Mr. and I are at am impasse.
Mr. hates to commute. Actually, I think he’s beyond hating and into loathing. Right now he’s taking the Metro, which he hates, but at least it’s not driving, which he hates more. I don’t blame him because he has virtually no attention span and commuting is boring. That said…
We are paying $1,500 a month for a one bedroom apartment. Said apartment is so freakin’ expensive because it’s a 10 minute walk from the Metro and we’re about 5-10 minutes from Washington D.C.
We could get an apartment about fifteen minutes away in Fairfax for roughly $1,000, which would be about a 10-15 minute walk from the Metro (or 5 minutes if I drop him off) and about an extra 15 minutes on the Metro.
Needless to say, I want to move to the cheaper location. Mr. refuses because it’s an extra 15-20 minutes added to his commute. He thinks that I should get a part time job to make up the $500. I think he should suck it up and sit on the train for an extra 1/2 hour each day (I will be getting a part time job, but I would like to have the $500 from me AND the $500 savings on the rent going into the bank.)
Normally I let Mr. make the occasional stupid money decision (like buying the TV) because he’s bringing home the bacon while I get my business set up. This, however, is a roughly $6,000 a year stupid decision. That’s 20 car payments or 15 loan payments or 1/3 of what we want to put down on a house.
We both refuse to budge on this and things are getting more and more ugly when we discuss buying a house/having kids.
Anyone have any good advice for me? Luckily our lease isn’t up until March ($2000 to break it before then!) so we don’t have to make an immediate decision.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Follow me on Twitter 
let mr. spend the first $500 you’re saving a month in rent on whatever can keep him entertained during his commute: A kindle, the latest Ipod, upgraded laptop, etc.
you’ll still end up with a net savings of $5500 in rent that first year alone. I always enjoyed my commute time– I had 45 minutes each way for years–and used it to read, sew, or whatever struck my fancy that day!
I like commuting too. I happily ride the train out to Baltimore (about 1 hour) and either read, or play my DS, or occasionally sew.
Anyway, that sounds like good advice.
Mr. has been talking about a video iPod for awhile (I’ve been fine with him getting one, since I have an iPod of my own.) I wonder if he’d be able to sit still longer if he actually got one. I wouldn’t even mind spending $10-20 a month on downloading content for it.