We have lived with just one car for almost 3 years now.  To our international readers, this may not sound like anything much, you might even be thinking of it as luxurious to own a car.  To everyone in America, your response is likely more along the lines of "You only have one car? How do you survive?!"

When we moved to Colorado in 2007, we only came with one car.  Our other one likely wouldn't have made it the 1000 miles.  The plan was to buy a second car when we could afford it.  But then our Jeep started to go, and so we needed a new car, and had no money for a second car.  I wasn't working at the time, and it was really no big deal to manage one car between the two of us.  I started working not long after, but we found that it wasn't much harder to manage one car with both of us working.  So we just kept doing it, and are coming up on 3 years.  I'm at home, again, which makes it both easier and harder, but we make it work.  We thought having Charlotte would complicate the one-car-thing further, but it really hasn't.

We get a lot of "Why don't you just buy a cheap/old/junky car?" And honestly, affordability is part of it.  Not only do we not have a second car payment, but we don't have to pay for license plates, insurance or maintenance.  But more than just that, we're more conscious about our driving.  We plan better, and drive less.  When we drive across town for something, we do all of our across-town errands. That may not sound like a lot, but it wasn't necessarily a habit we had when we each drove our own car.  And we spend more time together, since generally, if there are errands to run or shopping to do, we do it together.

So it's a double win. :)  -Anna