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We have operated with one car for two years now. It has worked wonderfully(thankfully). Also, in OUR situation, it fits our budget better to have one car.
Currently pre retirement and we are operating off of one car. We own two but circumstances dictated we give up one car for the time being (yes it will return eventually). I can tell you that I am beginning to get a bit frustrated. I am the taxi driver for everything. I take my wife in to work and pick her up after work. I also pick up a nephew after school so my afternoon commute starts at 2:45pm and dont finish until 6:00 pm. On good days I dont hit traffic with my timing but there are those days!!!!!!!!!!
I am soon to be retired and I can see this going off and on into that until we move from here to retirement location (not determined yet).
We sold our second car only after my husband became too ill to drive. We lived in an area where we had to o drive to everything, there was no public transportation, and he and I were involved in different activities. It would have been very difficult with only one car.
I like Renees idea of testing it out for a month. It really depends on your finances too. In my case, never! But many do just fine with one, and just Uber or rent if the situation arises. It for sure can be a money saver, though, depending on your circumstances. The real analysis is total cost of ownership per year. In my case, because I am a gear head, and have never bought a new car (or financed in the last 10+ years) and suffered the worst of depreciation, my TCOO are as low as $100 a month, and average between 3 vehicles about $150 per. That amount drops every year, as I keep my vehicles a long time, and insurance and taxes drop every year. But only I work, have to use rentals and fleet cars occasionally, and have a short commute, so we only put on about 4-6k a year on cars, so they last.
My parents have two cars. My mom rarely drives or goes out alone, but she does it often enough (once a week?) that it warranted them keeping both cars so that when she does go out for a day's worth of errands, my dad is able to go out if he wants to. And vice versa.
However, their cars are paid off, which makes a difference.
To the OP, if you only have one more year of payments, why not focus on paying it off early, so that you have NO more payments and have an "extra" car at your disposal? As someone else said, when the spouse's car has to go in the shop, you won't have to rent one. And having two cars cuts down on the wear and tear of just having one.
Keep both cars and keep them at least 8 years and rotate out the older one. You may want to adjust the type of cars you drive and have one sedan and one SUV. You don't know how that extra time will play out and you may start travelling and doing more than you realize. Let it evolve and then decide. We are doing more non work related driving than ever.
Do remember that going to one car can always be supplemented with a rental car on occasions. When I need a second car. I call my local Hertz or Enterprise rental location and have them deliver a car to me. I think that I have used them 2-3 times this year in lieu of owning a second car.
This is all very helpful. In fact, the diverse opinions here reflect the exact debate that is going on my head!
We do have one small sedan (mine), and one small SUV. I use a walker sometimes, and it is difficult to get into the sedan. But I don't always need it, and most times the sedan is fine for me.
We purchased at a very low interest rate, and the interest is almost all paid off, so my preference would be to pay down/off on other things before paying off this vehicle.
We typically do keep our cars until they die. In fact, I was hoping my husband's old (11 years?) SUV would have made it until my car was paid off but, alas, it died about three months ago.
It all depends upon your situation. Maybe you should compare your situation with others on here and see which ones are most similar to yours. If people in similar situations are getting by with one car then probably you could too. If they need two cars, then probably that's the route for you.
We went to one car in our late 60s and it works for us. I don't mind staying home when he needs the car for the day and vice versa. There's nothing to do in this town anyway so we stay home a lot. dh can stay home and play on the computer or take the dog for a walk, fix dinner. Me too.
When we had two cars it was double trouble, always something going wrong. Both cars were paid for but if it wasn't a muffler, it was a battery, the a/c or new tires. This climate is hard on cars though.
When we take a road trip we are together in the car. When our last car died we just rented a car so we could go around looking at other cars. When that car died while I was out shopping, I just called a cab to get home. We are on a budget anyway and both of us were raised to be frugal so even if it inconvenienced us a tiny bit, we don't mind.
A low mileage car in good condition will still be worth quite a bit next year, the following year and the one after that, so you shouldn't have to worry about resale.
As most of the others have said, keep the car for now and really keep track of how often owning only one vehicle would be a real nuisance.
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