Trying to get away from Commuting

Noffles · 24-01-2012 9:53am #1

Myself and the missus both work in Dublin but commute from Co Wexford, usually by car, as a home worker I don't have to do it as oftne but the missus travels everyday. Over the last couple of weeks she decided to look for work in Wexford, she works in finance and there are a couple of options there.

Within the week she was offered a new role with a finance company in Wexford, we thought this was great until they mentioned the pay..... To take the exact same role in this new company she would have to take a 12 grand pay drop... and was told this was due to the fact that it is Wexford and they don't pay "city wages"... what a bloody joke...

So trying to get away from commuting and the awful cost of petrol these days is looking very difficult...

Our only option is to look to rent a small flat in the city....

Noffles · 24-01-2012 10:17am

If this isn't the right Board... apologies.

seamus · 24-01-2012 10:38am

Well, look at it logically. How much money would you save by working locally?

Petrol costs being the obvious one. How much does a week's commuting cost at present? ~10 hours @ 80km/h, I'm guessing you're paying about €100/week on petrol alone for that commute. That's €4,800/year.
Then you've got maintenance. A car doing that commute twice a day every day is going to cost about €1200/year in servicing. That's €6k.

Then you've got other sundry costs like lunches. If she's working in Wexford, she'll either get a cheaper lunch or could eat at home. If she spends the guts of €10/day on food in Dublin, that's a whopping €2,400/year. That brings you up to €8,400 saved if she moves to Wexford.

What's her time worth? Presumably she's up at the crack of dawn at the moment and not home till nearly 8pm. Imagine she could get up at 8am and be home just after 6? What's that worth? I know plenty of people (parents especially) who would happily take a pay cut of a couple of grand if it meant they had more time in bed and more time at home in the evenings.

You could also look at other measures - without the huge commute you could look at drastically downgrading one of your vehicles or getting rid of it altogether. Either way you'll save massively on motor tax, insurance, maintenance & petrol costs.

And lastly, what are the tax implications of a €12k drop? It may mean that you will pay less income tax on your salary, clawing back a couple of K per year for you?

12k is a huge drop in salary, but I wouldn't write it off straight away, especially when it's right on the doorstep. Do your sums.

munchkin_utd · 24-01-2012 10:39am

On the same lines of the previous poster, you need to do your sums, and ill just stick to travel and take home pay (extra lunch costs etc disregarded).

a 12 grand salary cut isnt 12 grand less cash in your pocket.
on 50k your take home is 35 grand.
on 38k (12 grand less) its 29 k in the hand.
http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/

Your 12,000 euro paycut is only really 6,000 euro less in the hand.
Indeed its still 500 euro a month less cash in your hand but if you are eliminating 3 trips to dublin per week @270km round trip each time thats
270km*3days*46working weeks = 37,260km LESS that your car is doing.
If you are getting a consumption of say 7L/100km (good for petrol, middling for diesel), thats 2615L of fuel LESS that you are paying for or @1.50 a L works out at €3990

So suddenly your 12k pay cut, that is only 6k less in the hand, is only costing you 2k less in the hand after petrol costs.

And thats no taking into account the savage mileage you are putting onto the car by travelling 5 days a week. The 3 days as week that your mrs is going on her own to dublin adds up to 37,260km over the year. That type of mileage means you need more tyres/ more maintenance& servicing etc and to change the car quicker than if she wasnt commuting.
So the €2k that she is technically better off with by working in Dublin is more than eaten up by the hidden costs of an extra 37,260km over if she were to work locally.

n97 mini · 24-01-2012 11:07am

What part of Wexford do you live in and what part is the job in.

Other thing is job security. Unless you in the public sector you will have a lot more of it in Dublin.

BTW, rent and property prices in general aren't close to what they used to be.

Noffles · 24-01-2012 11:46am

With driving and the actual transport in to the city centre we're spending on average 130 euro a week. If she was to take pay cut and she would still have a 20 minute commute to Wexford and I would still have to do the commute to Dublin 2 times a week. So there are other variables that would need to be taken into consideration, which I hadn't mentioned earlier and shold of..

I think our main bugbear was the drop in pay for the same job and the company stating that it wasn't in the city and you should not expect the same salary, which is fair enogh but 12 grand seems an awful lot.

Thanks for the calculations above actually, it doesn't look that bad but with my additional journeys it's not as rosy.

Kumsheen · 24-01-2012 11:48am

I think others have hit the nail on the head here. It's really a question of how much value you put on your free time? Quality of life has different values for different people.

Another factor to consider would be how important having a career with progression potential is to the person. Again people put different values on this too, some people just want a job, others the career is their life.

12k may sound like a lot, but as long as you can still manage to live with what you have left, does it really matter?

Noffles · 24-01-2012 12:26pm

With the cost of living going up in general I don't believe that taking a large paycut like that would be a sensible option, I'd imagine the missus would agree with me.

After checking the price of a few small apt's in Dublin I think renting would be a far easier and more sensible option.

bk · 24-01-2012 12:41pm

Noffles wrote: »

With the cost of living going up in general I don't believe that taking a large paycut like that would be a sensible option, I'd imagine the missus would agree with me.

Cost of living is generally going down. Rent prices way down, etc.

Noffles wrote: »

After checking the price of a few small apt's in Dublin I think renting would be a far easier and more sensible option.

Agreed, personally I can't understand people who want to live in massive houses out in the middle of no where and then have to commute for hours every day and end up never seeing or using their massive house as they are hardly there and so tired when they are.

I took the opposite view, an apartment in the city center, that I cycle to, so no transport costs. Home from work in just 10 minutes and I spend my free time at museums, cinema, pubs, gymn, etc. in the city. Much better lifestyle IMO.

Malice · 24-01-2012 12:47pm

Kumsheen wrote:

It's really a question of how much value you put on your free time

Yep, this is the key. I commuted from one side of Galway city to the other for a few years. The trip used to take around 20 minutes in the morning and around an hour in the evening. I used to get home around 6:30 and be basically exhausted from crawling along bumper to bumper. Fast forward a few years and I ended up working in Cork with a 15 minute commute both ways which I got used to very quickly.

Last year I decided to look for opportunities back in Galway and happily found a job on the same side of the city that I live on so now I have a 15 minute commute both ways again. I actually did get offered roles that would have paid more on the other side of the city and I periodically get recruiters trying to drag me to Dublin but the commuting time is more important than the salary to me. Being able to leave work at 4:30 and be home well before 5:00 is brilliant and it means I have my whole evening free to do things.

Noffles · 24-01-2012 1:07pm

As someone has said above, we do have a house in the middle of nowhere and also have a long commute but with the nipper finishing school shortly we can consider changing our plans and renting.

bk · 24-01-2012 2:01pm

Noffles wrote: »

As someone has said above, we do have a house in the middle of nowhere and also have a long commute but with the nipper finishing school shortly we can consider changing our plans and renting.

It could end up being a very positive thing for your lifestyle.

One thing to think about, is getting an apartment as close as possible to your wifes work, so that she can walk or cycle there, thus saving a lot of money on transport costs.

It might be enough savings to get a large apartment, rather then a small apartment.

Also do you currently have two cars? You almost certainly don't need both if living and working in the city. Do you even need a car at all? I don't, I get by walking, cycling, public transport and rent a car for very cheap, the odd weekend I need a car for a weekend away, etc.

By getting rid of at least one car, you will save a lot more money, which again could be put towards a nice apartment.

Just something to think about.

Welcome to mainland European living, it is actually really great

n97 mini · 24-01-2012 3:56pm

Or just rent a house in the burbs on a dart/rail line, with a good bus route (including a Nitelink) to back it up.

coolperson05 · 24-01-2012 5:57pm

It's a tough call, I suppose if you like your 'country' life then you'll wanna stay put...even though as mentioned earlier, you're probably not seeing much of it.
Maybe living out on the dart line would be an option since you're on the east coast? Rent in the likes of Greystones/Bray would be reasonable enough and you have a kind of country feel and can commute without a car...personally car commuting is awful, at least on a train/bus you can do a bit of work or sleep!
Depends what you want, maybe you want to live in the big city...

bk · 24-01-2012 7:24pm

coolperson05 wrote: »

It's a tough call, I suppose if you like your 'country' life then you'll wanna stay put...
Depends what you want, maybe you want to live in the big city...

From what I've seen the whole country life thing is a bit of a joke. Most of my friends and colleagues who bought houses way out, don't seem to really live in the country, they live in isolated estates of houses, very detached from the country side.

They might "pass" the country as they commute to work for many hours everyday, but many of them don't seem to really make use of the country lifestyle, as they don't really have the time.

Ironically I spend way more time in the countryside as I go hiking, mountain climbing, etc. almost every weekend. Dublin really isn't that big, drive for one hour and you will normally be in the country side.

Really it is all just a bit of state of mind.

n97 mini · 24-01-2012 9:06pm

bk wrote: »

From what I've seen the whole country life thing is a bit of a joke.

That entirely depends on what you do for a living.

Genghis · 25-01-2012 12:53pm

OP, as a matter of interest, how long is it since you or your wife had a job offer for work similar to that which you respectively do in Dublin?

I am going on 10 years commuting from the midlands and have never managed more than a couple of interviews in that time. In my view there just is not a lot of opportunities for 'professional' work outside of Dublin.

I would snap the hand off someone who could offer me gainful emlpoyment at €12k less but similar to my city job and with no commute.

Malice · 25-01-2012 1:06pm

Genghis wrote: »

In my view there just is not a lot of opportunities for 'professional' work outside of Dublin.

n97 mini wrote: »

That entirely depends on what you do for a living.

Genghis I don't know what you do for a living but to suggest somehow that there aren't jobs outside Dublin is utterly wrong.

Tombo2000 · 25-01-2012 3:56pm

Noffles wrote: »

Myself and the missus both work in Dublin but commute from Co Wexford, usually by car, as a home worker I don't have to do it as oftne but the missus travels everyday. Over the last couple of weeks she decided to look for work in Wexford, she works in finance and there are a couple of options there.

Within the week she was offered a new role with a finance company in Wexford, we thought this was great until they mentioned the pay..... To take the exact same role in this new company she would have to take a 12 grand pay drop... and was told this was due to the fact that it is Wexford and they don't pay "city wages"... what a bloody joke...

So trying to get away from commuting and the awful cost of petrol these days is looking very difficult...

Our only option is to look to rent a small flat in the city....

OP.....please explain why its a 'bloody joke' that an employer in Wexford should pay less than an employer in Dublin?

Guess what! Finance companies in London pay more than finance companies in Dublin.......Finance companies in New York pay more than finance companies in London......

And guess what else......Finance companies in Wexford pay more than finance companies in the Aran Islands. I can just imagine all the islanders getting riled up about what a bloody joke this is!!

As someone who works in Finance, I really can not understand your logic here.

Quite the opposite.

If I was to look for a job outside of Dublin, it would not be a question of what sort of pay can I expect in Kilkenny or Thurles or whatever.

It would be a question of.....is there any job out there that I can get in finance, anywhere outside of Dublin and maybe Cork.

There are very few.

If I could find a job in the same area, I would be expecting a pay cut of circa 40%/50%.

Noffles · 26-01-2012 9:10am

Tombo2000 wrote: »

OP.....please explain why its a 'bloody joke' that an employer in Wexford should pay less than an employer in Dublin?

Guess what! Finance companies in London pay more than finance companies in Dublin.......Finance companies in New York pay more than finance companies in London......

And guess what else......Finance companies in Wexford pay more than finance companies in the Aran Islands. I can just imagine all the islanders getting riled up about what a bloody joke this is!!

As someone who works in Finance, I really can not understand your logic here.

Quite the opposite.

If I was to look for a job outside of Dublin, it would not be a question of what sort of pay can I expect in Kilkenny or Thurles or whatever.

It would be a question of.....is there any job out there that I can get in finance, anywhere outside of Dublin and maybe Cork.

There are very few.

If I could find a job in the same area, I would be expecting a pay cut of circa 40%/50%.

In my opinion it's the same job, exactly the same job being done for less money..

Are all jobs that are done outside Dublin paid less if they're in Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Galway... any other place?

To close this off really, decided that pay cutting and working rurally are not an option, it'll be renting an apartment within the next 12 months and paying for that and the mortgage on the house at the same time... it actually works to be a very similar outgoing... and we get to see the city and not spend our life commuting back and forth just to live in the middle of a tiny village with little or no amenities... the bright side beckons.

BostonB · 26-01-2012 9:25am

Noffles wrote: »

... and we get to see the city and not spend our life commuting back and forth just to live in the middle of a tiny village with little or no amenities... the bright side beckons.

That seems to suggest you bought a house in the wrong location for yourselves.

veryangryman · 26-01-2012 10:38am

Economies of scale dictate that of course your salary has to be bigger if you live in the city. The cost of living there is factored into anyone's decision to move.

I for instance would not darken a Dublin office for less than 30-40% salary increase. Its just not worth your while otherwise.

Genghis · 30-01-2012 3:38pm

Malice wrote: »

Genghis I don't know what you do for a living but to suggest somehow that there aren't jobs outside Dublin is utterly wrong.

I did not suggest in any way that there were 'no jobs' I said there were 'limited opportunities'.

To validate my point, I think anyone working as an IT developer, business analyst, risk / compliance manager, operations management would find it difficult to find work outside Dublin. At industry level, anyone who wants to work in financial services, internet businesses, outsourced services, transport, etc would all find it difficult to build a career outside Dublin.

Malice · 30-01-2012 4:13pm

Genghis wrote: »

I did not suggest in any way that there were 'no jobs' I said there were 'limited opportunities'.

I didn't say that you said there were no jobs.

Genghis wrote:

I think anyone working as an IT developer, business analyst, risk / compliance manager, operations management would find it difficult to find work outside Dublin.

From my own experience as a software developer I've never had to look to Dublin for work and I get no shortage of offers from outside Dublin. I know first hand of companies in Cork, Limerick and Galway all crying out for suitable people to fill open positions.

Trying to get away from Commuting

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