How to get around on the cheap

London: Cars cost and how. According to the RAC, we spend between 12 per cent and 26 per cent of our disposable income on buying and running a car and, unsurprisingly, the poorest households spend the biggest proportion of their funds on them.

The RAC sees this as the strongest argument yet for a reduction in fuel duty. “These figures should shock the chancellor,” says Prof Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation. “It lays bare the truth about the extent of transport poverty in the UK.”

But I think there’s another truth to bring into the mix here: many of us who are running cars don’t need them. We think we need a car, but we don’t. And when we’re brave enough to give it a try, we realise we can manage perfectly well without one while saving a fortune in the bargain.

But eight months ago our elderly people carrier was hit by a passing vehicle while it was parked outside our house, and the damage was so bad it had to be written off.

But, the insurance payout didn’t even begin to cover the costs of buying a new car and I worked out that, with the loan we’d need plus petrol, insurance, parking permits and tax, we could easily be looking at around £600 a month.

And that’s when I had my eureka moment. Why not just give up having a car at all? The more I thought about it, the more sensible it seemed. I live in London. We have a railway station behind our house, a tube station 10 minutes’ walk away, and a bus stop at the end of the street. Added to which, a new car club had just opened in our area, and one of its shiny little red Peugeots was parked nearby. If any family in Britain could live without a car, I reasoned, then surely we were that family?

But my new car-free evangelism, sadly, wasn’t shared by my family. My teenage daughters were horrified. How would they get to and from university? (A coach, I suggested.) How would they get home from parties across town late at night? (Isn’t that what taxis are for? And yes, I do realise they’re more expensive than mum and dad driving, actually.) What would their friends think about our family being “too poor to afford a car”?

Luxury or necessity?

My friends, too, were astonished at our plan even friends who live in London. Wasn’t a car essential, when you had children? What would happen if someone got seriously ill overnight and needed to go to hospital (erm an ambulance?). How would the children get to and from their many events? (Well, there are always all those buses and trains.) People smiled indulgently, as though this was another of my mad ideas, before saying they were sure I’d soon realise that a car wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity.

Eight months on, I wonder whether we’ll ever own a car again. The idea that you “have” to own a car, especially if you live in a city, is all in the mind. Do I really need a car? The answer, for me, turned out to be no, and I’m a lot richer because I dared to ask the question.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd