Early Retirement Extreme Forums

For example, if you can find a spot a 30 minute train ride away for $600, is that worth the savings of finding a $900 dollar place a few miles from work?

Thoughts on this question?

Depends what you want to when not working.

I bet after you pay for the train rides, costs are much closer. I wouldn't make the choice based on money.

$10 a day rent savings - train fare (?) = net savings.

Not generally. Unless you can find a place with a safe off road cycle route to decimate the travel costs.

However I prefer to live somewhere with a decent quality of living and social life. Often living in a big urban centre there is loads of cheap and free entertainment not otherwise available in remote boring suburbs.

Consider web of goals and your heterotelic/hometelic goals ... what's your preference? Should be easy to compute. You already know the system.

22 days riding train = 22 hours

22 hrs + train fare + (time + effort)* lost exercise + lost social life + lost opportunity cost = $300

I would take a seasonal job to cover the difference.

Cool, I think the city center is superior for my web of goals, such as free activities, a bicycle commute, proximity to other work, etc. Maybe I should find a primary to live with and have $450/mo rent...lol

The city center in white plains isn't worth it trust me.if anything I would suggest living closer to manhattan and commuting to white plains. But yeah, you're not really missing anything by not being close to downtown white plains.

I still think the city center is worth it, even if there's not much there. The commute will be shorter and not require public transit. The ideal would be a tiny $600 room in the city center; that's the thing to look for.

I wish an impromptu, soundproof barrier existed to add a roommate in a single room. Can one of you invent that?

Olaz wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 09, 2017 8:36 pm

I still think the city center is worth it, even if there's not much there. The commute will be shorter and not require public transit. The ideal would be a tiny $600 room in the city center; that's the thing to look for.

I wish an impromptu, soundproof barrier existed to add a roommate in a single room. Can one of you invent that?

Yep I think for many people living in the city near to work will optimise things on so many levels. Even if it costs slightly more in a narrow purely expense sense.

Have a look at what TheRedHare is doing in another post under the housing section "am I being unfair". Maybe you could do something like this. You are earning a hell of a sweet wicket for a grad salary from what I remember so you should be able to secure a lease on a good place.

It usually comes down to whether you value the money or the time more.

I guess it also depends on the surrounding and the availability to buy groceries....
If everything (inklusive) work is available within walking-/biking-distance I would go with the 900$ option.

+1 for grocery considerations, plus other lifestyle soft-factors. is the downtown nice and friendly, so Olaz will hang out in the park on the weekend? or is it dead and gloomy, only inhabited by addicts?

it might also just depend on the apartments. a nice, if small, downtown apartment would probably win over a dumpy, bigger, suburban apartment. nice roommates make a big difference vs. shitty roommates.

James_0011 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 09, 2017 7:15 pm

The city center in white plains isn't worth it trust me.if anything I would suggest living closer to manhattan and commuting to white plains. But yeah, you're not really missing anything by not being close to downtown white plains.

Hey James, the room I'm looking at in downtown White Plains ($975) is a 2-3 mile commute to work. Some of the other places are more of a 7-10 mile commute from Scarsdale, West Harford, Harrison, Mount Vernon, Hartsdale, and a few others ($650-750).

How would you say White Plains is as a city to bicycle through? There seem to be a lot of high way-like roads I'd want to avoid, such as the 287. I'm thinking the 2-3 mile will be better, especially during winter months.

If you want to go by bike, I would choose White Plains. In the winter, it would be really hard to commute by bike from another town. Some of the roads are basically two lanes highways, and probably wont have a shoulder in the winter when snow is plowed to the side.