@redpat wrote:
@CreditInspired wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I'm enjoying working from home, saves over an hour a day worth of commuting time and between not putting gas in the car and not eating lunches out, I'm saving a few bucks. Picked up 8 hours a week of OT out of sheer boredom and my bride is picking up shifts as well...nowhere else to be, might as well work.
Paid off most CCs except a couple that have 0% or really low interest "special financing". Got a low rate personal loan from PNC to pay for the pool resurfacing at our house in FL, it's set for 60 months but we'll accelerate payments.
Increased my 401k contributions and HSA contributions by 1%, now I am maxed out on 401k and close to maxed out on HSA. Aside from getting cabin fever from not going anywhere but Kroger occasionally, all is well.
Yes, you dont really comprehend this until you experience it. I have cut 3 hrs from my daily commute and all I keep saying to my family and friends is how wonderful my quality of life is now.
I wish I never had to go back into an office again!
I'm in the office today. I hate working at home, tried it and it didn't last long. I have always enjoyed the separation of work and home, round trip commute for me is about an hour and a half. My office has a 55" tv, full cable, netflix, couch, we have a full kitchen and beer in the fridge.
Watching Ozark season three while working.
You can have a quality of life everywhere.
Most workplace environments aren't that worker friendly. Yes I know that was a change brought on by Big Tech and the millenials in the work force but most places are still more nose-to-grindstone right or wrong.
In 2017 when I wasn't in a foreign country I was driving 1-1.5 hours each way to work. It's such an utter time suck and simply exhausted when getting home, and that was a place like yours where I could take some time to do other stuff that wasn't directly related. Good cafeteria, encouraged to play video games for part of the day, admittedly life could have been worse but once I came off that project I didn't miss it other than the international travel, at all. That commute sucked, price of being a grown up in Los Angeles but frankly can do better.
Also calling it what it is, that extra time for me? Billable. It's much easier to multi-gig from home than it was from an office. There's only so much you can do to optimize that commute time to take con calls or whatever while driving to try to do something productive with that drive time. Maybe truly autonomous driving will get us some of our life back but that's not coming soon.
@EAJuggalo wrote:I have two relatively small children so the wife and I are saving $1100/ month in child care expenses. Dining out costs are way down, random store purchases are way down, fuel costs went from $50/week to $17/month. I just transitioned to a new job that is working from home for the time being, wife is working from home. I got a 7% cut in hours for the next six months but that about evens out with not going out for lunch and not having to drive to the office. Overall I don't think our checking account has ever had this much money in it.
Same here. Our overall spend has down quite a bit, so we've an uptick in cash on hand. Will probably hold onto some in the checking account as a safety net, otherwise looking at putting the rest in a savings acct or in CDs.
Have left investments alone so far, and have no plans to change that strategy currently.
@redpat wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
@redpat wrote:
@CreditInspired wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I'm enjoying working from home, saves over an hour a day worth of commuting time and between not putting gas in the car and not eating lunches out, I'm saving a few bucks. Picked up 8 hours a week of OT out of sheer boredom and my bride is picking up shifts as well...nowhere else to be, might as well work.
Paid off most CCs except a couple that have 0% or really low interest "special financing". Got a low rate personal loan from PNC to pay for the pool resurfacing at our house in FL, it's set for 60 months but we'll accelerate payments.
Increased my 401k contributions and HSA contributions by 1%, now I am maxed out on 401k and close to maxed out on HSA. Aside from getting cabin fever from not going anywhere but Kroger occasionally, all is well.
Yes, you dont really comprehend this until you experience it. I have cut 3 hrs from my daily commute and all I keep saying to my family and friends is how wonderful my quality of life is now.
I wish I never had to go back into an office again!
I'm in the office today. I hate working at home, tried it and it didn't last long. I have always enjoyed the separation of work and home, round trip commute for me is about an hour and a half. My office has a 55" tv, full cable, netflix, couch, we have a full kitchen and beer in the fridge.
Watching Ozark season three while working.
You can have a quality of life everywhere.
Most workplace environments aren't that worker friendly. Yes I know that was a change brought on by Big Tech and the millenials in the work force but most places are still more nose-to-grindstone right or wrong.
In 2017 when I wasn't in a foreign country I was driving 1-1.5 hours each way to work. It's such an utter time suck and simply exhausted when getting home, and that was a place like yours where I could take some time to do other stuff that wasn't directly related. Good cafeteria, encouraged to play video games for part of the day, admittedly life could have been worse but once I came off that project I didn't miss it other than the international travel, at all. That commute sucked, price of being a grown up in Los Angeles but frankly can do better.
Also calling it what it is, that extra time for me? Billable. It's much easier to multi-gig from home than it was from an office. There's only so much you can do to optimize that commute time to take con calls or whatever while driving to try to do something productive with that drive time. Maybe truly autonomous driving will get us some of our life back but that's not coming soon.
We work hard and play hard. Drive time is unwind time for me. I make all my money selling air, lol! All my time needs to be billable in order to make the donuts. When I comeback in the next life I want to be one of our employees.....God they have it good, I'm here on Sunday and no one else is. The sacrifices we make for others........
GenX motto there in pink, trust me I get it, but I never understood that blue part. I like driving but dealing with as many cars as happened to be on my commute blah. It's better now with Tesla Autopilot, I find I'm not nearly as drained after a long drive but driving is still not a net gain for me.
Anyone who likes their commute I'm firmly convinced doesn't have much of one to begin with.
New question for some of you that are seeing this excess of money and quality of life improvement, what happens when everything goes back to the way it was? Are you going to be able to? I have a feeling, many employees are going to start making work from home a bigger part of their business, but some will go back to business as usual.
In fear of getting clipped or cld'd so, I decided to pay off all my debt.
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:New question for some of you that are seeing this excess of money and quality of life improvement, what happens when everything goes back to the way it was? Are you going to be able to? I have a feeling, many employees are going to start making work from home a bigger part of their business, but some will go back to business as usual.
Can't speak to the work from home or commute portion as much, but in terms of excess money I see it as a short to medium term benefit due to COVID and not something that will drastically alter our lifestyle.
Although our spending is down, it's mostly on discretionary or "fun" stuff that was already part of our budget before -- things like nights out, travel, etc. -- that are on hold for now. Given we enjoy all of those activities, I think DW and I will be eager/happy to spend on those things again once it is safe and reasonable to do so. Just my opninion and interested in what others might have to say.
