Been offered two jobs with the same company. One pays a bit more but it a longer commute.

How much more money would you want to justify travelling how much further?

I know it’s a real “how long is a piece of string” type question but I’m in a bit of a quandry.

these days, it’d have to be a lot more to commute more than 30 mins

Worth remembering that it’s not just the cost of the commute, but the time away from your own life while commuting.

I travel a lot for work. (Paris this week, Moscow next), but am rewarded sufficiently for that travel, both in terms of money and in terms of flexible working arrangements to compensate from the amount of time spent away from home. OK, so it’s not exactly the same as commuting, but the principle remains – You should be paid sufficiently to make up for the loss of time that you’d otherwise spend at home, fettling with your bikes. 🙂

as uplink says – I would want at least my hourly rate extra for a commute.

so – If it £25 000 pa thats £13 n hour. For an hours extra travelling I would want that extra £13 per day so and extra £2000 – £2500 per year for an extra hours travel.

Hours of work and holidays / sick pay as well as pensions need to be considered

Forget about distance and salary for a moment. Presumably both are acceptable otherwise there would be no contest.

Which job offers the best prospects for in terms of skills development or career progression?

Which company’s culture suits you best?

Trust your instincts.

i made a decision that i wanted a job i could cycle to, i was in a job last year a little bit to far and it did my head in,

Which company’s culture suits you best?

erm…

Been offered two jobs with the same company

At least £200 per mile further from home, per annum.

fuel will cost you 15p at least per mile in the car, twice a day, 200 days a year – plus wear and tear, add more time, hassle etc.

That’s why it’s so tricky. Both are with the same company. One is closer and less money and gives a broad understanding of the whole company. The other is further away but pays a bit more. It also gives me a bit of a spring board into the company but will limit me to a narrower field.

Interesting idea Zulu-Eleven. That would mean they’d need to pay me £5600 more per year. Don’t see that happening.

Then again, by that measure, I shouldn’t take either of them over my current job.

which one gives you a better transferable skills base for your future – don’t assume that you will be staying at that company forever.

Well, at the very least – in fuel only, its going to be sixty quid per mile per year – But I’d rounded it up to allow for some for wear and tear etc, an extra 5000 miles per year on the car adds up!

on what you’ve said above, its going to cost you at least an extra £1680 just for fuel…

I’ve successfully argued the £200 per year per mile as a minimum to make it “even worth my while to consider ” with a prospective employer 😉

personally speaking, having commuted a minimum of 30 miles, maximum of 45, each way since 1997, I would not consider a new job any further than 10 miles away. But that’s just me

Is commuting likely to get any cheaper in the future? I think not. As others have said, work out what you think your time is worth, how long your commute will take and do the sums. Personally, my free time is worth more than any amount of travel time.

lose every possible mile.. i’m with drummer boy did 45m each way now do 5-10 a day is so much longer that way get up at 7.45 not 5.30 get homw at 5.30 not 7 no contest lose the miles..

ten years driving a minimum of 120 miles per day. i now cycle to the best facilities in the country.

choose based on opportunities, or cycleability – when you ride to work it doesnt feel like commuting 😀

After going from a 60 mile each way commute to a 15 minute walk and 15 minute train journey, you’d have to give me at least £15k extra a year to make up for the cost of running/buying an extra car, fuel and time away from wife and mini-DBW.

In fact, thinking about it, I’d want at least £20k extra a year to go back to spending at least 3 hours a day in the car. And even then it’d be touch and go whether I took it or not.

will there be an impact on your family life/ commitments that you/your family are prepared to accept? Cannot put a price on that one.
Wife chased the wholly grail for 2yrs, cost her her health for quite some time when it all went t~~~s up through no fault on her part and I am sure in the long run it cost us financially even though she was on expenses 🙄
All came good though. Got a new job and rapid promotion twice.

Thanks guys. This is starting to look like a really tough decision. Both are going to involve a lot of travel. 35 miles and 65 miles. Long term we can look to relocate but that’s a big step in itself.

Bugga. I thought these job offers were good news.

65 miles – is that each way, every day?

I’d rather hammer my knob flat!

As it says on the M40

why do I still do this every day…

9 hours at work, plus an hour and a half each way travel time 😯

**** career, enjoy life

That’s way too much travelling for me. Short commute gives you much more than saving a few quid. You can do things in the evening, either fun things or get your chores out the way to free up the weekend.

Yeah, that’s 35 miles each way to rotherham or 65 to castleford.

how much extra money would you ask for if an employer expected you to work 12 hours a day?

puts it in perspective!

(and I say that as someone who took a 10k pay cut to work in the bike industry :lol:)

Rotherham or Cas? what a choice! assuming you’re south of Rotherham, I’d go for that in preference to Cas, simply because it’s a damn sight easier to get there from the south – it’s very close to the M1 in places. That would certainly also reduce your travelling time.

I commute from north of Bradford to south of Wakefield; I’ve done both Rotherham & Sheffield in the past & I wouldn’t do it now – motorway miles are fine, for me it’s the getting to the motorway. I’ve also gone “over the hill” to Rossendale – motorway / equivalent or fast country roads most of the way, with one or two bottlenecks in between (Keighley & Colne), that was a much nicer commute. It was a bit Royston Vasey when I got there though 😉

Any job offer is good news in these times 🙂

I have commuted 2.5 hours each way before. But I was young, free and single. Time rich, in other words. These days, with a small child at home anything more than an hour would be too much for me.

Currently it’s 15 or 35 minutes depending on mode of transport. What would the 35 miles take you to cover? And the difference between that and your current commute? Multiply that by ten. That’ll be a hell of a lot of time to be away from your family and other fun things every week. If you could relocate fairly quickly though it might be worth it in the long run.

(and I say that as someone who took a 10k pay cut to work in the bike industry :lol:)

I know someone who took a much bigger reduction in salary to spend a year working in the bike industry. Sadly, it had to come to an end when the perfect corporate whore job came his way.

Find your perfect balance of life and job. Good luck!

Just starting a new job that is 14k p.a. more than the old one and 300miles closer to home.

Problem is that it is still 800miles away.

After this one I will be working from home, even if it is stuffing envelopes!

Cheers Flash

Been three years now working for the same company – like all jobs, it has up and down moments, but I wouldn’t look back for a minute.. I get paid to spend all day talking bollocks to people about bikes 😆

Onza – seriously, if its something you’ve always wanted to do, leap at the chance, but if you’ve got family, kids, then you’ll never get that travelling time back 😕

Well, I got to castleford in 70 minutes for the interview while driving economically. Might have to try it on Friday in rush hour for a true comparison though. Oddly enough, my current commute across nottingham can takes almost as long on public transport.

No kids. Just me, the wife and the dog. It’s not something I’ve always wanted to do but it gets me back into engineering and it appears to have much better prospects than my current job which I detest.

Two things.

1) it’s not the distance, it’s the reliable distance. I used to work in the middle of Manchester; trying to get there for 8:30am is a whole other prospect to trying to get there at lunchtime. In good conditions, it was about an hour; in bad, who knows, can be twice that, or more. Do you want to be leaving the house at 6:30am in order to not be late (usually), and be there an hour early half the time?

In the end, TomTom Traffic was the saviour of my sanity; it could tell me if the motorways were ruined so that I could take the line less travelled. I’d suggest that if traffic is likely to be an issue, you either need a Flexi-time agreement, or an understanding that you’re going to be late occasionally.

Course, if your commute is pedalling down the canal, it’s a bit of a moot point.

2) The longer the commute, the less you can realistically do it for IMHO. I got to a point where I was leaving at 7am to get to work for 8:30, hanging back for an hour after work to let the traffic clear and then getting home at 7pm or later. That’s 12 hours of the day gone on a good day. I did it for four years on the back of commuting even further to Warrington for two years, and it left me knackered.

I took a pay cut to be where I am currently, but it’s a 15 minute drive to work. I can fall out of bed at 8 and be in the office for 8:30, come home for lunch, and have my evenings back. What’s that worth? I think now if someone offered me five grand on my salary to go back to that commute I’d say no, and I’m broke.

So, yeah. Personally I’d say that if you’re going to be taking the long commute option then take it as a shorter term prospect with a view to moving / changing in a few years.

I just declined a great job which was in London and would have meant an hour drive to god only knows how long each way at accepted one with a lot less money locally just to save my sanity and any semblance of family life. Must admit though it was a hell of a tough decision that took almost 2 weeks to make.

i reckon anything over 10 miles is asking a bit much….but they’d have to pay serious money to get me to commute over 20 miles, in fact I doubt I’d take a anything permy role that far, contracting maybe as you know it’s not forever and the wedge makes up for it.

Did a dry run in rush hour this morning.63 miles driven in an economic style in one hour fifteen. Only a little longer than it takes to get across town on public transport now.

yeah but how much gas did that 63 miles one way journey use? multiply that by 10 and then again by 4.5 to get an average monthly petrol bill.

My 24-28 mile journey (depending on route) each way costs me £65 a week in petrol. Granted it’s a petrol car running at about 35-37mpg, but when I had a diesel the best I ever got was 41mpg – I’m not particularly heavy footed, I have to get from north of Bradford to the outskirts of Barnsley. Whichever way I go, there’s a lot of urban miles in between.

Now for your 63 miles each way, avoiding all town centres, you’d comfortably add at least 50% to my fuel bill, and that’s for one week. And it’s not going to get any cheaper…

I know it’s going to be expensive. I’ve been trying to get a feel for just how much extra salary I’d need to make it work for me.

But that’s just it – only you can put a value on your time.

how much extra salary? Well AT LEAST as much as it’s going to cost in fuel bills. Plus the 10 hours a week of time you’d spend in traffic.

So, for me to go from 28 miles each way to 63 miles each way, I’d conservatively say another 60 a week for the fuel alone – and that’s assuming it never goes up again. Plus, say on a (for example) 30k salary that works out at about £15 per hour – so that’s another £150 a week.

totting up, let’s be generous to the employer & call it 200 a week extra – that’s £10k a year on top of what you’re earning now. That’s what I’d want in order to double my journeys.

No no no…
I currently commute 60 miles/day each way. I’ve done it for over 2 yrs now and it’s starting to become a real drain on my finances, my free time, my sleep, my social life, my cycling….

I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, I will be sticking my CV on some sites once it’s updated to look for something new.