Weighing the benefits of two jobs. One is $18/hour with a 25 minute/ 14 mile drive. The other is $24/hour with a 1 hour/ 50 mile drive. Both have a healthcare option. Both have paid vacation time.
Trying to make a decision for a new job
byu/butterflytrashfae inpersonalfinance
Posted by butterflytrashfae
8 Comments
The latter is $12,480 more per year. That’s pretty substantial
You can break it down by cost per mile and see how much you gain…not to mention time in car
50 mile round trip or each way? 5 days/week?
Get those audio books downloaded! I would do the hour drive. Not only is 24 dollars A LOT more than 18 dollars an hour, but 18 dollars an hour is barely livable; and in most places not. 18 is too low for an extra hour a day.
Can you move in a couple weeks/months? I’d take the higher paying job.
How much will you spend on gas? How many days per week is that commute? Need to figure in vehicle wear & tear and 4 hours of your day commuting (assuming 1:50 is one-way) on your lifestyle. It’s a substantial increase in pay and may be worth the extra commute time if it’s good for your career/future. Difficult to assess without too much other info.
The higher paying job is about $3/hour more when you factor in the driving time.
Just some very rough napkin math
14 mile drive, figure that’s one way so 28 miles a day. Figure 25 miles a gallon, $4/gallon, and that you work 5 days a week for 52 weeks a year (no time off, tsk tsk). That’s 7280 miles a year, and roughly $1164.8 in fuel costs.
Same for the figures for the 50 mile drive, except figuring 100 miles a day. 26,000 miles a year for a total of $4160 in fuel costs.
As u/werewolfdad mentions you’d make $12,480 a year more at the $24/hr job. That’s more than enough to cover the fuel difference, but it doesn’t account for other vehicle wear. You know your vehicle and it’s maintenance costs better than I do but unless you expect to spend nearly $11k/year in maintenance you’re still coming out ahead.
From a purely pay standpoint the $24/hr longer commute job makes more sense, imo. Up to you to determine whether the extra time spent in your car and the quality of life of a shorter commute offsets the pay difference.