Is this doable/worth it? Relocating, longer commute, but lower costs and working less

[GotTheBaby]

Wondering if anyone has done something similar or can offer advice. We currently have a 4 bed house worth approx. £800k with a whopping £500k still on the (very long) mortgage. It's a nice house and we are both around 15 mins from work which feels like a very nice luxury. DH is full time and I work 3.5 days (we have 3 DC under 7) and we can both work 1 or 2 days from home per week. Our jobs have a fair bit of flexibility and autonomy in terms of work patterns.

The huge mortgage is stressing me out and we have no family locally which is hard with 3 kids. Where we live is also quite urban, and v expensive and we're London commuter belt but don't actually work in London if that makes sense. We have always wanted to relocate to a specific town where we have family, lovely and semi-rural, but it's nearly 2 hours away from our jobs, so we always thought we'd need to get new jobs for this to work. We have been waiting for the right jobs to pop up but they never come at the right time, and we work in niche areas. There's not much around.

We can get a similar or slightly larger house in this other area, right next to the station, right nearby family and friends for only £600k so we'd knock £200k off the mortgage immediately. I could then afford to drop down to 0.5FTE at work for a couple of years while the kids are still small (which I could compress into 2 days) and DH could do 0.9 compressed into 4. One of my working days would be on his day off, and on the other day (where we're both working) at least one of us could work from home. So essentially I think we'd be looking at:
Me working 2 days a week, 1 in the office (DH is off) and 1 from home
DH working 4 days a week, 2 days in the office 2 hours away, 2 days from home.
Some weeks he may have scope to do his 2 office days back to back and stay overnight near work, which would mean he could make it back for kids bedtime on the second day. As they get older, we'd have the flexibility to be able to change our hours/work patterns accordingly.

Would this be worth it for the extra time off, nicer area, smaller mortgage and being nearer to family? It would also mean our youngest only needs to do 1 day of childcare a week and she is currently doing 3. In terms of travel, we have the option of direct train or driving, the time taken is about the same (but could get some work done on the train sometimes) or we have an electric car with charging points at work. Or would the travel just be too tiring and we should stick with our current set up and short commutes? Well done if you got this far!

With those office days, I would move. Is that 2 hours for to door? I had a 1hr 20-30mins door to door on public transport and it was eminently doable 4/5 days a week. For the lifestyle you are looking at 2 hours seems worth it?

If you take the train, can you work on the train and save some that way?

Would you be about to spread your hours out later to enable school pickups?

Just be wary that some employers are getting people back to the office 100%. You need to consider how that would work. 2hrs each way? That’s ok once a week, but also what cost? Twice or more, I think it’s too far and a risk incase hybrid changes.

I wouldn’t, Stamp duty alone will be horrific. I would far rather have a 15 min commute than long slogs in the car, even if it was only a handful of times a week. But I have never worried about my kids being in childcare.

I think £300k is still a fair old chunk of a mortgage, especially if you are moving to a place where the salary you can obtain is lower.

We'd pay the stamp duty out of equity I think. £300k is still quite big but we have some money in trust so about half of that would be cleared at some point in the next 15-20 years. And the idea of moving is that we wouldn't be on lower salaries, we'd keep our current jobs and only change jobs if we could find something equivalent that was nearer.

Driving is about 1hr 50 door to door. Train is 1hr50 on the train plus around 15 min cycle or 30 min walk.

Is there an in-between option, lengthen the commute a bit, still get a good cheaper house, and be a bit closer to family? A 2 hour commute is quite hefty. Maybe trial it for a fortnight. Take an air BnB and just move yourselves there, see how it works. Maybe in the summer hols so you're not having to get the kids back to school where you currently live and can ask family to help out temporarily with childcare whilst you trial the commute.

I've done a 2 HR commute into London. I found that it would creep up over 2 hours quite often.. delay here, missing a train and waiting for next one there.. so you are looking at days that run 7am to 8pm regularly

I would do work on way in/ podcasts on way home and found it doable when 2 days a week. 3 days a week was a bit of a tipping point. I did it for two years -took another job. About to do it again with similar time horizon.

This is very unlikely to happen in our fields for various reasons, but even if it did then we could afford to work ~3 days a week each if we wanted to. Or we could reduce down a bit more and then do some freelance/consultancy type work from home.

How much will the commute cost?

Yeah I think mentally we'd have to work on the assumption that, for example, if my day in the office is Tuesdays then I'm effectively out of family life on that day. I'd probably get up at 5.45, leave at 6am which would get me into the office by 8.15 latest with a view to then leave around 5-5.30 and get home 7-7.30 but bear in mind that there can be traffic, accidents etc. I think that would be very manageable for me once a week. DH may choose to do similar or he could do 2 days back to back which would mean he could start work at 7.30 on his second day and leave by 4-4.30.

We have an electric car, which costs about £5 to charge at home to get about 250 miles. In the winter we'd probably do a top up charge at work to make sure we'd make it home without needing to stop en route. 3 x journeys a week would cost about £40 total I think.

The thing is, unless we're really close to family, we can't easily have help with childcare in the week. If we move for example half way between the two towns, we'd essentially know nobody and still be an hour away from family so they couldn't for example pick a child up from school easily if they were unwell. We'd have to be within 15-20 mins drive of them really, at which point I'd rather live round the corner and have the extra 15 mins in the car!

Good suggestion about the airbnb, I hadn't thought of that before.

Personally I think short commutes are v.important

If you’re only balancing three commute days between you I would move yes

I would do as pp said and test it for a bit. I find the evenings pretty hectic with dcs extracurriculars

In today’s climate I’d stay where the jobs are. You’ve been looking for a while and there’s nothing local. Could you not start contracting or freelancing now rather than in the future? Would that give you more flexibility if you were to move? I think a 2h commute each way is too much. I did a long commute when the kids were young and it was very, very difficult.

How many days a week were you doing it if you don’t mind me asking? I definitely wouldn’t contemplate doing it more than once or twice a week.

@GotTheBaby full time, 45 miles each way. DH shouldered all the unexpected. He was also full time but was commuting into London, so under an hour. Kids were in breakfast club, afterschool club etc.

So when you look at the working week, for 3 days out of 5 one of you is totally absent from family life meaning the other is solo parenting and there’s only 2 mid week family dinners? Unless I have it wrong I personally think that sounds pretty unappealing and some babysitting from GPs wouldn’t convince me otherwise. I respect that we all have different priorities though and you don’t have to agree with me! It’s about what works for your family not mine.

But do make sure you consider what it’ll when the kids are older and you’re juggling mid week activities for them and GPs will be older too and maybe not as capable of helping as they are now… And what about time to do things for yourself as individuals? May seem like a pipe dream right now with 3 kids under 7 but as they get older there should be more time to do things but solo parenting half the week then likely feeling like you need to prioritise family time on the remaining days may make that tricky.

Are you certain your employers would go for those reductions? Both compressing hours and doing one day in the office/one at home is practically nothing and that combined with you moving so far away would make me rethink keeping you on tbh. Even if you're good, I'd feel you'd checked out and would want someone more local and committed to do the role that you're doing now. Only you know what the job is, but it sounds to me like a lot of jobs my friends had that evaporated soon after they'd moved away for similar reasons to you. I'd either move and go all in with the new place and job, even if it meant a much smaller house and job rethink - freelance if needs be. Or I'd stay and make the most of the good commute etc. They kids won't be tiny for as long as you think. Feels like you need to pick where you want to raise them and make that work, but maybe without the safety net of your existing jobs in some minimalist fashion.

Sorry I didn’t go into all the job details in my OP as it was already huge 😂 but basically yes I am confident about the hours and arrangements. I don’t want to say exactly what we do but these arrangements are very common in our sector and nobody takes any notice of how long the commute is, I have lots of colleagues who have commutes between 1-2 hours and it’s just not a factor for our employers. Over the past 6 years we have both done various combinations of flexi working, compressed hours, I’ve been anywhere between 0.6-1.0FTE and all my flexible working requests and variations in FTE have always been accepted.

I do take your point about choosing where to raise them but I worry that if we wait for the “right” jobs and the right house etc then we’ll never move. We need secure jobs to get our mortgage but once we’ve done the move we have more options available and don’t for example have to try to evidence salaries from freelance work etc.

Yeah I definitely wouldn’t attempt this. Once or twice a week would be max for me.

Yes you’re right, 3 days of the week one of us would be solo parenting the before and after school shifts. However those would be days on which we hadn’t been at work ourselves so that feels doable tbh. We currently work opposite hours during the week to accommodate nursery and school pick ups and drop offs so usually one of us works 8-3 and the other 9.30-5.30. We are used to a bit of a juggle and already have a myriad of after school activities for the older two 😂

However the family we’d be moving near to aren’t actually grandparents, it’s a complicated set up but they’re late 50s and very keen to help. It’s also where two of my best childhood friends live so also more support networks. Also - long story - but if we move to this area then one of my parents will probably also move back as well. They can’t help much for various reasons but it will mean that as they get older I’m not also contending with long weekend trips to visit an ageing parent.

2 hrs each way commute is huge, by train I guess not so bad as by car but how expensive will that be? You will definitely feel more well off but will the extra expenses eat into that quite quickly.

I would go for it, but I always had long commutes (driving, train was not convenient and really expensive) for similar reasons we couldn't afford to buy any closer to our work. I remember drawing circles on a map at increasing radiuses from work and checking house prices to see what was possible.