Background: 27 year old mostly socially introverted male living on my own in a very high COL area. My rent is $1800/mo, which is dirt cheap for my area. I moved out of my parent's house about a year and a half ago to live together with my then girlfriend (now ex). Now I'm living alone in the same City I moved to. I am living 10 minutes away from work in a very nice and very safe area and in a killer unit - only a five minute walk to a high end downtown area. Although I like the City I'm living in, I'm not crazy about living alone. I feel very isolated at times, especially since I'm about 45 miles away from my parents and most of my friends. The very recent breakup with my girlfriend of 5 years doesn't help things, naturally. I do have a dog, but she is actually burdensome when it comes to searching for other renting prospects (roommates may not want dogs, etc). I make about $100K pretax, but most of my take home still goes to rent.
My yearlong lease is up in a couple months, and I've been thinking about moving back home and living with my parents. I have a great relationship with them - and they would welcome me back no problem if I decided I wanted to move back with them to save money. It would cost me $300 a month to move back (for food, etc. since they're close to retirement), which is a drop in the bucket compared to the $1800 I'm currently shelling out. In fact, I found out that just by commuting, I would be saving almost $25K per year, which is fantastic since moving to a lower COL area is an absolute no for me (this is my home, that's not changing, I'll make it work), and I need to start saving for a house (you really don't save much renting, esp. around here) since I want to end up around here. I currently only have 6 months rent in savings, which I consider a bare minumum. There's also some big upcoming expenses I forsee (potentially grad school, a new car).
Commuting would cost me an average of about an hour and fifteen minutes of personal time each way with traffic. I've done this commute before so I know how bad it can be, but that was when I was 22/23. Now I'm 27, so it's a bit of a different story. What's strange though is I don't feel much happier now with my 10 minute commute living alone as I did living with my parents with an hour 15 minute commute.
Is $25K/year in savings worth 2.5 hours on the road per day?
September 25, 2018 at 01:00AM
