@naila When we were looking for houses, we found this amazing place. It had everything we never knew we wanted, was being sold by an old couple who was not really looking to cash out. They just wanted to dump their local assets and move to wherever new grandbaby was. Cheap house, lots of land, huge garage with lifts, barn, indoor pool, low taxes. They were even selling their auto repair shop in town, and that would have been a great business for my husband -- and they were very interested in cutting the price even lower for someone who was going to buy both. But google maps said the house was 45 minutes from my office. Which was
just on the high side of my search radius. We scheduled a showing of the house an hour after work with the idea that my husband and I would both just drive there from work for the experience. I drove my normal 20 minutes to work, worked a full day, then drove the 45 minutes to the house. Except I had no idea what traffic was like heading that direction, and I was still 20 minutes away an hour later. Had to call my husband and let him know I was going to be late. Hour and a half of driving, I finally made it. Looked at the house, loved it. But couldn't get over that hour and a half drive. So I tried again. After work, just drove out to the town where the auto shop was located. At the time, I was working in the office two days a week, and I couldn't imagine losing
that much of my day to commuting. And that much time stuck in traffic -- evidently the roads are inadequate heading the other direction from the office, and "gridlock" is the norm.
So that's my advice -- try the drive. Take a day off work, drive out there. What time do you need to wake up to get there at starting time? Don't cruise over at 10AM unless they'd be cool with you showing up at 11:30 to start your day. Get the full experience! Do stuff for the day -- maybe only take half a day and work from Starbucks, maybe take a whole day and run a bunch of errands. Whatever to simulate a full day of work. Then drive back home. Not so bad and you could see doing that once a week? You're set!
Dread the thought of ever needing to make that drive again? Then I'd be thinking about our finances otherwise ... if we need the money, I'd suffer through 100? 150? hours of driving a year for the opportunity. You can borrow audio books from the library or something to make the time less grueling. Just extra money we'd be fine without? That'd be a no for me.
Not sure how much time you spend commuting
now. For me, that's zero, which absolutely colors my decision. Say you work from the office 45 weeks out of 52 (company holidays, vacation time). That's 135 hours of driving in a year with three hours of commuting once a week. If you normally half a half hour commute each way, but it's 5 days a week for 45 weeks, that's 225 hours of driving in the year. 135 hours of driving, even if the drive is
longer, means you are getting 90 hours of "not working" time back each year. That could be a great score!