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?

I live in a a city but we both needs cars to get to work (not working in city centre). Buses take me more than twice as long.

DH and I have two cars and drive both of them, though we gravitate towards different ones. And DS drives one of them, we don't insure him on both.

But when I was young my parents had two cars but one was an automatic because my mum had an automatic licence, so my dad could drive both cars but she drove one. Also my dad's car was a company car for a long time, so my mum couldn't drive it anyway.

One car
We walk a lot
We work from home and organise site visits around car availability

Hang on to your hats folks we also share a phone

Hang on to your hats folks we also share a phone

How do you contact each other if you are apart?

I couldn't imagine not having my own phone. Do you not have DC?

How does sharing a phone work?

do you not have your own mobiles? I couldn’t be without mine- not just the phone aspect but my entire life is organised on there- from banking to satnav.

it’s really hard to use one device to access two accounts for a lot of things, especially banking or other secure apps.

the only way I can see it work is if everything is shared- joint email, joint banking, joint social media profiles. In my line of work that’s a huge red flag 🤷‍♀️

When Dc were young: family car for family days out / carting the kids about / carting ‘stuff’ , plus small economical nippy car.

Both used interchangeably according to who was doing what job.

Such a sexist cliche: she drives the people carrier and thus doing the kid-errands becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, he has the sporty number (‘can’t get car seat in the back’) and doesn’t want the sick, the muddy boots etc

Would never have entertained that!

We bank online using laptops and have joint accounts
We use the car satnav
we don’t have any social media accounts
we are both Architects.

We had seperate phones many years back but when one was stolen we started sharing and never bothered since.

We do have a landline if one of us is abroad

Yes we have 3 children
early 20s all at Uni
but when they were at school we still had one phone.

We work together
We have a landline if one of us is out of the country

We use the car satnav

My car satnav doesn't pick up traffic updates. I connect my phone to the car satnav because it has a lovely big screen, and can get notifications of traffic delays.

Being the registered keeper has nothing whatsoever to do with ownership so there’s no “technically” about it.

We too have the "big car small car" setup. I do think technically I own the big car and he owns the small one. We just take whichever one suits our needs. Usually the one with the kids takes the big car.

It’s been about since at least the 80s in its earliest form.

We can afford 2 because we have a high family income and we don’t have to sacrifice anything to have 2 cars.
We also ‘share’ cars OP. We have a large 7 seater, suited for long journeys and for when we’re ferrying the kids and their friends around, and a smaller runaround with less mileage per charge (both cars are electric). We both just take whichever one is most suitable for the particular journey.

We have more than one car because we both work in completely different directions in an area not well served with public transport, and 3 kids who do different hobbies at the same time, also in different directions.

It's amazing that people can't envisage that. Isn't it.

Imagine, a married couple making a joint decision about an expensive purchase... don't you ever discuss a major purchase together eg a house, TV, washing machine etc?? Seems entirely normal to me. Of course we both had to agree on what car to get, not sure why that's strange.

Also on the seat adjustment front, our big car (Kia ENiro) has driver 1 and driver 2 settings for me and DH. With our small car we just move the seat when we get in, there are 4 potential drivers (me, DH, DD1 and DD2), it takes all of about 30 seconds.

Well, if we were buying two washing machines, we could each choose the type we liked best.

Then how do you think a couple both get to work if they work somewhere that public transport doesn’t serve? Myself and dh had a car each when we met, like most couples probably. Always kept to 2 cars because the fact that we got married amazingly didn’t take away the need for us both to get to work. Yes I know it’s not cheap, but it’s essential for us and many others

Neither DH nor I give a shit about cars. They’re something that gets us from A to B. So they’re chosen (together) based on practicality, size, reliability and price. We’ve never argued about what colour to have it in or anything like that 🤷🏻‍♀️, because neither of us particularly care.

Same here. Reliability above all else. I'm not interested in status symbols for anything.

Interesting
ours does and notifies us and asks if we want to take a different route
Press yes and it automatically diverts us
Its really handy but I don’t know the make it was in the car when we bought it

I’m astonished that people would live somewhere so secluded that they’d need two cars to get anywhere. Sounds like the states.

Or just a normal place where two adults often need to be in different places and children need to be taken to different places.

My parents used to manage with one car because my dad cycled to work and more activities were in our small town. Now DH has to drive, sometimes between different sites in the day and nearly all of DC activities are in different nearby towns. Only Cubs is in the village.

Public transport is rubbish anywhete but city centres unfortunstely. You dont have to be "secluded".

We have two buses an hour into town. Supposed to take 50 monutes. Currently includes a 20mimute diversion due to a level crossing being shut (for another 5 months). And thats just to get into town...

This is absolutely our set up. Works perfectly.