This evening I put on all of my winter gear, turned on my blinkies, and rode off into the dark, cold night. Like I said in my previous post, riding in the cold isn’t that bad. It’s all about the gear. I feel like I’ve done a decent job of getting appropriate gear.

Still, I started to second guess myself when rubber hit the rode. Can I do this any time I need to go somewhere? Is the money saved really worth the winter riding? Can’t I just wait until Spring? It helped me put things into perspective.

I’m at a critical juncture. My car has been posted on Craigslist. I already have two offers (though with Craigslist you can’t take offers too seriously). If I am going to decide to not sell the car then this is the time.

As I was riding along in the cold I started thinking about some of my original posts in this blog. This is back when I thought the car would never be drivable. I laid out all of the arguements as to why I should sell my car. I’m clinging to those arguments. I’m selling the car. Money is still my top priority here. I can’t wait to see how much money I will save! Excercise, the environment, and, honestly, this blog are other reasons I’m selling my car. Combined, these are still enough of a reason for me to go car-free. I’ll find a way to make it work despite the obstacles, uh hem, cold.

Then I thought about all of the comments in this blog. Many of them were from people that have already gone carless. They all said similar things. “You won’t believe how much you save,” “It’ll work.” All the more inspiration!

So no more time for second guessing. Now it’s time for action.

Everyone knows the benefits of owning a car. You can cover long distances. You can attract the opposite sex. You can go up to make-out hill. You can use your trunk as storage space. Now you can offcially buy my car.

I was actually looking in the want ads and someone wanted a car for cheap, so I wrote an email explaining the car. I figured it was good enough for the actual post, so the post is actually an email I wrote to a girl. That’s why it’s a little more personal and less bullet points than I expected. Oh well, let’s hope the car sells!

You can pretty much bank on gas, insurance, and if you’re a good car owner, oil changes. But there are the expenses that slip by. A coworker instant messaged me today that he is getting new tires after only 23,000 miles. They are $400. Wowsers! $400 for new tires! New bike tires are $100 if you want decent ones.

I pay $75/yr for AAA. That’s not much, but for me that’s three month’s electricity.

When he sent me that message it motivated me. It reminded me of why I wanted to do this. To elminate all of costs of owning a car that I forgot about.

Tonight is the night! Craigslist, Vehix, here we come! The time to be lazy is over!

I haven’t been writing much. That’s because I feel like I don’t have anything to say. I’ve been driving a lot. I haven’t posted my car to sell it yet. I only ride about one day a week. You should be sad for me because I’ve been slow to move. But please don’t worry; I haven’t lost my vision. I will post my car this week.

At first my excuse was I’ll just drive until I sell the car. Then I just kept putting off posting it. It’s been over a month now. I’m basically back to how I was before the transmission blew out.

At this point I just want to try this experiment to see if I can do it. I had a commenter say that he didn’t think he could do it and second guessed himself. I want to see if I can get passed all of that and to the point where I don’t miss my car either.

My next post will be about how I posted the car. Honestly, I’m not expecting more than a few hundred for it. After a while I might just donate it.

I couldn’t resist! “Current Balance as of Today”…$0.00!

Well, as far as the car goes. I still have it and I’m still driving it. I cleaned it and took pictures. I just need to upload it. I have no excuse.

I have good news! Last November I started getting the personal finance bug. You know. The one where you realize that your debts may come back and get you some day. The bug that says that getting what you want when you want on a credit card is not a good way to live. I cut one credit card all up [and reconstructed it to buy a macbook pro, but that's another story]. I picked another credit card and started attacking it with payments. I picked it because it was the one I used the most. I wanted that symbol of seeing that account at zero. Last May I purchased my bike on my credit card. I knew it was going to be the last time I ever swiped a credit card.

That sounds like a huge statement (pun intended), but I meant it. So far it’s true. I haven’t used it since.

I was still new to this personal finance thing; I wasn’t ready to destroy the card altogether. Besides, this one has a decent interest rate. So I gave it to my girlfriend to keep at her place. I kept on attacking it with payments. Then the payments got bigger.

Today I made paid my first card off! I went from $3200 to paid off in ten months!

Then just for grins I paid $450 towards the $1040 balance on the next card. Bam! Almost half of it in one day!

I’m obsessed now. The third and final card is $3200 and I’m going to have a solid $450/mo to pay towards it. Then I’ll put all that towards my college loans. I’m going save myself 6 years and thousands in interest.

I needed to share my excitement with somebody.

I finally cleaned my car and took some pictures of Frank Sinatra. I am going to get the car posted and start selling it this week.

As far as the green belt goes, I’m not talking about martial arts. I’m talking about the trail that runs around the parameter of Harrisburg. From my door the whole circuit back to my door is 23 miles. I rode it the other day and took some pictures.

Here is a map of the ride. Notice it doesn’t link back to my house. That’s because I didn’t take any more pictures! Click on the map. Then, I recommend clicking on the “enlarge map” link on the bottom right.