Bye-Bye Car. Hello Bus

11 am today.

That's when I give back my leased Chevy Equinox.

That vehicle has been a financial albatross around my neck for the past four years.

To make a long story short... back in '07 I have a seven-year old Ford Focus station wagon with close to 150,000 kms on it. Pretty good mileage, I know, but the car needed a whole mess of work. I was working as an IT consultant, on the marketing side, which required travel for client on-site meetings and the wagon just wasn't proving reliable enough for highway use. That car also went through brake pads like a Lab eats food. Every 10,000 kms or so, hubby had to put on new pads. The heater and the air conditioning had stopped working at the beginning of '07 so I wasn't crazy about the thought a driving a car to Mississauga and back, as well as other places around the GTA, in a car with no heat. Because I was a consultant, I could write off lease payments so after months of much thought and discussion, I decided in December of that year to go car shopping. I also didn't plan on driving for more than 20,000 kms a year, so it was the best option.

Here's where I get bitter. I had no car payments, remember that now. Two days after I signed the lease and picked up my vehicle, and after dropping $1500 into the down payment, the company that I worked for, for the past nine years, decided to terminate my contract... eliminated my position. Bam! I was out of a job - a casualty of the economic down turn that was to come. I was given no warning. None.

It took me six weeks to land a 1 year contract with Aon Insurance, right at the foot of Bay Street at Queens Quay. The pay was far less than what I was used to but it was a job.

The commute strapped me financially. $375/month for the lease and $275/month for the GO pass, plus the cost of gas - $145/month and insurance - $86/month. In other words, it costs me almost $900 to get to work each month. Ridiculous, right? I considered Lease Busters but could provide no financial incentive for taking over the vehicle as I would then need cash to buy a beater to get to the GO lot. Daycare logistics as the time required me to have access to a vehicle.

Fast forward to 2011. I can't begin to tell you how getting rid of this vehicle will ease the financial stranglehold this has been. It's been a mortgage for me. Think about. That's a lot of dough.

My husband can do daycare drop off and pick up - for now. In the Spring, we will need to figure something out as his work hours change with the seasons and our daycare centre doesn't open before 6:30. This means I either take a cab every morning with the kid or we walk for 20 minutes. Or we bike. Or I buy a Vespa. I suspect it will be a shit show but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I warned you all back in the summer I was riding the GO bus come this winter and next Tuesday, it begins. I will not miss the cold, brutal walk across the tundra that is the Oshawa GO lot when it's -25 wind chill and I'm parked at the far north end of the lot, only to get into a cold vehicle with a cold steering wheel.

I'm not thrilled about taking the bus for a variety of reasons but I am thrilled about the $500 plus dollars being put back into my bank account each month. Ecstatic. EC-STA-TIC.