How Much Would You Pay Not to Commute?

[DCmum]

Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia. - Slate Magazine This is interesting

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by DCmum

Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia. - Slate Magazine This is interesting

How about death or serious injury in an accident? How much is that worth?

If your employer starts letting you work from home at the same pay as you were getting before, should the IRS consider your cost savings a taxable benefit? Maybe we could use this to pay down the deficit rather than raising taxes on those job creators.

[Smoke_Jaguar4]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

How about death or serious injury in an accident? How much is that worth?

If your employer starts letting you work from home at the same pay as you were getting before, should the IRS consider your cost savings a taxable benefit? Maybe we could use this to pay down the deficit rather than raising taxes on those job creators.

I'd rather let individuals use this windfall to:
1. Pay down existing debt; especially if a person is upside down on their mortgage. This would then give people the option of selling their homes and getting the housing market going again. Otherwise reduce their consumer (credit card) debt.
2. Spend it. This is the best thing people can do to get the consumer market going again, especially with a lot of good products and services selling at a discount.
3. Invest it. In this craptacular economy, there are a lot of good investments that are value priced now. Think long-term, and watch it grow as the economy comes back.

As for those "Job Creators", tax the hell out of them unless they can demonstrate how exactly they are creating jobs (in the U.S., not oversees...)

[saganista]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

If your employer starts letting you work from home at the same pay as you were getting before, should the IRS consider your cost savings a taxable benefit? Maybe we could use this to pay down the deficit rather than raising taxes on those job creators.

The supposed "job creators" deduct every penny's worth of business-related expense on their tax returns. Teleworkers should be able to do the same thing on their returns under your scenario. Those who are limited to 30-minute lunch breaks on the basis of food being available on-site should, for example, be able to deduct the cost of the refrigerator, stove, microwave, cooktop, toaster, sink, disposal, dishwasher, etc. What's fair is fair...

[newgatedenizen]

I would be willing to take 10K cut right now without even thinking about it to be able to work from home. Given a chance to run some numbers it could probably be more.

[TechRider]

This is an excellent thread. This is how I made a quick/dirty calculation when I was offered a Job at McLean and moved to NOVA from FL.

Average Hourly pay = Full time salary/2080

Then estimate how much distance you would have to commute on a 5 mile, 10 mile and 15 mile radius and time it will take


costCAR = COST OF { Gas + All other "risks" (as identified by previous posters) } + Parking cost + TIME (in hours) * ave.hourly.pay

costPUBLIC = COST OF PT + TIME (in hours) * ave.hourly.pay

Use costCAR or costPUBLIC as a variable part in your salary and you would get an idea.

Other thing I considered is "lost time"..so if you spend 2 hrs in commute, then any personal work that you would want to do in the evening (like kids dr etc) you will have to take few hours off from work or postpone to weekend, which is an inconvenience factor (if you can assign $$ to it )


So In general, talking to many people, I understand, 45mins drive (one way) is average.

so if we take anything over 90mins of total commute per day and multiply by avg.hourly.pay, then you will get salary difference..
Which is what I would ask more for a new job or willing to take a cut if I can live closer to office (Which is what I did in my case)


Hope this makes any sense

[CAVA1990]

Now that we have all kinds of toys to keep us connected with the office and do work should commute time perhaps be counted as part of the work day? If you're expected to work 8 hours and you have to commute for 2 should perhaps only 6 be spent in the office before returning home? I could see this particularly for time spent on a train or bus.

[South Jersey Styx]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

. . .Not just for the obvious things, like big grocery trips, but also stuff like--say I suddenly realize I'm out of butter and need to run to the store at 9PM. Is there a bus readily available? Or suppose I need to go to Home Despot to grab one item on a Sunday afternon. Things like that are the reason it's good to have a car.

Depends where a person lives. If a person lives in the city, usually there is a Ma and Pa store at the corner with the staples (i.e., milks, sugar, catfood, etc.). Of course, you see this everywhere in cities like Philly and NYC but I have a corner store a few yards from my house in Winchester.

Also, call a cab. In a big city, you can just flag one down. In Winchester, there are several cab companies and you can just call for a ride to-and-fro. We have 3 cars in our household as well as AAA, but I keep these taxi #s in my phone anyway -- just in case I need them.