Eric-
I can understand how you feel. I as I get older (45 now) I value the quality time that my wife spend at home more and more. A big part of that is the peace and quiet that we have at home. I'm not sure that I'd be up for a 3 hour daily commute, no matter how great the car or the house.

If nothing else your rant (which I'm sure felt good!!) made me very thankful that over the last year or so, I've be able to transition my career from a 5 day a week commute to my own home based business that means my commute is about 10 steps from the bedroom to the office.

I hope your offer on the new place is accepted. There's no doubt in my mind that it's what you want!!! Good luck.

 

My girlfriend and I live together and work at the same company. We commute together in the Z for an hour each way. The time in the car is not too bad, and I get to drive some fun, twisty roads that really get the blood pumping.

However, we definitely notice the two missing hours when we get home. We typically get to work at about 8:30, and leave between 6 and 7.

This means that we are never really home before 7:00 and often not until 8:00. We don't seem to have time to have a nice dinner, relax much, or work on hobbies.

As long as you don't mind only having a few hours at home on the weekdays, then you should be fine with the drive, especially if you can find some good back roads to commute on.

-D'oh!

 

Thank you for you thoughts on the matter.

Its ironic, I started off working for myself from my basement. About 3 years ago, a friend of mine (who was in the same line of work) and I decided to go more formal; i.e: bricks and mortar vs. guy working from his basement. So we rented a space, got some more work, got some more computers, hired some guys, etc. Its been quite a ride. The kicker is that I no longer work from home, but drive in everyday to the office.

I hope to be able to transition back, as you are doing, to working from home more. If things get working well enough, I hope to only work 2 or 3 days a week. Good luck to you and your home-based business.

 

In case anybody is interested, this is a picture taken from the front of the house. This is the view you see when looking out the great room, or the sun room.

The house is roughly a 1/4 of the way in to the property, and the end of the lake that you see here corresponds with the half way mark of the property.

As for the house itself, its surrounded by forest as seen in the lake picture. When standing at the house, all you see are trees and lake.

 

are you able to take a train to work? If I had that option, I would consider that commute.......then you can sleep at least in the drive....or do work

 

Eric, that's beautiful country. Judging by the scenery, the commute may be shorter than you think as you'll be hurrying home to that view!
Good luck with the offer and if sucessful, I hope you have a decent fire break around the house.

 

Commutes are rough no matter how you slice it. When I first started work my commute nearly an hour and 45 minutes one way by train. Which might have been tolerable except that in my line of work... late nights are a frequent problem. Getting home at 1am.. to get up again at 6am was not much fun.

Since then I've run the gamut of 10 minute walk to work back to a one hour drive to work... now I'm on the road mon-fri. I have a pretty wide range of "commute" experiences and honestly my "prefered" commute was the 45minute - 1 hour drive or so. First of all, I love my car (and will love my new Z even more) so the drive wasn't really painful. That hour or so of time was a good transition from the "work" mindset to the "home" mindset. I was ready to make dinner, go out, watch movies or horse around when I got home rather than still stewing about the latest work issue.

The catch with long commutes is how consitant is your work schedule? If you know you have to be in by 9am every day, and can leave around 5 or six, then an hour and a half commute isn't so terrible, you still get home with time to do things and don't have to get up too horribly early. It only becomes a real drag when the work schedule pushes past 7 or 8 o'clock at night... then things get rough. Nothings worse then getting up and going to work, coming home going right to sleep to do it all again tomorrow.

 

My parents have a 2 1/2 hour commute in the morning, and a 2 1/2 hour commute in the evening. They have to get up at 4 a.m. just to get to work on time. They both work in the SeaTac area in Washington, but they live out on Hood Canal. They do it because they got tired of paying two mortgages. They feel the commute is worth it, but the drive is LONG. They lose half their day just to driving. Sucks.

I guess the moral is, if you LOVE the place, then the commute will always be worth it. Plus if you have a nice car, all the more reason to invest in a nice stereo. But you have to ask yourself, do you love the place enough to make a commute like that worth it?

 

Oh, and judging by that picture you posted, I'd endure a long *** commute for that view in a heartbeat!!!!! I say do it man. You'll live a happier life. Good luck.

 

that is a beautiful pic, I hope they take your offer!

I for one would look at how much money I am making and cut it into hourly payments (if you are on salary). I would then add 3 hours/day to this and figure that as working as well, only not being paid. Then I would figure out the new hourly rate I am making, with the drive factored in. If it is worth it to you, go for it and I hope you enjoy it!!!