Commute Time vs Salary

[Pomacentridae]

Hello,

I am trying to decide between 2 potential job offers. One position is located 45 minutes outside the city I am looking to reside in. After doing some research it appears that the commute time from within city limits to this job site would take approximately 1 hour because of traffic and in times of heavy traffic can take up to 90 minutes (so approximately 2 hour daily commute but up to 3 hours on an unlucky day). This position offers a salary of 260k.

The other job offer is located within the city itself (commute time could be 10-15 minutes walking distance). This second job offer's baseline salary is approximately $200k with little room for negotiation.

All benefits, PTO, bonus, student loan repayment, etc. are generous and generally the same for both positions. Minimal call for both.

I definitely prefer to live an urban lifestyle and as a single male I think I have more opportunities to meet an interesting partner with interesting hobbies by living in the city. However, I do have a lot of student loans that I would like to start making a dent on. I don't know if the daily commute for the 1st job would be worth it.

Alternatively if I take the 1st job offer I could move to live in a suburb close by the job site but then I would most likely only visit the city on weekends given the traffic situation.

I also wonder whether there would be more opportunities for making connections with senior psychiatrists and learning how to establish a solidly running private practice in the city versus in the suburban town. I suppose even if I did live in the suburban area 60-90 minutes outside the city, I could still open a private practice in the city?

Any thoughts and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

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[erg923]

Hello,

I am trying to decide between 2 potential job offers. One position is located 45 minutes outside the city I am looking to reside in. After doing some research it appears that the commute time from within city limits to this job site would take approximately 1 hour because of traffic and in times of heavy traffic can take up to 90 minutes (so approximately 2 hour daily commute but up to 3 hours on an unlucky day). This position offers a salary of 260k.

The other job offer is located within the city itself (commute time could be 10-15 minutes walking distance). This second job offer's baseline salary is approximately $200k with little room for negotiation.

All benefits, PTO, bonus, student loan repayment, etc. are generous and generally the same for both positions. Minimal call for both.

I definitely prefer to live an urban lifestyle and as a single male I think I have more opportunities to meet an interesting partner with interesting hobbies by living in the city. However, I do have a lot of student loans that I would like to start making a dent on. I don't know if the daily commute for the 1st job would be worth it.

Alternatively if I take the 1st job offer I could move to live in a suburb close by the job site but then I would most likely only visit the city on weekends given the traffic situation.

I also wonder whether there would be more opportunities for making connections with senior psychiatrists and learning how to establish a solidly running private practice in the city versus in the suburban town. I suppose even if I did live in the suburban area 60-90 minutes outside the city, I could still open a private practice in the city?

Any thoughts and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Some people are books on tape people. I am not. Some people may be used to the realities of NYC, LA, Chi-town metro area living etc. I am not. Cutting out commute time can easily be a quality of life game changer for many, many reasons.

I would never want a 2 hour/day car (or train) commute unless the calculation allowed me to obtain a very specific and measurable financial or professional goal that I would not be able to obtain otherwise.

Yes, you can "front-load" your life and all that...but the risk of hating your first job simply because of bore, time-suck, traffic, gas cost or because one hour away is a bumkin-land that you may not enjoy practicing in may not be worth it?

PS: You could probably make an extra 60k per year doing disability file reviews from your home or IMEs from a local office a couple Saturdays a month?
As an added aide: Both options I suggested would probably make you a more astute clinician/psychiatrist than working longer hours at that other job.

 

[Old&InTheWay]

So an extra ~600 hours per year of commuting for an extra $60k? You could probably moonlight and make up the difference with less time commitment; plus you would continue to live in the city which sounds important to you. In the city job, you also get the added benefit of 20-30 minutes of physical activity in the place of commuting by car.

 

[kopftonmd]

Not at your position yet but my 2 cents... Agree with the above - stay in the city because quality of life is very important, and then moonlight to make extra $$. The one question I have is if there is non-compete with the city job. If there is, I might consider another gig.

 

[NewYorkChildPsych]

I was in this EXACT situation when I was looking for jobs. I chose the lower-paying job in the city with a 10-15 minute commute. I don't regret it at all, and I'm supplementing income with private practice and moonlighting.

 

[Sushirolls]

Choose option C.

City life is over rated. Go past the suburban job in the complete other direction and commute in 45minutes from the farm fields. Get some land, a small subcompact tractor and discover just how much happier you will be over the city life. You'll actually be able to see the stars. Air will be cleaner most likely.

Get a taste from your first harvest of heirloom tomatoes fresh off the vine, or a September Apple you pluck yourself. A fresh beet pulled by your own hands. Just a small sample of things you'll be like, "Wow! These are so much better!"

Watching chickens peck the ground in your own backyard is more entertaining than most every TV show you'll watch. And the older I get the less intrigued I am with new shows or movies or even plays, and I'm like 'the chickens are better.'

 

[Bartelby]

The low-commute option sounds like a slam dunk to me. Presuming 46 weeks worked per year and 10-15 hours of commuting per week you spend 460-690 extra hours driving, breaking down to $87 - $130 per hour before the expenses of transportation. While that is not insignificant, I think the lifestyle boost of a local job and more exercise far outweighs the extra money. I have worked a long commute in the past and felt it was seriously draining and stressful even with audiobooks etc. As others mentioned, you could moonlight if you really want to make up that difference and I suspect it would be far less draining.

 

[robellis]

The real question is why is the pay so low?

 

[Sushirolls]

The 'privilege' of living in a city (I suspect)...

 

[Shufflin]

keep looking for more jobs

 

[Stagg737]

Hello,

I am trying to decide between 2 potential job offers. One position is located 45 minutes outside the city I am looking to reside in. After doing some research it appears that the commute time from within city limits to this job site would take approximately 1 hour because of traffic and in times of heavy traffic can take up to 90 minutes (so approximately 2 hour daily commute but up to 3 hours on an unlucky day). This position offers a salary of 260k.

The other job offer is located within the city itself (commute time could be 10-15 minutes walking distance). This second job offer's baseline salary is approximately $200k with little room for negotiation.

All benefits, PTO, bonus, student loan repayment, etc. are generous and generally the same for both positions. Minimal call for both.

I definitely prefer to live an urban lifestyle and as a single male I think I have more opportunities to meet an interesting partner with interesting hobbies by living in the city. However, I do have a lot of student loans that I would like to start making a dent on. I don't know if the daily commute for the 1st job would be worth it.

Alternatively if I take the 1st job offer I could move to live in a suburb close by the job site but then I would most likely only visit the city on weekends given the traffic situation.

I also wonder whether there would be more opportunities for making connections with senior psychiatrists and learning how to establish a solidly running private practice in the city versus in the suburban town. I suppose even if I did live in the suburban area 60-90 minutes outside the city, I could still open a private practice in the city?

Any thoughts and advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Great points above. Some other thoughts:

Regarding commute, keep in mind that if you live in the city and work in the suburbs you'll mostly be going the opposite direction from rush hour traffic. Being in an hour of stop and go vs. an hour of coasting on the highway are very different experiences. Before med school I had a job where I commuted 50-60 minutes to work in the city and 90-120 minutes home in traffic. It was miserable and I'd never do that again. Had a med school rotation with a nice 50 minute drive on the highway each way and was a nice way to relax and not bring work home. Depends on what you like.

The bold is true in terms of volume of people you encounter, but highly depends on the suburb. I grew up next to a suburb with population >150k people and 30 minutes away from a major downtown. I enjoyed that far more than my experiences living in the city (to each their own) as I could drive 30 minutes into a city with over 1mil people or 5 minutes to a smaller downtown with a solid nightlife. Some suburbs can be fantastic for single guys, some are awful, YMMV. I've also found that where I've lived there's a greater variety of things to do in the suburbs compared the city (or at least people in the burbs did a wider variety of things), again YMMV.

I don't think there'd be a major difference between colleague mentors in city vs. suburb but rather the practice/hospital type. Probably more likely to have academic centers in a city which would likely be more conducive to ongoing mentorship, but if your job in the suburbs has docs that would like to take you under their wing, then that could be better than some programs.

If you strongly prefer the city, I personally would not commute from the city to the suburban job for reasons stated by others unless it's your dream job. If you're taking a car either way, be aware of cost of parking. In my previous city, cheap parking was ~$200/mo and $500/mo was not uncommon, so can add up to a relevant sum of money. However, If living 15-20 minutes from downtown makes the suburban commute <30 minutes, it may be the best of both worlds, especially if the city has good public transportation.

 

[Merovinge]

keep looking for more jobs

Yeah I have a hard time believing a city so desirable that someone is considering 200k for full-time does not have other opportunities. There is just no way a place that big is going to have only 2 reasonable offers unless this person is outrageously subspecialized and only willing to take PHP for intellectually disabled, substance abusing, octogenarian, hemiparalysis veterans or something of that nature.

 

[thomasina]

Academia?

 

[J ROD]

Driving that much each day gets old fast. Take the city job. By the time you take taxes out and cost of travel. Better off with a side gig in the city.

 

[NickNaylor]

What do you want? Everyone will have different ideas of what’s acceptable to them, and while the very concrete calculations of time spent driving per year and how much that “costs” are interesting and worth considering, at the end of the day it depends on what you’re willing to deal with. I listen to a lot of podcasts and my commute is my primary time to catch on them. I also get very little time to myself at work or at home (I’m married with a 1-month old), so for me my commute is an escape of sorts - it is one of the few times I don’t have to worry about someone else’s needs, be they staff on our inpatient unit, patients, my wife, or my baby. As a result, I don’t mind a longer drive, though my commute is only 25-30 minutes one-way. I would also say that I think ”city life” is highly overrated, so I don’t share in your interest in living “in the city” and don’t see that as an inherent advantage, particularly when you take into account the generally lower salaries and generally higher COL.

I don’t think there’s a “right” answer here. We don’t know you and it ultimately depends on what you’re willing to deal with.

 

[Old&InTheWay]

Choose option C.

City life is over rated. Go past the suburban job in the complete other direction and commute in 45minutes from the farm fields. Get some land, a small subcompact tractor and discover just how much happier you will be over the city life. You'll actually be able to see the stars. Air will be cleaner most likely.

Get a taste from your first harvest of heirloom tomatoes fresh off the vine, or a September Apple you pluck yourself. A fresh beet pulled by your own hands. Just a small sample of things you'll be like, "Wow! These are so much better!"

Watching chickens peck the ground in your own backyard is more entertaining than most every TV show you'll watch. And the older I get the less intrigued I am with new shows or movies or even plays, and I'm like 'the chickens are better.'

I totally agree in general, but since the OP is single this option might seem less appealing at this point in his life. Apologies in advance if you are single and live on a chicken farm.

 

[clozareal]

I definitely prefer to live an urban lifestyle and as a single male I think I have more opportunities to meet an interesting partner with interesting hobbies by living in the city. However, I do have a lot of student loans that I would like to start making a dent on. I don't know if the daily commute for the 1st job would be worth it.

I think you already gave yourself your answer.