Okay.. there’s been a wrinkle. What if you had lived forever in a townhouse. What if, for 40K more you could have your first single family home with a yard.. and as an added bonus, your mother, brother, and sister lived four doors down and were offering free childcare?
What if it meant freedom to pursue things like acting, with the ability to go places at a moments notice.. but what if it meant your wife had to add 45 minutes to her commute?. What if it meant giving up a lot of your social scene, but solidifying your relationship with your siblings?
What if it meant you would need to come up with $400 more a month.. but had less chance of depreciating in a bad market.. and more chance of growing in a good market?
What if it meant you had to move further away, but could stay in the same (DC) market? What if it solved a dilemma you posted about, just days ago?
What would YOU do?
Mothers…
My mother lives in Riverton, UT. This is a little bit over one hour from our house. We have had ample opportunity to move closer. We choose not to do so.
An hour is a bit excessive, but too close is too close.
Adding 45 minutes to an already-long commute sucks. Anything more than 60-75 minutes is just too far. Think about how much time that eats out of your day?
The free childcare is a nice bonus. I say, take her up on her offer, but stay where you are and just add that travel time to your date. It will be less expensive in the long run, and you’ll have reasonable separation.
I love my Mom, but I don’t want to live just seconds away. We’d drive each other nuts.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Life…
A tough choice to make for sure.
I think the house with a yard ends up being a personal choice. Home is where you are with the wife and kids (Be it a townhouse or single family (SF)). That being said, I have a SF home with a yard and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I commute 90 minutes each way to work everyday (total 180 minutes / day). I would not extend the commute more than that. Something to consider with the extended commuting is increased wear-n-tear on the vehicles. More mileage = more oil changes, break pad changes & increased tire replacement. I personally have gotten used to the commuting. I bought my XM radio so I can listen to a wider variety while on the road. This year I started driving in a car pool which has turned out to be great since it lets me read a couple days out of the week during the commute.
Solidifying your relationship with family is great, but I don’t see it as being something that geography is typically impeding to begin with. An example is that my sister lived in California for a while. We always discussed how nice it would be if they were closer so we could visit more. They now live just out side Baltimore, but we don’t really see them all that often. Granted it is more then before, but not an extraordinary amount.
In the end you have to do what is right for your family (you, the wife, and kid). Make sure you all are happy and safe and the rest will fall into place.
If you do buy the house, let me know if you need any help moving – I am just down the road…
The Wifey
Sounds like the perfect solution, should the wife agree to it, would be for her to see if she could get a HR job closer to this new house. If she’s agreeable to that, and such a job exists, then all could be happy, provided you REALLY want to live so close to your family (as Matt aluded to above).
Otherwise, I’d say no, because your wife will hate the commute, and that will lead to negative things in live.
Of course, if you land that big role in a new sitcom and start making 6-7 figures an episode, this becomes an academic discussion 😉
My $.02 Weed
Sitcom..
Heh.. working on that. 🙂
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
appreciation
You’re right that you’re likely to get more appreciation out of a single-family home than a townhouse. And I can tell you from personal experience that free childcare is the bomb.
As you say, it all depends on whether Kelly will kick you in the nuts for suggesting it.
— Ben