How do you fine people calculate the cost of a commute?

My commute is 187 miles. I don't think I can relate!

Folgers said:

Time commuting is time in which you get nothing done, don’t get paid for,  and time you don’t get back.  

I had a 45 minute one way commute for three years. Never again. 

Current job requires a thirteen mile drive one way. It’s a great place to work but giving away roughly 125 hours of my life each year is borderline unacceptable. 

That's roughly my drive to work, and an extra half hour or so of drive time if I go to the garage instead of straight home, although the days I don't go to the garage I usually take a long way home.

I figure, I have awesome cars, I get to enjoy them a couple hours a day.  And humming along in an RX-7 or the boost buggy Barcalounger is a nice decompression.

OHSCrifle said:

If you truly have a choice of two jobs..

Consider the hours you'll spend commuting as part of the work day for that job. Would you rather "work" 8 and a quarter hours per day... or 10 hours per day?

Then divide the total hours "for work" (inclusive of commute) by each salary. This may be unconventional but it is a true reflection of how much of your life you are deciding to give to a company.   

Unless the pay is double, I'd choose a short commute nearly every time.  

I'm not sure I'd consider it unconventional. Thats very similar to how I evaluate offers when I'm looking for new opportunities, by first figuring out how much is added to my current commute. Then I'll take my current hourly rate times the extra commuting time and figure out how much the increase has to be for the commute time just to break even for my time investment.

It's  pretty eye opening to see how much the commuting time costs. I find that the time is much more valuable than the fuel/maintenance cost from the mileage. Especially after missing kids concerts, karate lessons, and other activities.

As for the original topic, I've done the long commute 65 miles/ 1.25 hours each way, 45 miles/1 -2 hours depending on traffic, 17 miles/25 minutes, WFH, and a mix of WFH and 17 mile commute. 
 
I think 30 minutes or less (with consistent traffic) is the sweet spot between not spending excessive amounts of time in the car, but enough time to unwind and separate work from home. 

The job satisfaction plays a role as well. You don't want to be looking again in 6 months, so the commute needs to be balanced with job satisfaction  

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) said:

One hour in/out of the car/city traffic is HUGE, and the city Knoxville, TN is about to hit the rapid growth the other cities in TN have already experienced.

God, I hope not. Driving in from Morristown is bad enough already...

Thanks, everyone. For closure, I spoke with the neighbor. It sounds fine, and most of my apprehension goes out the window with that. He was paid a much lower wage, has kids, an aversion to washing windows, etc. Says the boss is open minded, nice, fair, etc. Maybe not bouncy, young and fun like the commuter job people, but neither am I.

STM317: That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Good on ya!

travellring: yep, you got it. Oak Ridge to UT, and half an hour was being generous. Excellent reminder about the sun. I did a similar commute some years ago, and always driving into the sun does indeed suck.

Ranger50 and travellring: Good to know there are fellow GRMers in the area. Cheers, mates!

Ranger: Lots of corporate buying going on downtown. It smells exactly like Nashville smelled some years ago. Hopefully you are right, but my spidey senses have been tingling.

So, yeah, I'm taking the job a half mile away, and just pleased to get out of my former job. The raise doesn't hurt, either.

When I last changed jobs I compared mileage at the fed rate and my time at my hourly rate and added it to a spreadsheet that compared total benefits and costs.  The last job had slightly better benefits, but the new job was better on everything else.

Also, I second the quality of the commute.  My last office at the old job was 34 miles- about 90% was on the Turnpike.. but those last 4 miles often took longer than the other 30 due to traffic.

OHSCrifle said:

I do agree that commuting offers good "me time" to wake up or unwind but I did between 0:50 and 1:15 each way for years before the pandemic and looking back it just seems like lost hours of my life.

What I learned from COVID-enforced WFH:  "me time" is whatever I want it to be.  Substitute that hour with something you actually enjoy.  In my case, "me time" means I leave my house at 6 on my bicycle and go for a ride.  Sometimes it's hard and painful.  Sometimes it's meeting some friends for a light cruise and coffee overlooking a marina.  All times it's better than sitting in my car (and I had an easy 30min door-to-coffee-shop-to-door commute).   If I don't go out for a ride, me-time is 20 minutes in the garage doing ... something.

I've never done a type of work that can be done remotely, so I can't relate to any of those points. When I traveled, I always tried to find the closest place. But the local job I have now, comes with a 35 - 45 minute commute. I don't care for the "lost" time of it, but do at least make it "me" time, as much as I can. And it's country roads 90% of the time. If I need to run by town for something, it's not out of the way, and the bad traffic is not a parking lot, like other places with traffic. But doesn't really take much longer, due to the several 25 mph speed zones the country way goes through. Better scenery, though. 
40 minutes to go 30 miles, is TONS better than 40 minutes to hr 1/2 to go 8 miles, like in the yard dog days!

Drove 33 miles one way to work everyday for nearly 6 years. Started driving for Lyft the last couple years to get some extra $$ on the way home. Didn't pan out financially but it was a good experience. Now I work 5 miles/15 minutes from work and really enjoy it. 

Your average work year is something like 2040 hours. Times $1.50.

Mine is 34 miles round trip when I am home, otherwise it is paid for. I travel a lot.

Tacoma gets ~24mpg, Cayman gets ~20.

It's about 30 mins each way. I like it.

The traffic leaving work is the worst bit. We do not have traffic like that here normally, just there.