"The commute to my banking job begins at 3.40am"
I work in a technology job in a financial services firm and my commute to the office takes nearly four hours. When I go into the office, which currently happens twice a week, my day looks like this:
Why, you may ask, do I put myself through this? I have a wife and two children. Where I live now, I can buy a house with four bedrooms in a nice area for £600k. In a pleasant area of London I would pay twice as much.
My mortgage is much smaller because of my commute. This gives me more optionality in the jobs I take: the golden handcuffs are less tight. However, I still want to work in London, because this is where the jobs and the money are.
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Clearly, there is a lifestyle sacrifice. I am foregoing sleep: I work on the train on the way in despite the abysmal wifi and on the return journey I rotate between treats, entertainment, work and sleep. I long ago learned that wine is drunk at your peril: the commute home takes twice as long when you drink wine throughout.
I believe my arrangement to be worthwhile. I would be interested in hearing in the comments whether there are many other people living this lifestyle; I think it has become much more prevalent since the pandemic.
Peyton Meyer is a pseudonym
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