How Moving 5 Minutes from Work Changed Our Lives

After two long years of dreaming and planning, Tatiana and I finally made it happen—we moved to an apartment just five minutes from our workplace! Can you believe it? No more stressful 40-minute commutes each way, no more feeling like our lives were being eaten up by traffic. Now, the moment we step out of the office, we’re practically home!

The Big Assumption: “You’re Buying a House, Right?”

When we shared the news with friends, so many of them automatically assumed we were buying a house. I get it—it’s like there’s this unspoken rule that when you’re married, that’s just what you do. Buy the starter home, upgrade when kids come along, and downsize when they’re grown. The banks, the realtors, even the government—they’re all rooting for that path.

But here’s the thing: we’ve never been much for following rules that don’t make sense for us. Call us rebels, but we prefer to think for ourselves. 😎 And when we really thought about it, we realized that for us, at this point in our lives, a home is a place to live—not an investment to stress over.

The True Cost of Buying

Don’t even get me started on all the expenses that come with buying a house! The hefty down payment, the never-ending fees, the maintenance costs that always pop up when you least expect them. We did the math, and after all those deductions, the return on investment can be pretty darn low.

For now, we’re more than happy renting from our landlord while owning a profitable rental property elsewhere that helps pay our rent. It’s like having our cake and eating it too!

The Reasons Behind the Move

So if not to buy a house, why did we move? Two simple reasons:

1. Our old apartment was bursting at the seams. We’d outgrown the space and needed room to grow our family.
2. That commute was killing us! Life’s too short to spend it stuck in traffic, don’t you think?

Now, we’re so close to work that on snowy days, we can just stroll to the nearby train station and catch the work shuttle. Or, even better, we can just work from home and watch the snowfall from our cozy couch.

Hello, Upgrade!

Can we talk about the apartment itself for a minute? It’s a MAJOR upgrade from our old place. We have an actual dishwasher now—you know, that magical invention that uses water and spinning arms to clean your dishes for you? Game changer!

Tatiana, my wonderful wife, has been promoted from Head Dishwasher to Pots and Pans Specialist. I can’t wait to see what she does with all her newfound free time. 😉

And the location—oh, the location! We’ve got a beautiful public park right in our backyard, perfect for future little ones to run around in. It feels like an extension of our home.

The True Value of Time

But you know what the best part of this move is? All the TIME we’re saving. No more hours wasted in the car, no more evenings spent watching the minutes tick by in traffic. We’re saving an average of 1 hour and 10 minutes PER DAY. That’s 5.5 hours every week that we get to spend actually living our lives!

Whether it’s cooking dinner at a reasonable hour, pursuing our hobbies, enjoying a glass of wine on the porch with friends, or ahem, engaging in some couple time—those extra hours are precious to us.

In the mornings, we can sleep a bit later, enjoy breakfast at home, and even squeeze in some meditation. This move isn’t just about a nicer apartment—it’s about a better quality of life.

And for a couple working towards financial independence like us, that quality of life is priceless.

So tell me—how long is your commute these days? And what do you do to make the most of that time? I’d love to hear your stories!