SELL YOUR CAR -- NOW!

"How in goodness name can you live for 10 years WITHOUT A CAR?" People ask me that all the time.

Answer: We walk (a lot), or take the bus. Occasionally, we get a ride from one of my daughters or -- on special occasions -- rent a car from Enterprise. That's the one that picks you up and takes you home.

A car: that's the entity that costs you $60,000 to buy when it's gleaming new. Then it costs you thousands of dollars a year to pay for, maintain, and insure.

After 10 years, your $50,000 car is a piece of junk worth $10,000 -- if you can find a sucker that will pay that much. Or, you can use it on as down payment on another $50,000 car, which turns out to cost $80,000.

Inflation, you know. It consists of spending more to get less.

A car is a VERY BAD INVESTMENT. In fact, because it loses value every day and every miles, it's not an investment at all. It's a money pit.

A car is something that makes the auto dealer, the insurer, and the oil company rich. It makes you, the car owner, poor, at least relatively so.

But, you say, "I've gotta have a car. Otherwise, how would I get to work, or to the mall, or to the gas station to pay $3 a gallon?"

In my case, I work at home. When I have to somewhere that's too far to walk, I take the bus -- either Beaver County Transit or (Pittsburgh) Port Authority Transit. If I need to go somewhere buses fear to tred, I bum a ride from my daughter -- or, on rare occasions, I rent a car.

All cars should be red. Why? Because they hemorrhage money.

In the 30 years I did have cars, I estimate they cost me at least $100,000. If I'd invested that money, it would probably be worth at least a quarter-of-a-million. I wish I had that money!

Of course, you may insist you absolutely must have a car. In your case, you might be right. But it still would be nice if had that quarter-of-a-million dollars resulting from being car-less.

Absolutely, positively needing a car isn't a fact of nature. Like most things in life, it's a matter of the choices you make -- mainly about where you work and where you live.

As for me, I've chosen to live in places -- like Carnegie, PA, Ambridge, PA and West Hartford, CT -- where I didn't need a car. I've chosen to work at home, sometimes in my underwear, and the commute time is about five seconds.

In a year, with a rental car, I spend less than $100 on gasoline. If gas prices go, say, to $5 a gallon, it really doesn't affect me.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about where I live -- its advantages (many) and its disadvantages (few).

steve maloney
ambridge, pa