That may work fine for where you live, but that doesn't apply in my case. It's over $400/month alone for both parking in my apartment building, and getting a sp

That may work fine for where you live, but that doesn't apply in my case. It's over $400/month alone for both parking in my apartment building, and getting a space to park near my work (both downtown Chicago). And 90% of the places I go to outside of work, don't have free easy parking, so I'd be paying a ton for parking since there isn't convenient free parking lots like suburbs have. So parking costs alone makes it unrealistic for me and not as cheap as in your case.