This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
The closest grocery store is 1.5 hour walk. I'm not doing that in a Canadian winter or with hands full of groceries. And no, it's not bikeable 5 months a year.
Also, I've bought four cars in my lifetime. I spent a combined $13,000 on them. My first car was $1400 and I still have it.
Also, 200$ a month for gas is high. If you can walk back from the store carrying stuff then you probably only need to fill up every 3rd month. If you use the car for other stuff, then your argument is bad.
I've bought two and cumulatively they were 30k. I have neither of them now and I just filed for bankruptcy my first time at 25. Going strong 💪. My first car was less than a decade old and died within a year of owning it. Cars suck!
I've bought 2 and have spent ~$13k on them. I still have the first after more than 10 years, and have had the second for almost 5. The first car was ~$10k, and it had 60k miles, and I've put on about 100k miles.
Buying used direct from the owner has worked well for me. My parents bought my first car for me for about $1500, though my siblings also drove it. I kept it for about 5 years before buying a replacement.
ehm Canadian winter will make sure the food does not spoil on the way ☺️
"walk to a store" lol okay bro doesn't know wtf they're talking about.
My Costco is physically less than mile away but you have to cross two major strodes and a four lane bridge thats only for car travel. There's an alternative route but I have to backtrack 2 miles to get to the pedestrians safe bridge then the two miles to get to Costco from the ped bridge. Why can't the four lane strode have a partial bike lane?? It would save me hours of commute and I live in pretty bikable city. I'm doing Critical Mass for the second time this Friday, I highly recommend it, its a lot of fun
Yeah, nearest store to me is like 30 min walk each way. Nearest Costco is about the same time in the car as the grocery store (5-10 min).
That's a 5 minute bicycle ride then?
Something like that, yeah. Costco is more like 10 min, and I've done runs to both on my bike.
They’ve clearly never shopped at Costco. I can’t get out of there without dropping at least $200. Because, you don’t know you need a package of 50 AAA batteries, a gallon of mustard, 300 allergy pills, and a dozen rolls of Christmas wrapping paper until you’re there. Inside Costco that just makes sense.
Sure, but how much do you save long term by having those in bulk vs doing multiple trips to the store to pick up one thing at a time?
It would be so nice to live somewhere I could walk to the store. Or anywhere.
The non-American mind cannot conceive of living in a place so vast.
Europe is relatively small but their towns are waaay more compact because they were built before cars came around so most towns are already in favor of walking/biking distances.
But yeah America is huuuge. The drive from Paris to central Switzerland is about 12 and a half hours and it's a total change of scenery. For the US that's just California to Utah. Or Washington DC to Charleston SC.
What the US needs badly is high speed rail from city to city
I mean we do need that, but that has nothing to do with the problem. the majority of people don't live in those vast expanses of nothingness. Most of our cities are just as populated as most European cities, we just have shit laws around zoning, single family housing, population density, NIMBYs blocking any change, and people that think public transit is for poor people. They don't travel to other countries and so have no clue how good things could actually be.
we just have shit laws around zoning
Yeah above all else I think that is the biggest issue. There are daft rules about the size of carparks that mean that, what would be a local store in the EU, becomes this vast strip mall in the US with 12 acres of parking lot to walk across so you can get your milk.
You practically need a car to just drive across the vast expanses of car infrastructure. Crossing the road in the US is something you have to plan your day around
Yeah, it's a shithole country which is why I got rid of my car, let my driver's license expire, and left the country. Looking back, it was pretty prescient considering how fascism-y it has gotten there.
More like living in a place where it can be impossible to cross a short distance on foot when it wouldn't be impossible to add a walking path.
Sounds so... Odd to me.
My entire life I've lived in a very dense city. Everywhere I look are stores, people, traffic. There's never a single moment of silence, not even at night.
I low-key feel jealous to people who live in a quiet place...
Where in the world can you buy a week's groceries for $50?
Depends on how many people live in your household and what you eat. You can probably spend even less if you're only cooking for one and most meals are 'beans and rice'-level.
I'd assume that the hard part is finding an affordable place in a somewhat walkable neighborhood in the US, especially if you don't want to live in a one-room apartment.
Either way, the $50 are really not the important part. It would still be true if you paid $200 and could save $50 by shopping at cheaper supermarkets that are further away.
Also if you are walking to the store, you are limiting the amount you can buy as you have to transport it back home. I have a nice little collapsible cart I use. Even that fills up and gets heavy once you are adding beverages.
in my country if you ignore meat its almost that
If you are extremely frugal everywhere, even the US
Yeah, that's just over $7/day, which is doable.
I never thought about it like that! I did in fact buy the car specifically to go to the grocery store and don't use it for anything else
This is b8
Who's putting $200 of gas in their car per month, what you doing driving the Route 66 on a weekly basis? The shops all of 5 miles away if it's that.
Average US driving distance is about 14k miles per year, or about 1200/month. At 30 mpg, you need 40 gal per month. Current price per gal in the US (according to AAA) is $3.193/gal, which gets us $130/month in gas.
Wouldn't have to be crazy above average to get to $200/month. Or have a car with kinda bad fuel efficiency.
If your commute is about an hour each way you're probably spending roughly that much.