Recently, I had another reminder as to how much your quality of life increases when you live where you play and work. My better half works in Norwood. She and I moved into the South End a couple years ago. (tips on moving to come). To make sure she doesn’t sit in a parking lot on either 93S or 95S, there is a small window that she needs to be out of the house by in the morning. Well yesterday, during her typical “rush out of the house in the morning routine”, she forgot her work laptop in our home office. Once she realized this about 4 exits down on 93, she called me panicking and wondering what to do. Without hesitation, I grabbed the laptop, hopped into my Jeep and drove down 93S to meet her. I pulled away from Chester Sq at 7:15, met her at exit 8 in Furnace Brook Parkway/Quincy by 7:30. Not so bad right?Wrong. Here is where my point comes into play. It took me 15 minutes to travel from exit 20 to 8. I turned around and hopped onto 93N to head back home. I glanced down at the clock, 7:35. As traffic was at a fairly good pace for ‘Prime Time’ rush hour, 45 mph was a good speed – so I thought. About 100 yards into my trip, I hit the reality of what 93N is at that time….a PARKING LOT! The speedometer literally read, 0-mph!! Z-E-R-O!! I could not believe it. I didn’t arrive back to Chester Sq. until 8:30am! It took one full hour to travel what should have taken 10 minutes. Needless to say, I cannot fathom this type of torture on a daily basis.
If you have made the decision to live 2-3 miles outside the city, (Quincy/Braintree/Malden/Medford etc.) to save on your rent or to gain more space, I fully understand your point. However, if you are working in the city, going out in the city, basically spending about 95% of your time in the city and only 5% at home – WHAT’S THE POINT? And it works both ways: If you have a good job outside the city but live in the city, and commute over a total of 2 hours a day – WHAT’S THE POINT?
Look at the big picture:
If you are living outside the city to save $200 a month in rent, because you think that is what you are budgeting for, think about this …
Commuting in the parking lot of 93 north or south an hour each way a day is a total of 10+ hours a week you lose in your life. Never mind the gas (which right now is about $4 a gallon) you waste sitting in traffic moving 10 mph on the highway, the wear and tear on your brakes from sitting in traffic, and/or what you pay to park your car in the city each day. Now what about if you are going out on a Friday night? When is the last time you found it easy to have a cab take you home to Quincy or Medford at 2 am?? And when that cab does agree to take you home, you are looking at a minimum $40 trip. OR if you make the decision to drive into the city, now you are paying $25+ to park your car and you cannot have more than 2 drinks unless you’d like to get a DUI. Taking all of this into consideration, there is no way that you do not spend over $400+ a month in just commuting costs. If you lived in the city, you would actually SAVE TIME & MONEY – Better yet, your quality of life would improve – more money in the bank and more quality time for yourself.
Now living in the city and working outside the city. Lets consider my better half again. She has a great job at a great company. BUT – she is a 45 minute to 1 hour commute in the morning to the office. The drive home is even worse – it could be almost 2 hours on a Friday to get back to the city. A typical week means over 15 hours of commute a.k.a Caaar TIIIME!! Sound like your life? If so, ask yourself this question – If you could find the same position with the same or better salary in the city, would those 15 hours a week back in your personal life make you happier? I thought so. Immediately, these two words should come to mind: RESUME TIME!!!
I have lived outside the city in the past – Watertown and Somerville. In both cases, I always asked myself, “Why do I insist that the extra money I am saving and having a bigger place is worth it?” I can remember Thursdays with Happy Hour, taking a cab home ($15+) to change right after work. Taking a cab back into the city ($15) to meet my friends. At that point I was already $30 in the hole and hadn’t even made it out yet. Then an additional $15 home at the end of the night. Doing that once a week, I was spending over $180 a month in just cabs on a Thursday, never mind repeating the process on Friday or Saturday. Now living in the city and working in the city, my cab rides are never more than $10 or it’s never more than a 10 min walk to where I need to go! I am not worrying about traffic or if I can make the 7:05 first pitch of the Sox game on a Tuesday. Just say’n.
I hope you enjoyed this food for thought.
