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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: ginjaninja on January 19, 2018, 07:08:53 AM

Title: Where to Live?
Post by: ginjaninja on January 19, 2018, 07:08:53 AM
Hello Mustache Community,

I have a question on something to consider when choosing where to buy my first house.  I want to be able to live within a bikeable distance to work (less than 8 miles).  The problem is in order to shorten my commute, we would be adding a longer commute for my SO.  Would it be better to pick somewhere that is in the middle of our two jobs (~40 miles from each other) or move closer to one job and only have 1 car commute?  We are in Colorado and the public transportation is not efficient for our routes yet.

Option 1: Live 8 miles from my work, 32 from his
Option 2: Live 20 miles from each job

We are both early 20's and have found practically dream jobs to start our careers where we can still live in the same city as each other.

We both have older cars (2001 and 2005) that are fully paid off and in good condition for now but only get ~20-25mpg.

Thanks,
GinjaNinja
Title: Re: Where to Live?
Post by: historienne on January 19, 2018, 11:50:57 AM
Which location do you like better as a place to live?  How certain are you that you will stay in these jobs?  If you change jobs, how would your commute be most likely to change?  If you are buying a house, you want to be thinking in an 8+ year time horizon. 

Do you want kids - and if so, do you both plan to keep working at that time?  If so, I'd be wary of buying a house close to my job and far from my male partner's job.  That setup tends to shift the labor of getting kids to/from daycare to the partner who works closer.  If that partner is also the woman in a hetero relationship, it reinforces the broader social dynamic that assumes women will do a disproportionate amount of child-related labor.  If you want to have kids and maintain an equal partnership, set yourself up for success.  In this case, that would mean buying the house in the middle, so that you can get daycare by your house and split the work equally.
Title: Re: Where to Live?
Post by: ginjaninja on January 22, 2018, 10:54:46 AM
Thinking about kids is a really good point!  I hadn't thought about that.  We have talked about waiting until we are "retired" to have kids, similar to MMM, but that might not be a realistic goal.  Planning the location based on still working and day care is a great idea! 

Title: Re: Where to Live?
Post by: mm1970 on January 22, 2018, 01:46:55 PM
When we bought our house we were mid-30s, no kids yet.  Our rental was a 6-mile bike ride from his work and 11 miles from mine.  We both biked, but not daily - him 3x a week and me 1-2x a week.

So, when we house-shopped, our goal was to be between the two jobs (still) so we could each bike to work. That limited our search to a particular stretch of freeway exits.

As it so happened, we bought a house closer to his work than mine, so his commute was 5 miles and mine was 12.  That dropped my biking down to 1x a week but his stayed at 3x a week.

The kid thing is important.  We had our first kid 2 years after buying the house and I didn't ride at all that first year - there was no way that I was carrying a breastpump AND laptop AND lunch on my bike.  Lather, rinse, repeat for kid #2 6.5 years later.

Of course, 3.5 years after buying the house, dh changed jobs.  2 years later I changed jobs.  We now work one block from each other, 10 miles from home.  And we don't bike.  We have off and on but it's been hard with kid schedules and allergy season.  And too many of my biking friends have been hit in the last 3 years. Makes me nervous.

You can't know where you are going to be in 10 years.  The daycare point was a good one too - our daycare for kid #1 was right next to husband's work.