Only freedom will do

smifffy1989

Quite sad I know... but you are one thank away from 24,000 and 1 post away from 6,000!

Goldiegirl

I'm the 24000th to thank:)

Mr Ed, I always imagine you as living in a city centre tenement building. You've said you are thinking of moving - are you thinking of getting out in to the country or are you going to be a city slicker? You might get a bit of peace in the country!:rotfl:

Just curious:D

Karmacat

24,001
:j:j:j smiffy, thats a good catch!

edinburgher

You're spot on Goldie, we're 3 miles out from the centre of Glasgow and live in a traditional red stone tenement. Lovely sized rooms, but difficult to heat and it feels a bit like we all live on top of each other.

Realistically, we won't be moving significantly further out from the city, although an extra bedroom and a garden will be on the agenda. I think you both read MMM? I don't, but he makes a very valid point about the sheer waste (time, money, resources) of a long commute. The country would be lovely, but that's at least 2 moves into the future.

Happy 6,000th post birthday to me :bdaycake:

Watty1

having spent 20+ years on long commutes I actually agree with MMM. If I had my time again I would either work closer to home - or - move closer to work. I gained little from the commutes and although I loved living round the corner from my parents for all I saw them I could have driven to do so once a week and saved maybe 10 hours to 12 hours a week and goodness knows how much cash.
15 years ago we moved out of town but we still both had long long commutes. Honestly not worth it.
Only started to look at things like this since reading here and MMM and early retirement extreme though.

edinburgher

I suppose the other option to consider is bringing your work to you (so working from home, telecommuting, starting a business etc.)?

That might work for some people, but a lot of employers really don't like their staff being out of the office.

Karmacat

My word ... its really interesting reading about the commuting! I had a normal London commute when I lived there (anything up to 90 minutes each way, it was horrible) when I moved to the coast, it was only ever 20 minutes walk. And I've worked from home for a million years now (self employed) ... you have to be good at creating a boundary between work and home to do that, but I've had practice by now though some people who ring me never get it.

Telecommuting often seems to work for a couple of days? Cheery does that, I know ... And I took the train to London for 20 years or so, just once a week, to run a small practice there.

Its awful to think of people I know feeling that all that time's been wasted if you can get a seat, and you're studying, I suppose you can use it for the study (my niece does that, her study books are on her kindle). And of course there's redundancy - my brother takes the train now to his job, which he never wanted to do, but he's happy to have any job at all.

Anway, I'm glad you got cake in, ed :T

edinburgher

If you want to invest for your future, but don't know where to start, spare an hour of your life to watch this video! :T

Goldiegirl

Up until I started my current job 5 years ago my maximum commuting time had only been 15 minutes. At some points, I could walk to work.

My current commute is 30 minutes. The only reason I took this job was because it's on the way to Mr Goldie's office, and he drops me off.

When I met Mr Goldie he lived in Battersea and his office was in Victoria, so he walked to work, over Chelsea Bridge.

When we married and moved to Kent, he commuted by train, and then by commuter coach for about 5 years.

Then his firm moved out of London, and it was a 90 minute commute, round the M25. It was only manageable because he did a car share with two other people he worked with, who lived locally.

When the other two left the firm, he worked from home 2 days a week, and went to the office the other three days.

But it was still too much travelling, so he found a job here in Kent, 'only' 40 minutes away, which was more than acceptable to him.

Nothing beats a local job- except when it snows, and there's no excuse for not making it into the office !

Laura2014

Karmacat wrote: »

I confess, when I was in my 20s, I worked in export finance, and I had a trip abroad to Portugal, on business. There was a bit of a traffic accident, and I ended up picking glass out of my driver's hair :eek: so the firm I was visiting presented me with a bottle of port, 1937 vintage! I didn't know anything about storage or selling on but when my niece was born, I opened it and shared it with some relatives, and it was horrible :rotfl: Good luck with yours, ed!

We had something similar. DH was given a bottle of wine which we looked online and discovered was quite expensive. We are not big wine drinkers so we left it for a 'special occasion'. The years passed and we bought our house, got engaged and got married. Yet these did not seem to warrant opening this very special bottle.

In the end we gave it to my father-in-law. We left it so long the bottle corked and, like yours Karacat, the wine was horrible :rotfl: