what if you could give yourself a raise?

while playing taxi driver for my daughter and her friends this morning, i heard a news report about getting a raise - by moving closer to your work.

currently, my family of four kids has two cars.  between all the different places we need to be at the same time (two jobs, after school activities, three different schools, etc), two vehicles are needed.  as i write the word 'needed', i cringe a little.

due to my employer's recent consolidation of office spaces, i now know, for the remainder of my career, where i'll be working.  therefore, i did a little thought experiment to think about what life would be like if ...

... we moved closer to my work.
... we sold one of the cars.
... we bought a smaller home.

if such a plan could be pulled off, my commute would possibly be 15 minutes or less.  my wife would probably need to drive me to work or i'd need to carpool or i'd bike to work.  an extra 30 minutes per work day would equate to more time spent together as a family.

if we lowered our mortgage (by buying a smaller, more efficient home) and if we sold one of the vehicles, we would save several thousands of dollars per year (rough estimate of about $10K).

to flip that into "getting a raise terms", if my boss said that i just got a $10K raise, we'd be ecstatic!

currently, fear is what is preventing us from pulling this off.  life is so flexible now.  we can come and go as we choose.  that little bit of freedom would be lost.  the other constraint: the kids and the really good school district they are in.  we are in such a good spot, it's hard to give that up.

it's a dream.  i'll keep talking about it and dropping hints here and there and i'll see where it takes us.

:-)

see: "ditching your commute is the happiness equivalent of a $40,000 raise"
see: "the true cost of commuting"