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My fiance and I are looking to buy our first home. Where we live currently, he can get to work in 20-40 minutes even in bad weather/traffic...and me 5 minutes to my job of course! We are looking for a city with a better school district and just overall don't plan to stay in our current city which is a suburb that borders Detroit. We value quality of life/leisure and don't want to DRIVE ALL DAY EVERY DAY! I have coworkers who live in very good areas, but it can take them over an hour to and from work each day. Is wanting a commute that's 40 minutes tops unrealistic? If you want a "nicer" area for your kids, you have to keep driving further and further, spending time on the road, that could be time at home? Do you have a commute that you regret? Or do have a longer commute, but your house/area is worth it? I have a nine year old son, and will have children in the future.....please advise!
My fiance and I are looking to buy our first home. Where we live currently, he can get to work in 20-40 minutes even in bad weather/traffic...and me 5 minutes to my job of course! We are looking for a city with a better school district and just overall don't plan to stay in our current city which is a suburb that borders Detroit. We value quality of life/leisure and don't want to DRIVE ALL DAY EVERY DAY! I have coworkers who live in very good areas, but it can take them over an hour to and from work each day. Is wanting a commute that's 40 minutes tops unrealistic? If you want a "nicer" area for your kids, you have to keep driving further and further, spending time on the road, that could be time at home? Do you have a commute that you regret? Or do have a longer commute, but your house/area is worth it? I have a nine year old son, and will have children in the future.....please advise!
My husband once had a (short-lived, thank goodness) very, very long commute; I would NEVER willingly wish that on anyone. Even a 40 minute commute is longer than what I'd like, although it may be acceptable. I'd rather spend time with my family. The grass is not always greener on the other side; presumably you can find a decent, even if not the "best" school district with a reasonable commute. The months when my husband had a long commute were horrible. He was up very, very early, and home late, and that was even in good weather. We did out of desperation until we could relocate, but it was a terrible option. We at least didn't have kids, but I would never, ever do that now, if it was at all avoidable. Time with parents and family is more important than having the "best" school or house. You want to be able to enjoy the time with your kids and be involved in their lives, and that gets more and more difficult if you take on an hour+ commute.
I had a long commute with a large suburban home - and now have a short commute with a very very small WWII cottage home. Our house is super small and we really need more space, but I would NEVER trade a long commute for a larger home at this point. The homes in our area are expensive p/sq ft - but not very large.
The problem with a long commute is it is exhausting physically and mentally. I had no energy or time for anything else (and that was without any traffic complications).
Thank you all for your input. That has definitely been what I've felt in my heart... better to be in a "good" area and actually be there for your kids, than to be in the "best area" and have them in latchkey longer, etc. I'm going to continue to explore options....private school, although, costly, could be budgeted in...my issue though is sure, that's who he'll be around during school hours, but the "neighborhood" kids are still who he's around after school/etc....
Well, thanks again. It was refreshing not to have anyone say "by any means, get in the most prominent district" because that's honestly not what I wanted to hear. And you're also right, kids or no kids, all that driving in addition to an 8 hour workday can zap your energy.
Years ago a friend of mine took a new job with a longer commute and then had trouble picking up her child from daycare on time when traffic was bad. Finding new childcare was a big problem she did not anticipate when she took the job. Just something to think about. Long commutes can ruin everything.
We bought a house last year with a long commute time (1hr for me 1.5 for DH) I LOOOOOOVE my house and my neighborhood and do not regret having gone out so far at all. We live in one of the most expensive areas of the country so for us there really wasn't much wiggle room since anything closer even in bad school districts was out of our price range or just outright dangerous and/or rundown.
So far it's been working out well for us my son commutes in with us and attends school right by my job so I don't have to worry about being late to pick him up or getting there quickly in case of an emergency. Soon though, we will be enrolling him in public school near home and I am not going to lie my stomach gets tied in a knot just thinking about, I still have no clear solution to him being in school so far from my job.
But in the end I think the lifestyle in the neighborhood we chose is far better for him than me being home to a crappy neighborhood 10 minutes after I get out of work from a job I mostly likely will not stay at for as long as I plan on owning my house.
WE are another family where one parent has an hour plus commute each way. I am a SAHM so for us it has worked. We have a larger family and found that houses closer to my husbands job were outrageously expensive and we would be house poor, so we opted to live further out and got more house for our money. We love the area we live in and my husband rides the bus so he gets to catch up on his reading, sleeping and work, all things he no longer has to do when he is home. So for us there has been no loss and we have truly learned that quality (definately in our case) has superseded quantity of time.
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