To travel 100 miles a day for work for this salary?

[ThisPeachSnake]

Basically, I'm stuck. I've built my career in London, up to a salary now of 58k. I'm now a specialist in my field and I've worked hard to get here. We have been looking to move out of the city, as we just can't afford to buy here. We have one small child. I'm the main breadwinner, although my partner also works FT.

The only issue is that I can't find an equivalent job outside London. At all. The specs are wrong, or I'd have to take a massive salary cut and be demoted.

The place we are looking at is 50 miles from my work in London. Takes anything between 1hr5min to 2 hours according to Google maps. I can't work from home as I'm in a patient facing job.

So, just that really. Would you travel two hours a day to keep your job?

There must be a middle ground between living in London and living 50 miles outside London.

Have you looked at schemes for first-time buyers and part ownership?

You could probably make it work in the short term but it sounds taxing. I did/ do something like this and you pretty much go straight to bed I’m working days.

Is it possible to reach your workplace by train? It looks like your local station doesn’t have a good direct line to it?

Be creative, search around. There may be another station 10-15 miles away where you can park up and the train journey is only 45 mins, for example. Not sure which way you are moving but look at commuter hotspots like Milton Keynes, Oxford, Brighton, … and see whether you can come up with a better route using mixed modes.

Also, flexible working request 4 days a week?

Your quality of life would be awful. Close to 24hrs driving a week!
Either buy close to a train station on a commuter belt, at least that way you can use the travel time to unwind/do life admin. Continue to rent and look for similar roles in and around cheaper cities or branch out into other areas in your field, what might seem like a demotion now but could lead to better prospects long term and an improved quality of life.
There's also no law saying that you need to buy a house, it's not always a smart investment, you could invest any savings left over after renting and bills you for the long term. Good luck with your decision

I wouldn’t do that for that salary no, although there surely must be places outside of London that you can have a quicker commute in. We live about 145 miles from London but can get a train to King’s Cross in an hour 25. I have also lived in the Oxfordshire/Wiltshire/Berkahire areas and getting into the city by train was fairly easy

No. My time is worth more to me.

TBH that sort of distance is what I what I would consider suitable for a day trip! Its way too far on a daily basis though

I’d rather take the house and take a drop in salary. That commute will cost you a fortune. When you factor it in I bet a salary drop isn’t that dramatic. Especially if you’re going to have to pay for extra childcare to accommodate the commute

The trouble with moving out of London and commuting in is that the rail fares are extortionate. Can you find somewhere affordable in zone 6? For example we're in Gidea Park - very undervalued property vs comparable areas but DH can be at his desk in Shoreditch in 45 minutes door to door, and as our area is covered by Transport for London, the fare is reasonable.

No, not for that salary. You'll spend a fortune on commuting anyway.

I'm thinking the google estimate must be by car, because train travel would not give such a large range.
I'd do that by car if I was early in my career with no responsibilities knowing I was improving my earning and house buying capacity.
I'd do it by train in your position as (hopefully) train travel is less stressful than driving and you can do things on the commute (if not work then personal/admin stuff).
If it's driving then no - not now you already have a child.

Weird, I was just having this convo with DS 21. We live 2 hours door to door by car, train and tube from my London office (I barely go in, we have a nearer office) and DS’s friend has started working near my office on a high salary. He’s decided to live in London to minimise the commute, in a really expensive flat, and we were discussing pros and cons.

It’s so expensive to live there, but DS said even at his young age he couldn’t handle the commute from home. Because he’d have hardly any life outside work, it would really impact on his hobbies. He’d rather have a lower paid job and live at home.

I think you would struggle with a DC, you’d hardly see them. Rock and hard place springs to mind, sorry OP. Modern life is very tough.

Two hours each way, so four hours in total? On top of a full time job? So basically out of the house 7-7? Sounds really miserable and I doubt you'd keep it up for long.

Just to agree with others, we live minutes walk from the train station and in a direct route to London. My only change is onto one tube line ( my costs are £5128 a year and the nhs charity pays and I repay by salary sacrifice)

No I wouldn't do that every day. Twice a week max and WFH the rest but not more than that.
DH was driving 1h to work a back 5 days a week at one point and it really took its toll on him after doing that for a few years.

Are you sure the pay cut would actually end up with you taking home less money? You're probably earning more because you're in London right now, moving to a cheaper area will mean reducing your outgoings quite significantly.

I live 50 miles from London (work in the city) and it takes me an hour door to door. Very common for people to live outside London and commute in. 10 minute walk to the station either side and 35/40 min train journey. I also compressed my hours so don’t have to do it every day. I’d suggest:

1. looking at a different area and seeing if it’s possible to get public transport instead
2. If not, change Jobs to a more central location within London so the commute is more reasonable
3. look to see if you compress or have an ‘admin day’ wfh to reduce days of travelling

I did a 2 hour door-to-door commute for about three years. I missed so much time with the children that I had to leave the job. Not only missing the children, but when trains were delayed or cancelled, my poor husband bore the brunt of my frustration/bad mood when I got home, so I didn't even have a nice restful evening.

The high London salary just wasn't worth it.

ETA - This was five days a week. WFH back then just wasn't an option.

I'd advise anyone to really think long and hard about committing to that length of commute, no matter the mode of transport.

I've spent many years driving 3 hours per day - tedious, but worth it for the salary. At one point, I was able to condense my hours into 4 days, is that a possibility?
Or is train travel feasible? Much more relaxing.

When we looked to move out of London we looked at all places where we could get to our work, on the tube/train, within 1 hour door to door. That's quite a normal commute but 2 hours each way I wouldn't do and that seems ridiculous. There are much more affordable places to live in every direction from London so there's got to be somewhere less than an hour away surely?
The variation in time also suggests you'd be driving, but it would probably be better to get the train or tube

To me, it depends what that commute is. If you're going into London, surely some is by train?

My commute to London was about an hour and forty minutes. Twenty minutes by car to the station. Train an hour and ten. Five minutes walk to the office. It was fine. I'd snooze on the train. And the trains were fairly frequent, four an hour.
I've done longer when I lived further from the station and the office was a longer walk the other end.

If it's all driving, I probably wouldn't. My current commute is about an hour and a half by car but I only work one or two days a week and only tend to go in for one of them.

My current short-term contract means I do a 90-mile commute one day a week, which is fine.

Did 2 days in the beginning for training, etc.

It's exhausting and a huge fuel expense, and you're putting a lot of mileage on your car. I've had to do loads of repairs that would usually be a bit more spread out.

Don't do it.

My friend has done this for a decade, she works for a University with some teaching responsibility but is not a lecturer. In those ten years one post similar came up in her home area which she didn’t get. She has been so ill with minor stuff but so often it’s being on trains plus the stress of it all. She doesn’t have kids either.

I moved out of London and kept working with a similar commute for a few years. It wasn’t sustainable. I was completely exhausted and nearly crashed my car a few times due to tiredness (it was a busy career often with late finishes which probably didn’t help)

eitherway, for that amount, I probably wouldnt

Nope! Not with a small child.. you would barely see them. I would take the demotion if there would be opportunity to build yourself back up. Are there career progression opportunities for your partner too?

Not sure I would. I do Surrey London atm ad no choice in the matter as placed there as a dr, its 3h a day train commute which kills me when on a 13h shift. Counting the days til Feb when I can cycle to work again haha. Wouldn't consider it in a million yrs driving. I've done a 1h10 commute n that's even worse

I commuted probably a bit more than that (3 hours door to door each way) 2-3 days a week for about £40k a year.

Like you my field is very niche and there aren’t really jobs outside of London. For a job I loved and the lifestyle I wanted, it was very worth it and I have no regrets. I was in the office core hours, usually 9:30-4 and I worked a good chunk of the commuting time. I was home by 7:30pm to do bedtime with the dc. It also meant on my long days, Dh got quality time with dc, so workload at home was very equitably shared.

I don’t do it anymore and am actually looking to leave the field I was in now, but not because of the commute.