I considered anything more than 20 minutes too long. There is no way I'd sign on to a commute of more than an hour.

flashguy

For a while, I drove about 700 miles per week for work. I like driving, and the routes were different each day, repeating the cycle each week. And the money was good.

But, I noticed that after driving home, it took me a while to decompress....when my four year old son wanted to leap into my arms when I got home, I was tired, sometimes impatient. My daughter wanted to tell me about school, or my wife wanted to take a break from what she had been doing all day. And I just didn't want to deal with it for an hour or so. Then there would be something to be fixed, or an errand to run, or whatever. Eating dinner alone, because the family ate two hours ago.

For me, it's not just the time, and it's not the mileage, not the work. It was the time added to my days, and as others have said, you can't get that back.

When I was assigned in DC I had a 66 mile commute. Mostly on the Beltway but when traffic got bad, we used the secondary streets.
What made it possible was I carpooled. What made it hell was one driver insisted on listening to two old fools that kept each other in stitches.
Finally got out of that and had a 45 mile commute. No carpool but much better.

I commuted 77 miles each way for about a year and hated it. I even had a take home car provided by the government and still hated it. I always felt tired and that the drive had sucked my energy out of me. If I hadn’t been able to transfer I was planning on spending a bunch more to live closer and downsizing my toys, I just tired of spending all that time in a car. I would recommend biting the bullet and pinching pennies to pay more for the closer house, with the hope that raises would be eventually forthcoming and make the living costs not so tight. If the raises didn’t come then start selling some of the toys, because with a long commute you wouldn’t have the time and energy to use them anyway.

If you go for the long commute, at first you will say to yourself, I can do this. I felt that way. But it gets old really quick. I would say definitely keep the commute under an hour. 45 minutes would be my absolute tops.

My commute isn't particularly long these days, 28 miles and 30 minutes each way. No traffic, wide open toll road. I look forward to it, as I get a 30 minute uninterrupted block of time to listen to an audio book each way.

quote:

Originally posted by ropin4gold:
I live in the area. That is a low stress/low traffic commute. You might look around Columbia/Lewisburg/Chapel Hill/Centervillr areas to shave 30-40 mins off that drive. Fayetteville is a pretty area but that is a long drive.

I have looked into those areas and haven't been able to find anything yet. Also, the Columbia/Maury county schools are terrible. ANY commute other than what I have right now is going to be 45 minutes, no matter what I do...so keep in mind 45 minutes is going to be the new standard any way I slice it. In regards to the stress level of the drive? I trained monkey could do this specific drive, it's very low impact.

I spent a summer with a 140 mile commute from Boise to Hells Canyon. Only a few times to convince it was worth arranging stay in the local labor camp. Not so bad as the night shift differential gave 40 hour + week with 3 days off.

OP conditional choice in my now-geezer life simply would. not. work.

Good luck. Make a better choice, them road-hours/expenses add up faster than you might think.