Small city house and short commute or big house and long commute.

[fruitstick]

Have any of you given up one for the other? Did you regret it?

fruitstick, we lived in N London. DH worked in the city, I worked in Herts. We both had pretty much a commute of 1 hour each way. 18 months ago we moved to Surrey. I gave up my job, dh kept his (same commute sometimes a bit shorter thanks to not having to rely on the northern line ).

We swapped a small 3 bed terraced house with one bathroom etc, to a 4 bed, 3 reception, 3.5 bathroom house in a lovely area, fab schools etc.

So it does depend on where you are, where you work, where you are looking at moving to.

hate to be a bit middle-of-the-road about this but imho medium commute and medium sized house is, once you have kids, the way to go. we live in zone 6, south-west London and, as London goes, it's great. we have a nice house, small garden, very clean streets, excellent schools, the river and Richmond Park, and we have a maximum commute of an hour. dh can do his in 45 mins on a good day. it's horribly middle of the road and 15-20 years ago I would have recoiled at this suburban commuting stuff. but it really does work for us (so much so that we're moving to the country....but that's with different jobs).

I couldn;t do central London cos I really don;t think I could cope with the lack of fresh air and open space and the lack of good (free) schools. and I couldn;t do proper country cos the commute would suck.

Short commute. I have moved from a lovely job to a difficult one because it is closer to home. I now have a 20 minute commute rather than up to an hour before.

I am still on cloud 9 about the change.

I live in a small place, a flat, but do not want to trade up any time soon. I will just enjoy spending every spare minute of my time with the children while they are still little.

Sounds trite I expect, but that is my view.

Since DS2 was 8 I have commuted into London - 2 hours each way - at least 3 days per week or term time only - whilst DH works in next village (the original reason why we live where we do). I discovered that several of the mothers at DS1's independent school did exactly the same. So we have a larger house, access to the countryside but living close to a very interesting city, and excellent schools for the DSs.

The best commuting rule (from in or out of London) was passed on to me by a former boss. He said to keep the journey as simple as possible. One train or one tube or one bus. No changes and only walking permitted either end. If it's more complicated than that it will be a hassle.

We live in Harpenden and DP works in the City he leaves home at 8 and is in work by 8.35am and leaves work at 5.15pm and is home by ten to six. It means we can all eat together every night and he can still bath the little ones.

Short commute and long commute is confusing. As it can refer to both time and distance. Personally I think time is the important thing in commuting.

Swedes, really? 35 mins door to door? does he get into blackfriars and then walk?

i think I might be missing out on a trick...

swedes, I imagine you must live next to the train station and your dp's office is just outside the train station?

We live a 10 min walk from the station but 3 mins by bicycle!

Yep, 4 hours a day. Not fun, and I do worry that we've made the wrong choice (as far as the commute is concered) but he was insistent.

Sorry, that was in answer to Miyazaki's post on Friday!