Okay my February Challenge of spending less than $600 was a technical defeat (I went $34 over) but a moral victory. What's next for March?
This month, I aim to launch an experiential inquiry in to the assumption that one needs a car to live in a rural area. I'm going to live a month without my truck.
We’ve had some good times together, haven’t we bud?
The choice for this month's challenge presented itself, as Robyn could really use a vehicle for her new job on the other side of the state. I've been toying with the idea of selling my truck sometime this year anyway, so it felt like perfect timing to go for a test run of not owning my truck.
The point of this month isn't to never utilize a vehicle whatsoever, it's to forgo vehicle ownership. Borrowing or renting a vehicle when necessary is perfectly acceptable - at some point I'm going to need to pick up a load of lumber or move Serenity. The point is to get some sense for what it's like to not be able to jump in to a hulking cage of steel and glass at any instant the whim comes over me, while living in a location where cars are the only reasonable means of transportation to access resources.
Not owning a car is nothing new to me. Jeremiah is my first vehicle, and I bought him in 2017. Prior to that, I lived in a city, where being carless is trivial. I rode my bike or took the train anywhere I wanted to go, and I wasn't building anything so I never needed to pick up lumber.
Now, however, I live up in the mountains. The nearest gas station is ten miles away, the nearest town about twenty. There are no buses or trains. The spot is almost 4,000' in elevation, so while it doesn't get extreme weather, moderately cold and snowy weather is expected a quarter of the year.
For normal errands, like buying groceries or picking up a few angle brackets at the hardware store, I'll use my motorcycle. If it's too cold or stormy, I won't go. If I need lumber or anything else I can't carry on my moto, I'll rent a truck or tack on to a trip my roommate is taking.
I expect that a major result of this month’s challenge will be an increase in intentionality around list-making. If getting lumber involves renting a truck, you can be sure that I'm going to very carefully plan out exactly what I need, and bundle on a few other errands besides (groceries, toilet paper, et cetera). My number of trips (and, thus, fossil fuel consumption) should drop dramatically just by the increased focus I'll give to ensuring I get everything I need.
But why though, man?
Well, as noted previously, I've become a frugality nerd. The monthly cost of ownership of my truck is $90, and that's not including value depreciation, normal maintenance, and major repairs. You can rent a uHaul pickup truck for a day for $20 plus a mileage charge. If I only rent a truck a couple times a month, that's cheaper than owning a truck myself - and it completely protects me from the risk of catastrophic mechanical failure. If the uHaul truck breaks, I just call them up and say "hey, this rolling junkpile you rented me broke, I want my twenty bucks back", and walk home.
But, as I try to take care to emphasize, cutting costs isn't the point. In fact, it's dangerous to overfocus on cutting costs, because that cultivates a scarcity mentality. The main reason I'm interested in going #cagefree is because I want more.
I want more adventure, interestingness, richness, novelty, variety, and unpredictability in my life. What's the more adventurous path - to load a bunch of gear in to my truck and drive several hundred miles in the comfort of my AC system and the illusory safety of being surrounded by a 3,500 pound cage of glass and steel hurtling down the interstate at 80 miles per hour, or to strap what few items I can on to my little (250cc) motorbike and shunpike my way on back roads, alert to the changing weather and conditions of my fellow motorists?
Or even to forsake the autonomy of my own internal combustion contraption and walk, or bicycle, or hitch my way, forcing myself to meet other interesting people? (Anyone who would pick me up on the side of the road must be an interesting person).
I get one little shot at life and for whatever reason I'm largely indifferent to the values of security, convenience, and comfort. I need some, of course, but my "minimum viable dose" is modest in relation to societal norms.
Beyond that dash, my enjoyment of life tends to drop with every added unit of convenience. It's not an acute sensation of pain, but rather it's a vague, grey, foggy cloud of ill content and unsettledness that drapes like a moist blanket over my experience of life. I become moody (well, moodier than usual), unaccountably grouchy, lethargic, and unsatisfied with my days.
Whatever the reason, I don't flourish under conditions of ease. If I am to live a life I can look back on with a satisfied smirk, I must accept the facts of my constitution and act accordingly. Thus, I examine my lifestyle from time to time for conveniences and comforts and abruptly remove them, and pay close attention to how I respond.
Often, I find the new constraint exhilarating and adopt it permanently. Other times, I appreciate the time spent under constraint, am thankful for the lessons learned, but then go back to the convenient or comfortable habit. Every once in a while, I go too far and dip below my comfort threshold, let out a hearty “NOPE!” and return to my normal level of comfort with a renewed sense of gratitude for the blessings of my life.
Any way it goes, it's impossible for me to lose for executing an experiment of this nature. I either improve my life, or find myself more grateful for the conditions I do have. Win-win.