The Wheels on the Bus....

go round and round...all through the town. And boy, am I glad they do!

Did you ever wonder, how in the world, in this day and age, does a couple survive without a vehicle. Yeah, I wondered that too, until a year ago, when Dave and I decided to bite the bullet and get rid of our car.

When I became disabled in May of 2010, and we decided I needed to apply for disability, we also had to find a way to cut some expenses so we could live on Dave's disability until mine comes through. The biggest expense we had was the car. Could we make do without it? Luckily we live in a state and a city where mass transit is pretty normal.

Since I had no insurance, I had no way of getting the powerchair that I needed to get around. (Walking any distance is impossible for me....long story...). There was a man at the church that sponsors our Bible study whose wife had passed away, and he donated this to me.

What a blessing that was. Now I can zip around the apartment complex, and I can go up to 3 miles in my neighborhood. Soooo....I can go to the grocery store, the drug store, and the Plaza where all the fun stuff is...shopping and movies and restaurants.

Dave gets around on this one, and he can go 15 miles. He has the super-whammy jazzed up model.

So ok...shopping and entertainment is covered. For other things, that go farther away from home, we rely on the Senior and Disabled bus from Riverside Transit Authority. They have a chair lift and will take us anywhere in the city for $2 each way. The only downside is we have to schedule our bus 2 days in advance of need. But that takes us to the mall or the doctor's office or anywhere else in the city that is too far to travel to by powerchair.

It's been a year since we gave up our car. There have been some compromises we've had to make, and we've had to give up some of our independence and some spontenaety, We can no longer travel like we used to, but since it's not safe for either of us to drive anymore, that's ok. If we want to go bad enough, there's always Amtrak.

Plus we save the $375 a month lease payment, $120 a month insurance, $400+ per year registration, $30 per month AAA, and the $4.00 a gallon gasoline. Not to mention anything like oil changes, tires and cute little cat stickers for the backend.

Yep, it can  be done. And not only do we save money, we're a little bit 'green'.