Expenses.

Dan and I went with his youngest sister to see Cars 2 in the cinema today.*

Obviously our motivation for going today was because it's Orange Wednesday. I don't think we could afford to go to the cinema any other day of the week, to be honest - it cost £7.55 for an adult ticket. Seven pounds fifty-five. That's a lot of money. And that was cheap compared to how much it would have cost if we'd gone at a peak time (ie. any time that someone with a job would have to go) - £8.95! It's ridiculous.

On the subject of ridiculousness, can we discuss the prices of buses around Southampton? (why yes Emma, we can) It costs £6 for a return from here to the centre of Southampton. Six whole pounds. That's not even profit making, that's extortion. In Brighton - and yes, I know that Brighton covers a smaller area than Southampton, but I think that point can still be made - you could get a bus ticket that allowed you to go anywhere in the city and outerlying areas for the whole day for £3.70. And now I'm paying almost double that just to get somewhere and back? Very much not okay.
To make matters worse, the bus from here to Southampton takes AN HOUR. Driving it takes maybe 15 minutes. I understand that buses have to stop to pick up and drop off people, I really do, but the bus takes the most unnecessarily long route. It literally goes all around the houses. If it just stuck to the main roads and made people walk maybe 5 minutes more from their house to the bus stop (rather than the 30 seconds it probably takes most people), the journey time could be cut in half. I don't appreciate paying £6 to lose the will to live.

Southampton is definitely a city in which having a car is beneficial. Some might even say essential. Dan used to have a car, a Citroen Saxo called Bertie, but he was deemed unroadworthy in June so Dan had to scrap him. It was a sad day for all. I don't even appear to have a photo of Bertie, which is even sadder.
My grandma has a car - a relatively new Ford Fiesta - that she barely ever uses any more, so I'm crossing my fingers that I might be able to wangle that from her (for a fee, of course).

*Cars 2 was really good, by the way. It was basically an action spy film that happened to have talking cars as the protagonists. Although I was sceptical about a sequel to Cars (because while I enjoyed the first film, I don't think it's one of the best Pixar films), it actually worked really well. You should go and see it.