Yup, that’s how we do it. We have kids and two cars: minivan and hybrid sedan. The hybrid gets more than 2x the mileage vs the minivan, it’s smaller, and both of us prefer it, so it’s what we use 90% of the time. We take the minivan if we’re all going somewhere, or we both need to be somewhere at the same time. I’ll also take the minivan for cargo (hardware store, dump, furniture store, etc).
Before we had kids, we had one car. When we both needed to be somewhere at the same time, I’d take my bicycle or the bus, and my SO would take the car.
Each person having “their” car makes no sense to me, I see cars as tools in the toolbox, and we take the one that’s best suited to the task at hand.
That’s pretty much how we do it, but with a phev and an SUV. On days we both work she takes the phev, I the SUV. When one of us is going somewhere we take the phev. But if it’s snowing or we want to haul kayaks or load up heavy to go camping, the SUV.
The phev is "hers"and the SUV “mine”. But only vaguely 🤷♂️ we don’t actually care that much. But also it’s not a free for all. She would probably be a little miffed if I just randomly took the phev to work forcing her into the SUV. But if we talked about it first she’d probably be fine 🤷♂️
For snow, snow tires should be more than sufficient. That’s what we do and it works fine for us here in Utah. No AWD, just decent tires.
We bought a second car when our first was born because our existing car (2-door coup w/ manual transmission) was a bit frustrating to load a car-seat into (we did it for a year though), and my SO couldn’t drive stick. So we picked up a hybrid (the same one we drive today about 10 years later), and the stick became “mine” by default (commuter only), and the hybrid was “hers,” at least for a couple of years until I was able to junk it because I was riding my bike to work every day. We stuck with a single car for another few years until #3 was born and I switched jobs (both in the same year, new job was more than twice as far), and the bike commute just wasn’t happening.
And that’s where we are today. My SO still feels some ownership over the hybrid, but it has largely become my commuter now. We’ll probably swap the hybrid for an EV soon-ish and later exchange the minivan for something my SO likes to drive more once car seats aren’t an issue. And when the kids leave the house, we’ll go back down to one car (ideally none, but I don’t think my SO would go for that).
Yup, that’s how we do it. We have kids and two cars: minivan and hybrid sedan. The hybrid gets more than 2x the mileage vs the minivan, it’s smaller, and both of us prefer it, so it’s what we use 90% of the time. We take the minivan if we’re all going somewhere, or we both need to be somewhere at the same time. I’ll also take the minivan for cargo (hardware store, dump, furniture store, etc).
Before we had kids, we had one car. When we both needed to be somewhere at the same time, I’d take my bicycle or the bus, and my SO would take the car.
Each person having “their” car makes no sense to me, I see cars as tools in the toolbox, and we take the one that’s best suited to the task at hand.
That’s pretty much how we do it, but with a phev and an SUV. On days we both work she takes the phev, I the SUV. When one of us is going somewhere we take the phev. But if it’s snowing or we want to haul kayaks or load up heavy to go camping, the SUV.
The phev is "hers"and the SUV “mine”. But only vaguely 🤷♂️ we don’t actually care that much. But also it’s not a free for all. She would probably be a little miffed if I just randomly took the phev to work forcing her into the SUV. But if we talked about it first she’d probably be fine 🤷♂️
For snow, snow tires should be more than sufficient. That’s what we do and it works fine for us here in Utah. No AWD, just decent tires.
We bought a second car when our first was born because our existing car (2-door coup w/ manual transmission) was a bit frustrating to load a car-seat into (we did it for a year though), and my SO couldn’t drive stick. So we picked up a hybrid (the same one we drive today about 10 years later), and the stick became “mine” by default (commuter only), and the hybrid was “hers,” at least for a couple of years until I was able to junk it because I was riding my bike to work every day. We stuck with a single car for another few years until #3 was born and I switched jobs (both in the same year, new job was more than twice as far), and the bike commute just wasn’t happening.
And that’s where we are today. My SO still feels some ownership over the hybrid, but it has largely become my commuter now. We’ll probably swap the hybrid for an EV soon-ish and later exchange the minivan for something my SO likes to drive more once car seats aren’t an issue. And when the kids leave the house, we’ll go back down to one car (ideally none, but I don’t think my SO would go for that).