Time v money

Here’s a sort of math equation for you. Let’s say you can cut 15 minutes off your 80 minute commute—but it will cost you an extra $2.50 every day. Now let’s say that in addition to shortening that commute by 15 minutes a day, you can also avoid the one interstate you hate with the white hot passion of 10,000 suns—for that same $2.50 a day.

Would you spend the money?

You’re looking at spending an additional $12.50 a week for each week you drive all five days. Or put another way, you’ll spend about an extra $615 a year assuming you drive five days a week for 49 weeks.

You’ll get back around 75 minutes a week or just over 61 hours if you drive five days a week for 49 weeks. Plus you’ll drive almost 7 miles less a day—or 35 miles fewer each week or 1715 fewer miles for the year.

If I take the Tobin Bridge route to work, I spend the money and save the time and miles. I started taking that route last Thursday and so far it’s worth the money. We’ll see how the situation plays out if Kent remains unemployed after his severance package runs out. Then I’ll probably need to look at what gas, and wear and tear costs and see if I’m saving enough there to cover the toll.

Compare and contrast

I’ve been working at my job in NH for just over two months now—and I do love it. The job is great, the people are fun and some of them are so smart I know it makes me work harder because I don’t want to be the dummy.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a long commute. In early 2000, my ex told me he’d accepted a promotion that required him to move to Nashville, TN. Our younger son was finishing up his junior year of high school, and my ex (naively) thought that Ben would just go with him. Well no—you see, one commitment we’d made to the boys was that they would graduate from the same school system and I wasn’t going to break that commitment to Ben, especially not for one year of high school.

I moved from Kansas City, MO back to Lawrence, KS in May 2000. That meant I had about a 120 mile commute round trip—only with rush hour. To be honest, I hated the commute, every single part of it. A lot of the hate was because I drove with the rush hour traffic and anyone who knows me will tell you patience is not one of my strong suits. But I’d have done anything to make sure Ben graduated from the Lawrence school, and the drive was worth the frustration.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m not chafing over this current commute. After all, it’s longer and Boston traffic can sure get stacked up. All I’ve come up with is that (a) I’m driving opposite rush hour and (b) Kent’s unemployed. Much as when Ben needed to live in Lawrence, I will do whatever it takes to keep our little family going—the bonus is that I love this job far more than I did that job in 2000.

PS Our second grandchild was born on Sunday--a boy! You can see pictures here.