Is everybody broke?

yea theres disparity across demographics, some are doing great in ireland of today, especially those whos mortgages are well on the way, or better, even fully paid, but if you re a young couple, and a young couple with young kids, and/or renting, forget about it…

…many on welfare are also not doing amazingly well either, contrary to some opinions on the matter…..

…many simply cannot survive without the car, try maintain a job, run a house and have a life without one, yes some might be able to, but most simply cannot, ireland is far from ready for life without the car, we require substantial public transport investment before that….

That's where you'd be wrong, I run a house, maintain a job and 2 side businesses without a car. Most people assign emotional value to a car, they associate it with freedom (basically they've had a lifetime brainwashing from the movies). Most households if they actually looked at the books would be vastly better off without it. Again, vast majority of commutes are under 10km, easily cycleable for an average fitness level, about 70% of the population are living in an urban area.

If households honestly accounted for the cost of their cars, the majority of the ones that do long commutes (more than 10km one way) would actually be financially better off scraping the car and getting a lower paid job closer to their home, that is how outrageously expensive car ownership is. But again, that is too honest a thought for people who are assigning emotional value to the car, its just a poverty trap, people need to think more outside the box rather than just maintaining the behaviours that they are used to if they want to do well.

in general it’s very hard for people to save up money before 40 years old.

Speaking from my own experience, saving for deposit, paying for mortgage, starting a family, endless child care, child minder cost, holidays, birthdays, cars….how can you save up!!

I had a decent savings since covid as finally I don’t need to pay for child minder. 🫣

Jaysus you don't live down the country so

Impossible unless there's useful public transport which there isn't

…again, not everyone lives under the exact same conditions, try run a house with a couple of young kids, and possibly just outside serviced city limits, without a car, and you ll see, your life just stops, basic tasks such as moving everybody around, doing the shopping etc, becomes impossible, and if you live further in the countryside, you may forget about it…..

…our public transport effectually stops just outside major towns and cities….

…the private car is actually a major time saver, by changing all commutes over to alternatives, most simply wouldnt actually have the time to do other critical tasks such as spending valuable time with loved ones, and engaging in other healthy and critical tasks such as socialising etc

…again, irelands public transport is substantially behind other similar european countries, people simply cant give up the car largely due to this reality…..

Inside The M50 public transport is borderline unusable at peak times, which is why I'm relying mostly on bike and use the bus+escooter irregularly to fill the gap in whic the car once was most time efficient. After replacing the car with these alternatives I'm now saving time on every journey and thousands of euros a year in cash.

...again I literally never said that every one lives under the exact same conditions. I said that car ownership is a Croc for the majority of people. If it makes financial sense for you great keep doing it.

...again the majority live in urban areas and if the majority are plainly honest with themselves, they do not need a car. People who have children would be wiser to not get their kids too used to car dependancy, it's setting them up for future health and lifestyle problems. I literally never said anything about everyone, you do you, I'm talking about a statistical majority, you don't have to take it like a personal criticism.

It sounds like you are having an emotional reaction to being presented with information which may call into question your own habits. This is what we do when we can't logically justify our own habits. People react similarly when they are questioned about their addictions.

Regarding the supermarket, I personally don't go supermarket shopping, I get it delivered when I need a big shop, which is about once a month. Comparing the cost of deisel and the time I waste in a supermarket it comes out about the same as the small delivery fee. I have a saved list of favourites so it takes me seconds to order a monthly shop and so much of my life is saved. When I need fresh things I pick them up on the bike and into the backpack, I try to only use farmers markets and local shops which are packaging free or low packaging but unfortunately our economic set up demands I must go to a chain store for some things.

But again that's my experience, you might like driving to a supermarket(one of the circles of hell I'm my opinion) and waste an hour and a half twice a week listening to roaring kids and queue and faff around with bags and take attitude off people and come out of the kip with half of what you went in for, I've eliminated that from my life and don't miss it. But you do you.

Listen to the traffic reports every morning and evening, M 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, and N7 all commuting to Dublin, also traffic jam's in Cork and Galway every day.

Yes and that doesn't alter the fact that the vast majority have short commutes, choosing to use their car for that commute is their problem.

Not necessarily a majority. But still a substantial minority.

I live similarly to you. I walk, catch the bus, or hire GoCar, taxis or regular re tal cars. Save a bundle of cash.

But I don't think I could manage it with kids, or if I lived in the suburbs.

And there is a certain lifestyle cost. I can rarely be spontaneous. There are events I don't get invited to, because people assume it's too hard for me to get there. I spend time waiting for buses.

I was in a shop that only sells e-cigarettes today and person in front spent over 100 euros on bits of things you could fit into a matchbox so depending on the profit margins of these type products I would recommend any struggling retailer to look into e-cigarettes 🤑

That's a preference though. Many people seem to describe such a scenario as "impossible to do without a car". It's not impossible, although maybe not recommended.

I think it would be very difficult for most households to get by without a car to be fair.

There are a lot of two car households that could get away with one car if they made a few adjustments however, especially if they can WFH

Car loans are the expensive part of driving. If you're not into changing cars every couple of years, then they're not that expensive to run. A few hundred euro a year on tax/insurance and a couple of hundred on servicing. Even with the odd repair, overheads are only around 20-30 perweek. A short round trip in a taxi once a week will cost more than this.

Publc transport doesnt really exist for most journeys - is concentrated in linear jpurnies along set routes between suburb and city centre. In many cases even a 5km commute from one suburb to another isnt possible without going into the city centre and out again. T