Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Please no “it’s none of your business” comments. We are just trying to understand the logic.
Our cousins landlord raised the rent from $2400 a month to $2650 a month for a 2 year lease or $2750 for a 1 year lease. So they found a house to move to for a year at $2400 50 miles from where they were living by friends and family. She traveled to work 5 miles each way 3 or 4 times a week but now will have to travel 50 miles twice a week each a way to work. She says it’s only twice a week but it’s still a lot more gas and miles on the car. It could be an hour and a half each way in traffic. And they only plan to live there one year and move again. Who wants to spend all that time moving just to move again in a year? The house isn’t that much bigger either. Same amount of bedrooms and bathrooms. They also planned a trip to Spain for 2 weeks and then are asking us all to help them move because they can’t afford movers.
It's a savings of $350/month in rent, but with ~800 miles each month of fuel and wear & tear costs it sounds like a wash and a lot of lost time. Not worth it.
I would not want to find myself in a situation where rent for housing costs $2400 a month. I'd relocate elsewhere long before it came to that.
While I do think they'll be saving little if any money for the year, not to even mention the additional time lost commuting, there may be other reasons for their move that you're not aware of. Maybe the don't like living where they're at for whatever reason and maybe there's a non-financial reason they want to move to the new place. Or maybe they're just looking at the $350 a month in rent they'll save and are not taking into account anything else. Everything isn't always as it seems, though of course sometimes it is. Nobody really knows for sure except them as to all the reasons they're moving. That said, I would not be surprised if they're just basing their move off the $350/month they'd be saving in rent as I've known people who think like that.
I mean if you really want to get technical and pinch pennies, even with added fuel costs and wear and tear, they’re still saving money. I know people so cheap(or frugal) with money they’ll do oddball things just to save $20. But, doing that across the board does add up over time. Saving $5 here, $20 there, etc, over the course of a year does make a difference.
Can’t put a price on quality of life though. I’ve turned down some decent really good paying jobs in the past because it’s not worth my time lost sitting stuck in traffic for hours to and from work. So, hey whatever works for people and keeps them happy then so be it.
Maybe their income level doesn't qualify for the new rent. Maybe they have other issues with the property they are in or with the landlord and were putting up with it, but the increased cost was enough to tip them over the edge
Only one of them commutes to work? 50 mile commute is nothing to those of us who live in the Western states. My son does a 20 mule commute and would have been OK to drive further if that was what it took.
I've done a 45 mile commute because I couldn't afford to live closer. Everyone who worked there was commuting a long distance. You do what you have to do.
Because they are penny wise and pound foolish - have relatives like this too. And they will never change, in fact it may get worse. I'm sure if you wanted to examine their relationship closely you'd find there is one with absolutely no common sense and they "rule the roost" so to speak.
Well if they can get friends and family to help them move each time and can rent a U-haul for one day plus commute twice a week, they will likely save money. Their friends and family have to decide if they want to give them their time for free while they use those funds saved for a trip to Spain.
If they want to move themselves and save money to go to Spain that is great. I'm just not tweaking my back for that.
Some people don't mind moving. I wouldn't do it, but there is a group of people who are totally fine uprooting themselves and moving all over to save a few bucks. It sounds like your cousins are those people.
Please no “it’s none of your business” comments. We are just trying to understand the logic.
Our cousins landlord raised the rent from $2400 a month to $2650 a month for a 2 year lease or $2750 for a 1 year lease. So they found a house to move to for a year at $2400 50 miles from where they were living by friends and family. She traveled to work 5 miles each way 3 or 4 times a week but now will have to travel 50 miles twice a week each a way to work. She says it’s only twice a week but it’s still a lot more gas and miles on the car. It could be an hour and a half each way in traffic. And they only plan to live there one year and move again. Who wants to spend all that time moving just to move again in a year? The house isn’t that much bigger either. Same amount of bedrooms and bathrooms. They also planned a trip to Spain for 2 weeks and then are asking us all to help them move because they can’t afford movers.
It's really bad math on their part. I've written about this sort of thing in several posts. I work with dozens of people who commute an hour or more to "lower cost of living" who just are not doing the math how badly they're kicking the crap out of their cars, how much TIME they're wasting and how that translates into exhaustion and lack of fulfillment in life.
There is also the consideration that they're (my coworkers, not your cousins) putting money into a mortgage in an area that won't gain as much value as would sinking a little bit more into a higher COL area that will appreciate much faster in both percentage and in raw dollar terms. That your cousins are going from rental to rental makes even less sense. If they were able to move far away to afford the house instead of renting I'd say that's an alright choice, but then revisit the former area in the future or otherwise take jobs closer to the new house.
Planning to move within a year is also silly. A moving company at that distance would charge about $1,800 and you'd get 3 guys and a truck for a day for that price. Doing it yourselves incurs the same costs in time and effort. This amount is nearly what they'd be saving in rent.
Personally, cousins? Eh. My wife and I are at a stage where we tell people to hire movers. Smart people hire professionals to carry out tasks for them. Rednecks and poor people want to do everything themselves....then they get stuck in marginal areas with few job/life prospects....then the car breaks down because of all the extra miles and they have no money and no prospects to take care of that problem and the spiral begins.
It's a savings of $350/month in rent, but with ~800 miles each month of fuel and wear & tear costs it sounds like a wash and a lot of lost time. Not worth it.
Agreed. Time and gas and so forth make it a wash, if not a loss.
Quote:
I would not want to find myself in a situation where rent for housing costs $2400 a month. I'd relocate elsewhere long before it came to that.
Then you're not gonna have many places to choose from soon, if you're a renter in any US metropolitan (even suburbs & rural locations for many regions). And it sounds like they're renting a house, which makes it even more reasonable by 2024 standards. Try finding even a 1br apartment for that cost in Seattle proper or the Bay Area or L.A. or... lol.
And if you relocate to a place with cheaper rent, guess what else is lower? Salaries! If you're retired that's a moot point, but moving to a less expensive rental market almost always = lowering your income too. Trust me, I've been in the relocation process for a while now. And I've turned down jobs when the math didn't add up, even with housing being way cheaper in the new location. But when I'm earning $100K here, it doesn't make sense to move hundreds/thousands of miles for a job that pays $50K. Regardless of the lower COL. So while your first statement showed an understanding of these calculations, your second one does not.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
