> "For example, I've been looking at appliances, and occasionally see nice appliances on sale on craigslist or the like... these would be dead simple to pick up if I had a truck, but I'm a small car kind of person."

A good way to solve this issue is a small car with a trailer. Even the smallest trailers available here (750kg gross weight) are plenty to haul home any appliance or piece of furniture.

And the trailer doesn't impact your fuel budget when you're not using it.