Tell me about your commute

[Bee14]

live in relatively central London with a 35-45 minute commute at moment, but will need to move in next year. Ideally we would like to be outside London but commute once you have factored in getting to station is between an hour and twenty and an hour and fourty!

Interested in anyone where both you and DP are commuting? We can probably WFH one day a week each and would probably need a nanny but is this too much ? Do you get any work done on your commute ?

I commute from Surrey. Takes about 1hr15 in the morning and 1hr in the evening, both door to door.

12 mins walk to station (getting longer as I get more pregnant with #3!)
40 mins (morning) or 25 mins (evening) train - always get a seat in an air conditioned train.
10 mins tube (waterloo and city line, so about 3 mins journey but rest taken up walking to and from platforms)
5 mins walk to office

only work on the train very occasionally when I am really busy. Usually I knit/crochet, read or just sit and play on my phone. DH also commutes in so we often do the walk and main train journey together which is nice. We have a nanny who works 7am to 6.30pm. I don't find it too much but wouldn't really want it to be any longer.

Mine used to be 20 minutes bus then 50 minutes train - I did get a bit of work done in the train but still a big waste of time (especially the waiting in between). Now it is 10 minutes bus and 10 minutes stroll with a cappuccino in the way - much better!

Would you and DP both be reliant on the same train line? Or would one or both of you have options? Think about what you would do if your normal train line went down and you needed to get home to relieve the nanny.

Its do-able unless you depend on Southern rail. If we didn't live in zone 3 and have the fallback option of tube + bus, we would have been late picking up dd from nursery several times a week over the last month.

You'll need cast iron, flexible childcare or family on hand if you both intend to have a lengthy commute with no alternative travel options.

Dh is getting fed up of his long commute from Oxfordshire to Liverpool St. We live completely the wrong side of London!

Ideally, would like to rent, possibly buy a large family home in a more suitable location which will have a direct train journey to Liverpool St. and avoid the tube if possible. Our budget to buy would be about £500K absolute max and for that, would like everything - 3 or 4 bed, garage, garden if at all possible! Would consider commutes up to 50mins but ideally less.
Please help!

Oh, and we would definitely need to be in catchment of a decent state secondary school for dcs!

Any ideas suggested towns or villages?

Ooops! Please ignore. Wrong thread!!!

DH and I about to move to get rid of hour+ driving commute each, each way. I've done it for 5 years and I can't wait to see the back of it. I love where we live now but it still doesn't make up for those hours on the road and the worry about not getting back for after school club pick ups.

My god, reading this makes me so thankful to live in NI and work locally. Did a roughly 1hr commute for ten years (break downs, hold ups and suspect packages notwithstanding) from south london into the city and had a light bulb moment one day. I could NOT suffer another summer stuck in some tunnel on the Northern Line, standing, in 90 degree heat. Upped sticks, bought a house for under £100k in NI and have never looked back in the last decade and especially since I've had DS (realise this isn't for everyone, before the arseholes start). Hugs to you all facing it in the morning and OP; are you happy in your job? If so, you'll make it work & you'll get more reading done than I ever manage now!