Originally Posted by gloopy

Only if you allow it. If you can price it in intellectually at the beginning, it’s easy peasy. Yes it’s still a negative, but it comes with a huge positive of living where you want. And maybe up to 25-30K a year tax savings. Thats a free house, etc.

If you can’t handle a relatively small number of non-ideal commute situations and you would therefore rather blow 30 stacks a year to “save” a few hundos in hotels while living full time somewhere you’d rather not be, then by all means do that I guess.

Just realize that in many cases this is far more of a psychological proposition than it is a real QOL issue. You have to really be honest with yourself with how you’re wired. If an unplanned hotel night or coming up the night before ruins your world view, then you have no choice but to move to base even if you don’t really want to live there.

Also “price in” all elements of the “drive to work” proposition that you’re considering. Not all are equal by a long shot. Some “locals” have 3+ hour drives each way, pay way more in taxes (and maybe WAY more for housing, like hundreds of thousands more) and don’t really want to live there in the first place. I’d pick living where you want, saving up to 30K a year (or way more if it’s a high property tax base too) and just pricing in a reasonable commute mentality on the front end.

If you accept at the beginning that you’ll miss a few commute flights a year, have to buy some hotels here or there, and will miss out on some short notice green slips (that you may not want to even do anyway) then maybe commuting is a huge QOL boost compared to living in base.

Those preaching in base above all else are those who can’t psychologically handle commuting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If that’s you then move to where you don’t want to live, maybe pay WAY more for everything, possibly sit in traffic for a long time (including awful NY/LA or even ATL traffic unless it’s the flat hot and boring SW quadrant) and force your entire family to live where they don’t want to also just so you can avoid a few self induced helmet fires a year when things don’t go your way.