mrken30

I'm with you on this, or even 10 acres with 25 minute commute. Unfortunately things don't work out that way.

SultanOfSwing

Right now I have 0.25 acres with a 20 minute commute, so I can only go up from here! In reality, I don't think I'd need much over 5 acres, unless the majority of any additional acreage was woodland. Something around 1-5 acres is a very real option just over the line in Wisconsin, which would lead to a 30-45 minute commute and that's a tradeoff I can live with.

robtuck

50 minute commute here, 50 minutes in the UK, but the culture towards Working at Home is more enlightened where I am now, so I actually commute far less and do less overall miles (which has included a couple of road trips). My drive is about 15 miles longer here, but the roads are clear. Having said that, I could even get through to Sandy Springs, north of Atlanta in under 90 minutes - they traffic moaners here have never seen a UK Town's traffic, let alone somewhere like London.

naomi

Lools like quite a few folks work from home. My commute is about 5 seconds as I currently wfh. It's great...until Comcast goes down. Naomi.

Pulaski

I think/ hope that WFH may be about to come my way in a major way, as opposed to just 1-2 days per week at the moment.

scrubbedexpat091

Not sure if WI is still lower tax wise vs IL, but when I worked at O'Hare (about 90 mins from Oak Creek near Milwaukee) and lived in WI, I paid taxes to WI and not IL, and I was certainly taking home a bit more per cheque then my IL resident co-workers, and there were no highway tolls (not sure about now) which also made things cheaper, and gas was usually cheaper as well, as were rent about 50% less compared to Chicago.



As for working from home, many days in winter I wish I could... but of course my job is impossible to do from home...

SultanOfSwing

Taxes are a little lower I think. Property/land is cheaper, reduced sales tax on food and lower sales tax in general (about 5.5% vs 7-8% here in Lake County), still no tolls on the interstate.

Wisconsin is definitely in our sights when it comes time to move house, but we need to get a bit more value in our current house before we can sell.

I can do about 85% of my job from anywhere there is a computer, a phone and an internet connection. But the 15% of it that requires my physical presence in the office makes it too much of a pain in the arse to even bother trying. Plus I like coming in anyway, I have a nice office and since I moved offices, now I'm in the quiet building away from all the chattering hens (finally!!!).

N1cky

Working from home has it's definite downsides, the lack of human interaction, job prospects, missing out on general information that everyone else seems to know and you don't, oh and cake you definitely miss out on cake. There are plenty of upsides though, and they mainly outweigh the negatives for me.

Pulaski

But you don't have to share the cake!

SultanOfSwing

I go back and forth from the yard quite a bit for inventory and I get a fair amount of traffic in my office for questions, and there's the fact that all the invoices and paperwork for accounts payable that relates to materials goes through me first so even if I did work from home, I'd have to come back and forth to the office so much that it's better to just stay here all day instead.

Nutek incoming in 3... 2... 1...

mrken30

Does your company allow you to expense cake while working from home? It's fairly easy to expense breakfast for team meetings in the office.

N1cky

I wish. I work for the tightest company ever, I can't expense anything like that even if I'm in the office.

I can trip over my own dog and fall down the stairs though, and get them to pay for it.

Pulaski

I think the concept of "sharing" cake has scared him away.

SultanOfSwing

Good point.

username.exe

90mins on the tube in London (usually standing in someone else's armpit in a dark tunnel most of the way).

Now it's 14mins door to door from the comfort of my car with a view of the pacific ocean.

I definitely upgraded my commute.