Originally Posted by
myrkridia
My wife and I have been wrestling with this question for a bit. Bought a house before getting hired at a legacy, locked in our mortgage at a cheap 30 year fixed rate and now I commute for Delta. The common conventional wisdom is to live below your means so a pay cut would not be some devastating event should an economic down turn occur, but if there ever was a reason to subject our family to such risk it might be living to base.
We are restricted to where we can buy. We live in a nice area with good schools for our kids and frankly don't want to give that up. Looking at comparable living situations, we'd be almost tripling our monthly mortgage expenses, likely forcing me to upgrade or work the system more than I am currently as a fairly senior FO.
I don't mind the commute so much, but obviously not having to commute anymore would open up a ton more possibilities in this line of work.
Financially it's really easy to calculate. I am not at Delta, so I'm not privy to your work rules.
Living in base generally for me, over a career, corelated with about a 15% increase in credit per month. Do the math on what you're missing out on with commuting schedule vs a modest schedule of picking up premium/open time trips that you otherwise wouldn't in base.
QOL is pretty self explanatory, sounds like you have kids, and driving to/from work and being able to change your trip mix could produce pretty tangeable results in being able to spend more time with family. This in addition to not having to commute.
Triple the mortgage is a tough pill the swallow. As a counter point, perhaps renting in the interim could be an option (and invest your equity from your house, so you're not losing out). As you get more comfortable with the location maybe you can find an area that is lower COL but still provides you what you need. Someone on here will say "Mortgage rates will drop!", which is probably true, the question is how much and for what reason. That being said, if that decrease in Mortgage rate coincides with an economic downturn (likely) then you're really not much better off unless your seniority insulates you properly.
As a "Senior FO" the tradeoff of living in base versus upgrading might be a little more digestable vs commuting to reserve as a captain.