It would be easy to become sentimental about the loss of our family car. So I won't be. Other than to say that it was a sad day when a friend drove away our beautiful green seven-year-old Volvo V70, with a grin on his face, saying things like “It goes like a dream”.

I'm still trying to work out how I was manoeuvered by my wife Rosie into living with four young children, a dog and no means of transporting them. And wondering when it was that I lost the argument.

One tipping point was the day a red booklet labelled Goodbye Car Costs landed on our North London doormat, along with our annual car tax demand. The booklet's snappy copy, designed to lure us into the world of the car club, neatly summed up the best reasons for disposing of our vehicle.

It claimed that being in the country's largest car club, Streetcar, would be like having our own car “but without the cost or the hassle” - and would save us about £2,000 a year. There would be no depreciation, no insurance, no road tax, no AA costs and no spectacular and sudden cash haemorrhages at the garage.

Reluctantly, I worked out that our car cost close to £6,000 a year. “And how many miles are we doing for that?” demanded Rosie. The answer was fewer than 6,000, costing about £1 a mile - and it was rising inexorably alongside the cost of petrol.

It looks as though we'll save £4,000 a year

Goodbye Car Costs reckoned that hiring a Streetcar twice a week would cost us less than £1,000 a year. Even if that doubled, we'd save £4,000. So we decided to go for a toe-in-the-water approach, joining the car club while hanging on to the Volvo.

This is how it works. After paying an annual fee of £49.50 we get access to 80 newish Golfs dotted around our borough, five within walking distance of our house. They cost about £5 an hour to hire and can be booked for any length of time. There are no fuel charges for the first 30 miles but after that it costs an extra 23p a mile. Bookings are made online and bills come once a month. Rosie's first reports were ominously good, although I assumed that this was part of her Operation Evict Car.

Our four children - aged 3 to 11 - were not so happy about the prospect of losing the car, although for at least two of them car journeys have always been a torture. My oldest daughter would sit in the Volvo's rear backward-facing seat stoically staring down the front bumper of following cars, while my oldest son would go pale with motion sickness almost as soon as the car turned the first bend.

Relatives, particularly the older ones, reacted to our radical plan with a mixture of pessimism and disbelief. I assumed this was down to growing up in postwar Britain when a car was a luxury and a common measure of economic status.

But getting rid of the Volvo was harder than Rosie had imagined.

I was heartened by the almost total lack of buyers' interest in our beautiful leather-seated estate car with all the trimmings, impeccable bodywork, a loving service history and that supposedly great sales line, low mileage. Several ads in the motor press elicited calls from hard bitten traders offering cash, but not enough. The internet proved little better.

I formed a cosy alliance with the children, who promised to drop hints about non-existent faults to any prospective buyer. A potential sale fell through after I refused to budge on the already reduced price of £5,500. But then I foolishly mentioned the car to a friend whose own V70 had reached the end of the road. He leapt at ours.

Our lives have become more complicated

And so we are now officially in car-free land. Our lives, already over-complicated by the needs and routines of four young children, have become even more so. For example, when I hire Streetcar to drop off hapless child A at a piano lesson, I am now meant to dash to the supermarket before the end of the lesson. Previously, I would have used the hour more productively in the pub.

Trips have to be timed exactly. Thus, one night we were forced to leave a rather nice summer party at 9.45 because the Streetcar had to be returned by 10pm or we risked a £25 fine.

We have certainly used the train more and the Family Railcard has been renewed. My ageing racing bike has come out of semi-retirement and is used sometimes to excess. Hence I found myself cycling home across London at midnight, having already exhausted myself on the tennis court.

There have been no trips to the petrol station, no parking fines, no vandalism of our car, no congestion payments. I have cancelled the insurance and returned the resident's parking disc. Equally, there have been one or two envious comments from neighbours - at least two of whom have sweetly offered to let us have access to their cars.

I suspect that plenty of fun and games lie ahead. For example, what happens when we can't get all the family and our terrier in one Golf? Hire two Golfs, I suppose.

We have yet to try a trip into the middle of nowhere. And I have yet to be knocked off my bike and been mugged for being in the wrong part of London at the wrong time of night. What will happen in the dead of winter?

At times I plan to buy a sports car secretly or join the Classic Car Club. If all fails and we are going mad, I do have permission to buy a small runaround. At the moment, that seems unlikely.

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