I’ve been lucky enough to get by without a car. My somewhat nomadic lifestyle combined with living in big cities or over in Europe has saved me the trouble of car ownership. But after moving from NYC to a rural-ish New England city, it was clear my husband and I both needed cars.

We insisted on buying a house very near a grocery and a long but manageable walk from town, but slowly we became a ‘let’s just drive there’ family, mostly out of convenience. Unhappy with our lifestyle change, we recently we sold one of our cars, choosing life with just one car and my husband’s Vespa scooter — which he’s fitted so he can ride more months than not. To some it may not seem like a big deal, but we live in a community where most adults own cars, and it’s expected that you can get anywhere you need to go at any time, and carpooling is far from the norm.

I like having one car. It hasn’t always been easy, and when our car goes in to be inspected on Friday, likely needing a bit of work as it has over 100,000 miles on it, our decision will truly be tested as we go car-less, but I’m proud that we’ve taken on this small inconvenience for the good of our lives, both personally and globally. With the money saved by not having an extra car payment and upkeep, we are planning on taking another green step. We have our eyes on a Saturn SUV that will help get us through New England winters, or our preference, a diesel fueled Jeep Liberty that will run on veggie oil given to us by our local Mexican restaurant.