Spent $400 on a parking spot in Lincoln Park and it saved my sanity

I moved to Chicago last month from the suburbs and thought I could get by with street parking in Lincoln Park. Big mistake. After getting 3 tickets in two weeks for street cleaning and zone violations, I caved and rented a spot in a nearby garage for $400 a month. It hurts the wallet but I am not lying when I say it cut my stress by half. No more circling the block for 20 minutes after work or waking up early to move the car. Plus my insurance went down like $15 a month for having off-street parking. Anyone else shell out for a parking spot here or is it just me?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana201mo ago

$400 a month for parking? That's more than my car payment.

david371mo ago

That parking cost is just ONE piece of the puzzle though. It's part of this whole thing where companies charge you for EVERYTHING extra now - like the building itself isn't already making money off the rent you pay. They figure you have no choice if you need to get to work, so they can squeeze you for more. It's a TAX on having a commute basically, and nobody talks about how these fees stack up over a year. $4,800 just to PARK is insane when you think about what else you could do with that money.

nancy_ross8d ago

Right? And it’s wild because @david37 is totally right about it being a tax on commuting. Nobody talks about the opportunity cost either. Like if you didn’t have to pay that $4,800, you could throw it into a high-yield savings account or even just a decent index fund and watch it grow. Over five years, that’s like $24,000 just gone to a parking spot. That's a used car or a down payment on something, not a slab of concrete.