three cars that DH, MIL and I use. The car DH generally takes to work (he can be away days at a time) is a small two seater electric. We have an Astra for times when MIL or I are on our own or ferrying children not including DD3. Then our WAV for whoever is carrying DD3 or would be the one to go collect her from school if needed.

They are known by their colours “I’m taking blue today” 😂

We have three cars that DH, MIL and I use. The car DH generally takes to work (he can be away days at a time) is a small two seater electric. We have an Astra for times when MIL or I are on our own or ferrying children not including DD3. Then our WAV for whoever is carrying DD3 or would be the one to go collect her from school if needed.

They are known by their colours “I’m taking blue today” 😂

We have three cars that DH, MIL and I use. The car DH generally takes to work (he can be away days at a time) is a small two seater electric. We have an Astra for times when MIL or I are on our own or ferrying children not including DD3. Then our WAV for whoever is carrying DD3 or would be the one to go collect her from school if needed.

They are known by their colours “I’m taking blue today” 😂

We have three cars that DH, MIL and I use. The car DH generally takes to work (he can be away days at a time) is a small two seater electric. We have an Astra for times when MIL or I are on our own or ferrying children not including DD3. Then our WAV for whoever is carrying DD3 or would be the one to go collect her from school if needed.

They are known by their colours “I’m taking blue today” 😂

We have three and run a car pool between us and the older kids. Have always shared other than when I took a dislike to one and so usually pinched the other.

one each but at the weekend switch between them , his is a bigger diesel (my old car and higher mileage so uses it for work) and better for tip / allotment runs and mine is a newer electric one so cheaper to use for any trips

No because I have some M&S toffees in my cup holder that dh doesn’t know about. It’s not worth the risk.

I do take his if I’m going somewhere hard to park as it parks itself.

We have a concept of my car and DH’s car, because I picked one and he picked the other - but we probably both drive each others cars equally, so I’ll take DH’s car somewhere just as often as I’ll take mine.

5 cars? Why so many?

We have two cars in theory but one of them is a classic car that only seems to function about one week of the year, the rest of the time it’s in some kind of tinkering state propped up on bricks. It is also tiny and doesn’t fit our two greyhounds in it. So we both drive my car most of the time. I make my DP share costs of running it. I’d never drive his because it’s a death trap and also there’s no way he’d let me even though I’m the more experienced driver.

We have a car each - mine a small (and pretty nice) hatchback, DP's is a 7 seater estate/banger. DP drives mine a fairly regularly as it's more fuel efficient. I don't tend to drive DP's as it's a bit of a beast with a super long bonnet and I basically don't like it as I'm used to small non-threatening cars. We share costs for both. So in theory we kind of share but it's only really one way in practice.

When we had two cars we had one each, mine was nicer so if we did long journeys we'd take mine but share the driving. DH wouldn't have taken my car to work for example. We actually got rid of DHs car when we realised it had only been used 3 times in a month and would need substantial work in the next year cam belt etc. We were both based really close to home and one of us often walked or cycled to work. DHs new job means he now has a longer commute by train but we're considering getting a small electric car as a second car. I think we'd both drive both this time and much like you whoever was either running DS around or doing grocery shopping etc would take the bigger car

We do this. I'd never thought of it being unusual! One car is big so whoever is taking the kids, musical instrumentsor has a bad back or is going on a long journey takes this.

The other car is small and whoever is popping out locally or needs to park somewhere with tight spaces takes this one.

Our finances are joint so it seems strange to separate car use so strictly.

I will draw the line at sleeping on any old side of the bed though. That's worse than hot desking!

We have an older (bigger) car and a newer/nicer/sporty car. By default the older one is “mine” because it’s bigger and abit grubbier and I inevitably am lugging the baby and dogs around or just leaving it at the train station when I go to work. 99% of the time I use that car and my husband has the “nice” one. But today for example, im meeting my friend for lunch and picking her up en route, so I took his car without having to ask / check

We own one car. It’s “our” car, we paid for it out of our joint account (though it might just be in Partners name? He filled out ownership transfer papers).

in day to day life though it’s my car. Partner has a work ute that he drives to work and I take our car 🤷‍♀️

At my work whoever has the kids has the car with the twins baby seats. Even though it’s the mums car (leased through her work)

We just have one car that DH and I share between ourselves so people probably think we’re really weird!

We both wfh and when we do travel for work, it’s to big cities some distance away or internationally so we use trains and planes.

So no need for 2 cars!

We always did this. We had two cars, a large practical one and a runabout. We just used which ever car suited our purpose on the day. Now we’re retired and down to one car. We occasionally need to negotiate but rarely do we need it at the same time. I miss having a back up for emergencies but that’s the only reason we’d bother with a second car now.

We both swap the cars around between us. Technically one is registered to me and one to DH but funnily enough I tend to drive the one registered to DH and vice versa.

We used to have our "own" cars when we first got together but as kids etc came along like others we have one bigger car and then a sportier runaround. I do tend to favour driving the bigger car as the sporty one while technically registered to me is quite low to the ground and I prefer a higher up driving position. But it wouldn't be weird at all for DH to take the big car somewhere and leave me with the other one.

It does make sharing driving easier that we can both drive both cars.

Technically Dh owns both our cars as he is the registered keeper on both. We do have a my car, his car but we both also drive each others. His car is bigger so is the main family car but mine is cheaper to run (petrol) so is used as a run about/school run/supermarket trip car but either of us can take either car for whatever reason we want but I definitely have the mindset of his car and my car.

We have two both paid for and insured by me.

Despite once having owned a Zafira Domestic Facilities management finds the Kia Ceed Estate to big to drive comfortably so she usually uses the Picanto.

I usually drive the Ceed if only to keep it alive BUT I do use the Picanto sometimes usually when I go to Bath for Sad Club as its dead easy to park in the Southgate Car Park