assuming he has to be at work at 8am with a two hour drive, why in the hell does he have to get up at 3am???
Posted on 04/08/2012 6:38:10 PM PDT by Altariel
Dear Dave,
My husband works two hours away from home. He gets up at 3 a.m. and doesn’t get home until 7 p.m. We have a fully funded emergency fund, and he makes $95,000 a year. My parents’ place is an hour from his job, and they’ve offered to let us live with them. What do you think of this idea?
Jessica
Dear Jessica,
Why don’t you just sell the house and move closer to where he works? If he makes that kind of money and you’ve got your emergency fund in place, you should be able to handle moving costs. I’ve got to be honest, I’d do the two hours to work and two hours home drive maybe once before I’d begin seriously looking for a place much closer.
Right now, you guys don’t have a life. And moving in with your parents wouldn’t be much better. That poor guy practically lives on the road, and I’m sure you both want more quality time together. He sounds like a great guy, though, to be willing to go through all that. He’s busting his tail and doing what it takes to provide for his family, but there’s just no reason for either of you to go through this kind of pain and inconvenience.
Get your house on the market, and find a little rental near his job for now. You can rebuild part of your emergency fund if necessary, but if I’m in your shoes, I’m going to fix this logistical nightmare as fast as humanly possible!
—Dave
Dear Dave,
My husband and I need to update our will, but we’re not sure how to divide the money. All of our children are grown, including my three stepsons. The problem is that two of my stepsons are irresponsible with money and are drug users. Do you have any advice?
Colleen
Dear Colleen,
Typically, if you give money to a drug user they’ll use it for one thing: drugs. Your goal as a parent is to love them and teach them to the best of your ability. Buying their drugs upon your death doesn’t fall into either of those categories. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you deciding not to leave them any money as long as they’re involved in this kind of activity.
If it were me, I’d have a reading of the will when the changes are made. Then, I’d sit down with the family members and explain why you’ve updated the will in this manner. Let them know you love them and want what’s best for them, but you and your husband have decided you’re not going to take a chance on funding any misbehavior on their part.
Make sure you let them know, too, that things can change if they change. They might be mad and fuss about it, but that’s okay. Let them be mad. It’s perfectly all right for you to attach stipulations to any inheritance they might receive, especially when it’s for their own good!
—Dave
* For more financial help, please visit daveramsey.com.
I also live two hours (or more, depending upon traffic)from work. Yeah, Dave...good luck selling the house. Not gonna happen. Foreclosure on one side of me, my house underwater. Let’s be realistic.
I also live two hours (or more, depending upon traffic)from work. Yeah, Dave...good luck selling the house. Not gonna happen. Foreclosure on one side of me, my house underwater. Let’s be realistic.
I guess that depends on how much of a loss they are willing to absorb. I’d be willing to, if I could afford it, to take a 20 grand loss, if it meant having that extra couple of hours a day personal time, but that’s me.
That would be doable, if you only go there to sleep. Lots of eating out and going to movies otherwise.
If he moves a half hour from his job, he gains 3 hours a day or 15 a week. Take a 10 hour a week job delivering pizzas, and he still gets 5 more hours a week to be home.
Maybe rent the house and buy/rent one closer to work.
Even if you have to take a monetary loss, I just don’t think it is worth 4 hours a day of anyone’s time. You’ll never ever get that time back, but you might have a shot at getting the money back somehow.
Exactly.
If he got busy delivering pizzas, on weekends, he’d make up the difference in about a year. Less, if he spent all his free time doing that.
I do like Dave’s common sense financial advice. It’s helped me and my family a lot over the years.
He gets up at 3 a.m. and doesn’t get home until 7 p.m.
I live about thirty-five minutes away from work and it costs me about 200 dollars a month, so it must be costing him upwards of 600 dollars a month in gas.
For a couple of years, my husband and I lived apart, because his work was quite a distance away. He lived in an apartment during the week and came home on weekends.
The price of houses where he worked was (and still is, I believe) astronomical. At least a few years ago, houses are simply not affordable where the jobs are. I saw a show about people who work in L.A. and live 3-4 hours away... they spend all their time commuting. Ick.
assuming he has to be at work at 8am with a two hour drive, why in the hell does he have to get up at 3am???
My guess is so that he has some measure of personal time. Early mornings may be the only time he can make work in his situation.
that must really suck then...
That depends on what he wants to do. I know many serious exercisers who voluntarily get up at 4 or 5, so they can get a really good workout in. That might be what he’s doing.
Wow, I live 25 min from work, 1/2 city driving and I don’t spend half that.
Just saying...
JB
I live in Canada, so part of it is due to our gas price. We are currently paying about 5.40 a gallon.
The other part is that I really like to get home in thirty minutes and not the 37 minutes it would normally take me, if the speed limit was supposed to mean something.:)
i know a couple like that... something i could never do, lucky i can get on the treadmill after work but then again i only have a 25min drive
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