As a single person, I don’t require large grocery trips, so I get by alright with a large knapsack, but I could see the worth shifting for a family with significantly bigger weekly foodloads.

At the moment, I am smart not to get a car, because I simply could not afford it. But someday, I do wish to have a car that I can use for occasional errands, and regular city-leaving. While I hope always to be able to located myself within biking distance of work (driving commutes are horrible and soul-crushing), there is no practical alternative to a car when you want to get out into the wilderness for a few days. :D

To Amateur at #19-
I think my city is pretty awesome, but its overwhelming car culture and lack of bike-commuter-friendly infrastructure is one of my biggest issues. I do, however, live in a rich oil-city, so I know many people at large companies with some extra amenities. I realize that showers are not in every workplace. Like I said, this is a reasonably simple adaptation that more businesses could do to encourage away from cars. And bike racks too are needed in many more places.
As for locking them up, keep in mind that you don’t actually need to remove the front wheel and seat – you just need to lock those both. A decent cable lock can wind around all your peripherals (including helmet, if desired), and hook up with a good U-bar. Lots of people carry the seat because it’s simple enough, but it’s very easy to just wire it all together at the lamp post.

Regarding public transportation, isn’t New York supposed to be one of those great places where everything is linked by subway and most people don’t need a car? I’ve never been, but that’s the impression I got. My mediocre (for a city this big) transit system is almost all busses on 20-40minute rotations (more than an hour in off-peak times).

Public transportation is for the able-bodied, with stairs and nothing else? Really? Not here. It’s illegal to have a public place that is not wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair-people have to be issued a key, or hit the call button to get into the elevator, and occasionally escalators might go down, but barring rare circumstances, any person with any level of mobility must be able to access all transit. Actually by law. You can’t even have work buildings without ramps.
Is this a Canadian thing?

I’d like to see more comments on this aspect of snowballing as well!

We are just started (about 2 months in) and I have a major question…we are supposed to pay minimum on every debt except the one where you roll all other cash into. Got that. The next month, however, many of the credit cards had reduced their minimum payments. What do I do? Do I continue to pay the “new” minimum, meaning I’ll now have a couple more bucks for the snowball, or do I maintain a fixed pmt once I start the program?

If someone can do, or already did, the math on this, I’d be interested in knowing. Maybe it’s just a wash with the overall amount of debt to be paid. Maybe it makes the first snowball pay off faster. Maybe it actually costs more? I don’t know.

If I was to put everything on my higher limit cards I’d get disgruntled pretty fast. I know this because I have done that before and been there. Now that I see my smaller cards disappearing, I feel much more confident in my ability to control my debt. Sure I lose a few $ in interest fees but I feel more in control which to me is more important. I know it makes no sense to people who are snowballing but to me it makes all the sense.

To run a marathon takes months of training–perhaps Ramsay’s earlier baby steps prior to the debt snowball makes a good analogy.

Running a marathon–and getting out of debt with a snowball–is more of a mental exercise than a physical one. Once the body is tired or hits a wall, it’s the mental training that takes over in order to finish the race.

I realize this was meant as a metaphor, but – obviously – you have never run a marathon. I’ve completed several, and never, not once has the finish line simply been there before I knew it!

Regarding debt snowballing, it is what has worked to get us out of over $35,000 in credit card and auto loan debt in just two years.

You must live in a really great city! There are not showers in many workplaces, unfortunately, here in the states in the northeast unless you worked at a sports club, spa, hospital, or some facility equipped for showering.

The other issue with biking to work is the lack of bike racks for the bikes or workplaces that allow storage of bikes. Most folks end up chaining their bikes to random lamp posts and no parking signs. In addition to that, bike seats and front wheels (for nicer bikes) must be removed or they will be stolen here (New York City).

It gets extremely cumbersome to bike with a set of work clothes, shoes, lunch, laptop perhaps, and having to lug the front wheel, bike helmet, and bike seat into the workplace. This will be especially ugly when it sleets or rains.

The bike lanes are still a nice addition and it would be even nicer if there were secured parking lots (like cars, but for bikes) to ensure bikes don’t get stolen and are protected from vandalism.

Most people have to rely on public transportation or cars, there aren’t too many ways around this. Public transportation is for the able-bodied, there are many many staircases and a stampede of people running around in the major terminals/transfer points. If someone cannot move fast enough or have back or knee problems, most transit stops do not have elevators or escalators. Big cities have 24hr public transportation, but if someone works a late or very early shift, personal safety becomes an issue and the car becomes a necessity.

If a crisis comes up and you need to temporarily halt your snowball, that’s one less payment you need to factor in.

i don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but here in connecticut i bought a family ymca membership, and it allows us to go to any ymca in the state-

that could be very helpful to someone who lives in one town and bikes to another

and stop and shop and shop rite will deliver groceries- that’s another way to help w/ the grocery shopping w/out a car

for a while we were a one car family, and i was able to walk to work, so we were ok.

i think you’re smart to not get a car if there’s any way to avoid it.

The inevitable sweatiness of biking is the only valid point. Luckily, many workplaces have showers, so you can bike in in your biking clothes, then shower and get dressed for work there. Alternately, I know a number of people who are members of the gym I work at – bike downtown to the gym, do their workout, then shower, dress, and walk to work. Convenient even to leave the bike and biking stuff at the gym.

For those without this nicety – well, that’s another small infrastructure change that would enable more people to bike-commute. It doesn’t take much work to put a shower stall in one of the bathrooms, and that would make a big difference. Much smaller even a change than the bike lane.

(I don’t own a car, because I can’t afford one. Nor am I foolish enough to go into debt to do so. That said, it is definitely a pain to not own a car for anything. Groceries in small trips only, hour-long train rides to visit some friends, and dependence on others for some trips. As a devoted mountain-person, I get out of the city a couple times a week, and get by going with other people (for a share of gas money), but that means that I get to live without a car only because others dont. And no, you can’t get out to my mountains without a car.)

Another psychological benefit of the debt snowball is the increasing reward of focus: as you pay off each little debt, you get more and more focused on the big ones.