Jack Tame: Three months living as a one-car-couple

<p>At the start of this year, my girlfriend decided to sell her old dunga’.</p> <p>It was a good decision. Her car was a big, old, fat 2.6L sedan with blind spots the size of a bouncy castle, and the only thing it loved more than chewing through vast quantities of petrol was being as difficult as possible to wedge into parallel parks.</p> <p>‘Good news!’ she said to me, one day.</p> <p>‘I sold my car for three thousand dollars!’</p> <p>‘That’s fantastic! I replied. And so, what are you thinking now?</p> <p>‘Well, I’ve got your car,’ she said.</p> <p>….</p> <p>I don’t think I truly appreciated New Zealand’s lagging mathematics achievement until I noted the laxness of my girlfriend’s attitude to the situation.</p> <p>‘I can give you the three thousand if you really want it,’ said my girlfriend.</p> <p>‘But my car’s worth ten thousand dollars.’ I said.</p> <p>Welcome to love.</p> <p>The reason I’m telling you this is not actually anything to do with cars. It’s about what I decided to do next. Because, faced with a carless future, I did nothing.</p> <p>Three months ago, my girlfriend and I decided to become a one-car couple.</p> <p>Between us, living in two different houses, in different suburbs, with her son and various jobs to balance, we decided to see if we could get by with just the one vehicle.</p> <p>The theory was pretty simple. Whenever I could, I would ride my bike. She would walk more and use public transport. Both of us would have to be a bit thoughtful about our requirements in advance. I thought of it as Corolla coordination, as we tried to plan out our weeks as best we could.</p> <p>If it was raining, or we had stuff to carry, or we were running late for an important meeting, we wouldn’t guilt ourselves about spending money on Ubers. I figured whatever we spent on Ubers would be more than covered by our savings on a new car, insurance, and petrol.</p> <p>Today is April 1st, three months into 2023. Three months since we made the switch.</p> <p>The thing that has surprised me most is how