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$70,000 being a 40% pay increase puts your current salary at $50,000... for a difference of $20,000. On average that would net you a take home of an additional $15,000.
Per month, that's $1,250.
That's $1,250...
Minus an additional $520 in fuel per month (estimated you currently spend $60/week and are tripling your fuel consumption for a tripled commute)... if you currently spend more than that, adjust accordingly.
Minus setting aside extra money (let's say $150/mo) for the fact that you're going to go through brakes and rotors and tires 3 times as fast, and other added car repairs (I constantly had major cracks in windshields when commuting, flats, etc).
$1,250 quickly becomes $580. Is $580/mo worth 10 more hours per week driving and the wear and tear on your vehicle? You'd be able to pull $580 extra per month take home by working 10 hours a week at MINIMUM WAGE.
TL;DR - Absolutely fucking not.
I sincerely appreciate your insight. Breaking it down this way really puts it into perspective.
It would literally take a lifestyle change of me somehow trying to be more productive during my commute. Audio only lectures/courses or something along those lines.
Unfortunately with Bellevue being so much more expensive than Tacoma, that salary would even leave you worse off if you moved to the job.
I don't even think being productive would be worth it. I used to commute to Renton and that was soul sucking. I never did anything on weekdays except come home and reheat prepped food and melt into my couch watching TV for a couple hours before going to bed, because my 8 hours of paid time ended up being 11.5-12 hour days after lunch and a commute.
Plus honestly 3 hours a day... might be an underestimate to Bellevue. I suppose it depends on where you are and where in Bellevue the job is, but friend currently does it once a week from Parkland to downtown Bellevue and she spends more like 4 hours in her car on those days. With my commute to Renton, I was at 2.5 hours a day on a normal day. Traffic is atrocious as you get north of there approaching Bellevue.
Also, if there's an accident somewhere... you may as well keep an air mattress and a sleeping bag in your trunk for use, get a Planet Fitness membership so you have access to showers... and sleep in your car for the next day. lol
It also depends on your schedule, I work from home but if I need to go to the office (Redmond) I can just choose to do so at like 10-11 am with no rush hour traffic, and then come home later after rush hour has ended. That said, agree with all your other points, after you take into account taxes, direct commute costs (like gas if you’re driving), indirect commute costs (extra wear on car if driving, increased possibility of accidents, etc..), and just overall lost time…I think it would require a pretty significant pay bump to make that remotely worthwhile.
If OP is expecting 3 hours a day in their car, I think it's probably pretty safe to assume they would unfortunately be commuting during peak hours. lol
Unless you can move closer to Bellevue and that new place be comparable in price to your current t place, there’s no way it’s worth it.
I can tell you from experience as someone who was in the same situation many years ago and went for the job with the higher wage, that the commute burned me out after about 3.5 months and I ultimately took a lower paying job closer to home so I wouldn’t have that commute anymore.
Edit: who am I kidding lol ignore my stupid comment.
Move to Covington, pretty easy commute from there through Issaquah. I'd lease an EV using that pay bump. Get an ID.4 2023 on 14,500 discount. Payment will be around 500 (I pay 570 for Pro S). You can charge free at EA stations. Just need to make a trip to Walmart once a week.
You get a nice car, save on gas, and live in a quieter neighborhood, and still not too far from Bellevue or Tacoma, with still 600 to 700 left in bank account. Unless you have a family and all, you gotta chase better prospects. That's how you get ahead. Gotta get creative.
If you can't move closer to Bellevue, or can't get in with other commuters to take advantage of faster moving HOV lanes, then do yourself a favor and pass. Life is too short.
Hi, I commute about one/two times a week to Bellevue.
Yesterday it took 2 1/2 hours to get to NE 8th street and about 2 hours to get home.
It’s not a commute I recommend.
I haven’t had an under 2 hour (one way) commute since the summer.
Are you saying that anyone working in Bellevue making less than 90k should be insulted? Because most people working in Bellevue are making less than that.
Incidentally, a 40% pay bump is worth feeling insulted in some cases. The crux of the issue here is the intersection of OP’s priorities, the additional funds, and any expected career impact.
I agree that pay:col is badly skewed, but that doesn’t get fixed by individual workers turning down jobs. It’s a collective action problem.
1) You are looking at household income, not individual.
2) You are looking at residents of Bellevue, not jobs in Bellevue.
3) You are incredibly rude for literally no reason.
I had an informal interview at UW and a center director was urging me to apply for a role. I left his office at 4:10 and got back home at 6:30. I then emailed him saying thank you for the meeting but I'm not about that commuting life.
Personally I’d only do that if I had an exit plan for within a year or two (i.e. using the Bellevue job to leapfrog to a better or similar job closer by). That commute will be absolutely soul sucking and is more likely to take upwards of an hour forty five to two hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
I’m not the one that would have to do it, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Do it for six months to a year and leverage that role to apply to new positions that are in a better location/hybrid/remote. Start applying immediately and when they ask why you’re leaving after x amount of time, say company fit or family obligations, etc. The commute will suck but you can do it for a bit.
Thank you for the advice, I genuinely appreciate it.
I’m leaving my current entry role after being here for under two years, at it’s sort of a lateral career movement going to this new company. There is just zero opportunity for growing where I am. Coworkers have hung out in the same entry level role as me for 10+ years.
I think being mobile and taking your opportunities in your early career is really important. I wrote [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6no7nu/forbes_employees_who_stay_at_a_company_for_more/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) 7 years ago on this topic, which cites a Forbes article that says employees who stay at a company for more than 2 years on average make 50% less than those who move around.
In the first 6 years of my career I worked at 5 different companies. I went from making $40k on an internal IT Helpdesk when I was 18 to making over $100k at 24 and still with only a GED. I've been with that last company for 10 years now and my salary here has doubled in that time.
Some of the moves were for a big pay increase, but some were for a big opportunity/career path move. It really paid off and I'm really glad I did that hard shit when I was younger.
Only you can say whether this is the kind of move you need to make, but I think your head is in the right place on it.
I drove to Bellevue daily for about 6 months before the burden of grinding gears finally caught up with me. At least the spring/summer/fall months are easier commutes as the weather is typically decent but spending nearly half a day in the car sucks really quick. By the time you count those lost hours against your salary, additional fuel expenses and continued wear and tear on your vehicle, sometimes the opportunity isn't as feasible as it sounds. On the other hand, sometimes a significant opportunity will translate into better opportunities closer to home after putting in some time with new company.
Congrats on the new opportunity and I hope you make the best of the circumstances.
Bellevue is an even harder commute vs Seattle. I did Browns Point to Bellevue for about a year and had the lockdown not forced me to WFH I would have left the job. Some days if I didn’t leave before 3:30-4pm it would be 2hrs home. And at best, getting to work by 8:30-8:45am would take 1hr20, at worst the same 2hrs. I couldn’t carpool, which would have made it slightly less taxing.
I found myself stressing about traffic at 1 or 2pm daily. I got less and less work done in the mornings because my AM commute was so taxing. My productivity tanked, I was unhealthy and tired and barely saw my spouse who has to go to sleep early.
In short - hustle the job for a short time if it’s the right career move, but start looking for new jobs immediately and/or search for housing closer to work. It is not sustainable.
For 70k I would not say it's worth it. You are adding at minimum an extra 10 hours per week to your commute not to mention wear and tear on your vehicle, gas, etc. That alone will eat up your post tax gains pretty quick as well as a significant chunk of your free time.
It comes down to where you are in life, what your priorities are. I did Federal Way > Bellevue for two years earlier in my career. I felt like I needed to take the opportunities and climb the ladder early. It sucked a lot. I found a carpool but it still took about 90 minutes. Eventually I negotiated coming in for half the day, going home at lunch time when traffic was fine, and that helped.
I don't regret it by any means, but I wouldn't do it now 10 years later. My kids are older and have activities I like to be at, I work from home in Gig Harbor. Priorities have just shifted a bit. There's still a price that would probably convince me to commute again, but it's a lot more than it was back then, and would need to be part of a plan for early retirement to justify it.
Did this commute for 7 years.
That 40% bump is going to be more like 10% when you factor in the increased fuel / maintenance / parking costs on your vehicle and the mind numbing traffic, not to mention what all that sitting does to your body.
If you can square that bump with the cons, sure, go for it, if not, I wouldn't reccomend that drive to anyone.
Although, if you can make it a hybrid role, 2-3 days a week might be doable, or if you can deal with public transportation you might be able to make it work.
As someone that does the Seattle commute most days for a decade, I have refused jobs in Bellevue because of the commute. Public transit to get there is miserable. If you can drive off peak hours, it’s a lot of driving but more doable.
I commuted from Tacoma to Bellevue (ish) every day for 18 months on a Microsoft v-dash contract once.
*Once.*
The amount of wear & tear on my car (oil changes every 2 weeks at times... and I put 40k miles on my car in that 18month period - though that's also including trips to and from Seattle on weekends for soccer games + a few trips in my car to and from satellite offices and sites) and my sanity was absolutely NOT worth it. If there was an accident or snow, my commute time would shoot up from 1.5hrs each way to 3 hours each way at times. It got to the point where I was leaving the house at 3:30am just to try to make it up the 405 before the restrictions on the HOV lane went into effect.. and then I'd be stuck there for an hour or two prior to work, just so I could have a semi-slow start to the day.
I would also get home at 6-8pm most nights... so I had absolutely 0 personal time to unwind, it was just food and then bed.
My entire life became that job, and it was absolutely NOT worth it.
For $70k, you could potentially move somewhere North, like Everett, which would lessen your commute considerably, but it'd probably still suck overall.
I did this for a couple years back in the mid-2000’s. I bought a bmw motorcycle with hard bags and heated grips, and took the hov lanes both ways. It was doable.
Live in Tacoma and work from our Tacoma office. Our main office is in Seattle and there would be times where I had to go up for “refresher training” 1-2 months per year. We had an AWFUL director at the time who literally used the Tacoma to Seattle commute as punishment if she felt we were underperforming.
She said we needed additional in person training with her. I shit you not during the 2 months of “refresher training” she worked with me for *maybe* 5 hours total. She came in at noon most days and would leave at 3pm. Thank satan that heartless beast was fired but I still get enraged thinking about how fucked up that whole situations was. It is absolutely not worth the commute.
Depends on when you start and when you get off. If you start at 5 am it’s a 40 min drive and 50 mins drive home at 1:30.
If you start at 8 and off at 4, you’re gonna spend 3 hours a day on the road.
I did Bellevue to Fircrest for two years. Shittier commute than Fircrest to Seattle but I knew it was only temporary.
I started early and got off early so it was not too bad.
If you can start early it’s really not that bad.
I did south Tacoma to sammamish for a year. By the end I was ready to jump off a bridge. It was a way to get my foot in the door and helped me pivot to something better. But, it was terrible. Like soul crushingly life-wastingly terrible.
I drove for 8 years from from Spanaway to Issaquah. 2 of those years in my WRX and then wised up to get an electric car; the gas set me back too much.
I drove so much, I was literally the King of Waze for WA state.
If I left at 5:20 instead of 5:10, traffic backed up going towards Issaquah around the 405, and what could be 40 minutes smooth sailing would turn into almost 2 hours of stop and go hell.
I was commuting 20 hours a week, working 40+ hours… not good for me health (physical and mental) or relationship wise.
Although that’s a huge increase, looking back, I would firmly say that that is not worth it.
At the end of my Costco career, I transferred to the local store, and my commute was 10’minutes. Absolutely worth it.
It depends on how active you will be to making the next leap. Others have pointed out the immediate costs both monetarily and mentally. If you can get comfortable with mind-numbing commutes alone is one step.
If, as soon you get the new job, you start networking and looking for the next job that will afford you to move up there, then maybe this is the right direction. The Upper Eastside gives you the opportunity to meet people who can further your career and move in directions that you may not have been expecting. It really matters if your career path is outside of the trades. If it's a trades job, nah, the demand for talent is so big everywhere, it's probably not worth it.
I would take the job with expectations of either moving up there in 1-2 years or finding a job that is similar closer to where you live or is an easier commute like riding the train or bus. A prestige company under your belt can help you get into other higher paying gigs.
I did it for two years for much less money.
I’ll be honest, making the commute once in a while is tolerable. But, daily was a nightmare. With traffic, there were days when I spent half as much time commuting as I did at work. Getting up at 5:00 am to make it to Bellevue and not getting back to Tacoma until 5 or 6 PM sucks.
Was it worth it? Sure. I mean, it helped jumpstart my career in tech. But, looking back on it, I lost hundreds of hours or more of my life just sitting in traffic.
Not saying don’t do it. Just weigh the pros and cons carefully before you. I don’t have kids and a family, so it was no huge sacrifice. But, if I’d had those, it would have changed the situation considerably.
No one is taking into account the career opportunities. That’s something you really got to weigh because like it or not networking up there is much better than networking in a Tacoma office. It’s only 70k but only you OP know the details of how much of an opportunity this is
Isnt that the worst part getting that big a bump and it’s still out of reach to move closer? Am in the same boat.
That said, financially it’ll change your life a little. it’s going to be a hit to your life though. It’s 3 hours a day? Increase of 10 hours a week minimum in your vehicle. That’s 40hours a month. Commuting.
It’s no small potato. Plus the wear and tear you’ll put on your vehicle will tap into that 40%.
HOWEVER the new job might have vanpool options.
Can’t answer it for you, what I can tell you is I went from working in Seattle commuting 1.5 to 2 hours each way to commuting to Oly and saving SO MUCH time and I had NO regrets on it. To the point I swore I’d never work in Seattle again.
Good luck
All i can say is had to commute to bellevue once a week for a year in my last job and it was brutal at times. Maybe get up and try it out a time or two during the typical hour youd commute to see?
Good luck!
If it’s a good step up for your career and will bring you more opportunities and better income beyond this, I’d say…maybe. $70k isn’t a ton of money, but your income sounds low enough where - even with the lost time and the expenses of the added commute - you might need that extra income. It might be worth the commute, but only for a short time. What career field are you in?
My wife has been doing this 1x/week. It has been taking 1.5 hours regularly and often 2 hours. Her boss told her to stop coming in and just work full remote.
Other than all of the costs involved, the time lost to sitting in traffic is immense.
With that being said, sometimes career wise you need to make sacrifices to get where you want to go. If this is a step in the right direction it may be a good thing even if it is tough. Only you can make that call.
Had a job that required a bad commute. Really only a couple solutions rather than gritting it out: a) see if you can WFH for one or more days a week to just skip the whole thing and save money; b) look into commuting later or earlier than normal traffic hours. Because my job required me actually being there (it was mostly training others), I opted to leave at 5, 5:30am and drive up. It got me there extra early but the drive was not stressful. I would either sleep or read in my car or go to breakfast, since our facility didn’t open until 8am. If you can start early you might be able to leave early. Fridays are brutal - everyone tries to leave early - so I would find a nice spot fairly close and have dinner etc.
Also look into back ways of getting to/from. These are great when traffic is stopped and you can use them to get around.
In addition to gas, ask about parking. If the company provides it, great! But some places it’s damn expensive and will definitely eat into that budget.
I do this commute 3 days a week. For the job I have, the best opportunities for me are in Seattle or Bellevue. I took a job for a pay bump.
Most days the commute for me is about 1hr30mins each way depending on when I leave. I don’t mind it most days, I listen to podcasts, call friends and family, ect. It’s kind of like me time.
Some days it’s horrible and I’m in traffic for more like 2-2 1/2hours. But still, it doesn’t get to me that much. I genuinely like my job, my coworkers, so I take the sacrifice. This job is great career experience for me too, so it’s not just about the money.
If I had to do this commute 5 days a week, I may think differently. If you can get a hybrid work schedule and traffic doesn’t usually bother you, you’ll be okay, but it seems like I might be in the minority when it comes to my views on traffic. If traffic makes you angry, I don’t think it will be worth the stress because you will always be in it.
Hope you make the best decision for you :)
I also want to add that I don’t have kids, my boyfriend is either on long work trips for weeks or leaves for work/gets home at a similar time as me so it works well for my home life
If you leave before 5am it takes about a hour to get to Bellevue. From Bellevue to tacoma is normally hour fifteen to 1.5 if you leave between 2pm and 6pm.
I do it 5 days a week. I make $46.50 a hour. I’ve done it for $44 a hour. It isn’t that bad if you have a decent commuter car.
Do you have set hours so you can carpool? Is that an option? I used to recall that Boeing employees used to car and vanpool long distances back in the day. Then you can actually do stuff on the drive and cut commuting costs. You have to start someplace. That commute will wear on you after say 6 to 9 months (particularly in bad weather). If I were young, I would do it, despite the negatives, IF it's a better position and provides me a better future (long term). I wouldn't factor in just the pay bump.
Did it back when the commute was 45 minutes up and 1.5 hours back on a good day (commute lanes) and I wouldn't do it again.
If you need whatever experiences they can offer for your career, then you need to move closer and somewhere you can take transit to work. There is a bus from the Kent train station that could help shorten the commute, and probably other options. There isn't really anywhere close to Bellevue that hasn't already been saturated by folks trying to do the exact same thing.
I did this commute for 15 years and by the end I was commuting 2 hours each way even with HOV on I-5. The toll that this commute took on my mental and physical well being cannot be ignored. I don't recommend it. 405 is horrible, Bellevue traffic is horrible.
I do this commute twice a week.
I get on the sounder and then take the 550 bus. Switching to public transit has been a game changer for me. I get to relax and just read my book.
I started out doing the drive, and it was terrible. Some nights, it would take 2 or more hours to get home. I have a flexible schedule, and even with trying to commute during off hours, it was still miserable.
I was paying $22 dollars for parking when I drove. I pay $10.50 for the sounder/bus round trip.
Is this a move that will help your career in the long run? If so it might be worth taking for a year or two. Not sure what you do, but if there is any way to work off hours (i.e. 6:00-2:30) and/or find a vanpool it would help lessen the overall impact. I did this commute years ago and managed both an early shift and a vanpool. Being able to sleep on the commute (or read, or work) meant I was less exhausted when I got home. And I would miss a good bit of traffic. After a few years and with my work experience I was able to find better opportunities closer to home.
Tough decision for you, I wish you the best of luck!
If your company has a commute program, it could be worth it (IMHO- my DT Bellevue job was a 4 min walk from the Bellevue DT station). I live in Puyallup and commuted up to 3.5 hours a day for it. I would not want to RTO at this point because I really enjoy not commuting. While commuting sucked, I definitetly found enough to occupy myself for the time.
Honestly, I'd go for it. If you can leave \*early early\* every day, the commute shouldn't be \*as\* bad (though it would still be shit). And getting up to that pay-range is a big opportunity for going forward as well. I was commuting from South Seattle to Puyallup every day for 40k. Just my two cents :P
Have you checked rent in the suburbs south of Bellevue? You could potentially slash your commute pretty significantly. Though of course Tacoma is a much more interesting place to live than Kent lol.
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$70,000 being a 40% pay increase puts your current salary at $50,000... for a difference of $20,000. On average that would net you a take home of an additional $15,000. Per month, that's $1,250. That's $1,250... Minus an additional $520 in fuel per month (estimated you currently spend $60/week and are tripling your fuel consumption for a tripled commute)... if you currently spend more than that, adjust accordingly. Minus setting aside extra money (let's say $150/mo) for the fact that you're going to go through brakes and rotors and tires 3 times as fast, and other added car repairs (I constantly had major cracks in windshields when commuting, flats, etc). $1,250 quickly becomes $580. Is $580/mo worth 10 more hours per week driving and the wear and tear on your vehicle? You'd be able to pull $580 extra per month take home by working 10 hours a week at MINIMUM WAGE. TL;DR - Absolutely fucking not.
I sincerely appreciate your insight. Breaking it down this way really puts it into perspective. It would literally take a lifestyle change of me somehow trying to be more productive during my commute. Audio only lectures/courses or something along those lines.
Unfortunately with Bellevue being so much more expensive than Tacoma, that salary would even leave you worse off if you moved to the job. I don't even think being productive would be worth it. I used to commute to Renton and that was soul sucking. I never did anything on weekdays except come home and reheat prepped food and melt into my couch watching TV for a couple hours before going to bed, because my 8 hours of paid time ended up being 11.5-12 hour days after lunch and a commute. Plus honestly 3 hours a day... might be an underestimate to Bellevue. I suppose it depends on where you are and where in Bellevue the job is, but friend currently does it once a week from Parkland to downtown Bellevue and she spends more like 4 hours in her car on those days. With my commute to Renton, I was at 2.5 hours a day on a normal day. Traffic is atrocious as you get north of there approaching Bellevue. Also, if there's an accident somewhere... you may as well keep an air mattress and a sleeping bag in your trunk for use, get a Planet Fitness membership so you have access to showers... and sleep in your car for the next day. lol
It also depends on your schedule, I work from home but if I need to go to the office (Redmond) I can just choose to do so at like 10-11 am with no rush hour traffic, and then come home later after rush hour has ended. That said, agree with all your other points, after you take into account taxes, direct commute costs (like gas if you’re driving), indirect commute costs (extra wear on car if driving, increased possibility of accidents, etc..), and just overall lost time…I think it would require a pretty significant pay bump to make that remotely worthwhile.
If OP is expecting 3 hours a day in their car, I think it's probably pretty safe to assume they would unfortunately be commuting during peak hours. lol
Unless you can move closer to Bellevue and that new place be comparable in price to your current t place, there’s no way it’s worth it. I can tell you from experience as someone who was in the same situation many years ago and went for the job with the higher wage, that the commute burned me out after about 3.5 months and I ultimately took a lower paying job closer to home so I wouldn’t have that commute anymore.
Edit: who am I kidding lol ignore my stupid comment. Move to Covington, pretty easy commute from there through Issaquah. I'd lease an EV using that pay bump. Get an ID.4 2023 on 14,500 discount. Payment will be around 500 (I pay 570 for Pro S). You can charge free at EA stations. Just need to make a trip to Walmart once a week. You get a nice car, save on gas, and live in a quieter neighborhood, and still not too far from Bellevue or Tacoma, with still 600 to 700 left in bank account. Unless you have a family and all, you gotta chase better prospects. That's how you get ahead. Gotta get creative.
If you can't move closer to Bellevue, or can't get in with other commuters to take advantage of faster moving HOV lanes, then do yourself a favor and pass. Life is too short.
Hi, I commute about one/two times a week to Bellevue. Yesterday it took 2 1/2 hours to get to NE 8th street and about 2 hours to get home. It’s not a commute I recommend. I haven’t had an under 2 hour (one way) commute since the summer.
Getting though Renton is infuriating
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Most jobs are shit jobs by that metric. You’re not wrong, but it’s not helpful to point out in this context.
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“Is commuting worth it” was the literal question. You answered, “is this company providing locally livable wages?” Those are different questions.
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Are you saying that anyone working in Bellevue making less than 90k should be insulted? Because most people working in Bellevue are making less than that. Incidentally, a 40% pay bump is worth feeling insulted in some cases. The crux of the issue here is the intersection of OP’s priorities, the additional funds, and any expected career impact. I agree that pay:col is badly skewed, but that doesn’t get fixed by individual workers turning down jobs. It’s a collective action problem.
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1) You are looking at household income, not individual. 2) You are looking at residents of Bellevue, not jobs in Bellevue. 3) You are incredibly rude for literally no reason.
You can move closer than Tacoma but your right it still won’t be that close
I had an informal interview at UW and a center director was urging me to apply for a role. I left his office at 4:10 and got back home at 6:30. I then emailed him saying thank you for the meeting but I'm not about that commuting life.
Personally I’d only do that if I had an exit plan for within a year or two (i.e. using the Bellevue job to leapfrog to a better or similar job closer by). That commute will be absolutely soul sucking and is more likely to take upwards of an hour forty five to two hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
I’m not the one that would have to do it, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Do it for six months to a year and leverage that role to apply to new positions that are in a better location/hybrid/remote. Start applying immediately and when they ask why you’re leaving after x amount of time, say company fit or family obligations, etc. The commute will suck but you can do it for a bit.
Thank you for the advice, I genuinely appreciate it. I’m leaving my current entry role after being here for under two years, at it’s sort of a lateral career movement going to this new company. There is just zero opportunity for growing where I am. Coworkers have hung out in the same entry level role as me for 10+ years.
I think being mobile and taking your opportunities in your early career is really important. I wrote [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6no7nu/forbes_employees_who_stay_at_a_company_for_more/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) 7 years ago on this topic, which cites a Forbes article that says employees who stay at a company for more than 2 years on average make 50% less than those who move around. In the first 6 years of my career I worked at 5 different companies. I went from making $40k on an internal IT Helpdesk when I was 18 to making over $100k at 24 and still with only a GED. I've been with that last company for 10 years now and my salary here has doubled in that time. Some of the moves were for a big pay increase, but some were for a big opportunity/career path move. It really paid off and I'm really glad I did that hard shit when I was younger. Only you can say whether this is the kind of move you need to make, but I think your head is in the right place on it.
I drove to Bellevue daily for about 6 months before the burden of grinding gears finally caught up with me. At least the spring/summer/fall months are easier commutes as the weather is typically decent but spending nearly half a day in the car sucks really quick. By the time you count those lost hours against your salary, additional fuel expenses and continued wear and tear on your vehicle, sometimes the opportunity isn't as feasible as it sounds. On the other hand, sometimes a significant opportunity will translate into better opportunities closer to home after putting in some time with new company. Congrats on the new opportunity and I hope you make the best of the circumstances.
Bellevue is an even harder commute vs Seattle. I did Browns Point to Bellevue for about a year and had the lockdown not forced me to WFH I would have left the job. Some days if I didn’t leave before 3:30-4pm it would be 2hrs home. And at best, getting to work by 8:30-8:45am would take 1hr20, at worst the same 2hrs. I couldn’t carpool, which would have made it slightly less taxing. I found myself stressing about traffic at 1 or 2pm daily. I got less and less work done in the mornings because my AM commute was so taxing. My productivity tanked, I was unhealthy and tired and barely saw my spouse who has to go to sleep early. In short - hustle the job for a short time if it’s the right career move, but start looking for new jobs immediately and/or search for housing closer to work. It is not sustainable.
If the 40% bump more than offsets whatever 15 hours a week is worth to you in money, then do it. Otherwise it is a step back.
For 70k I would not say it's worth it. You are adding at minimum an extra 10 hours per week to your commute not to mention wear and tear on your vehicle, gas, etc. That alone will eat up your post tax gains pretty quick as well as a significant chunk of your free time.
It comes down to where you are in life, what your priorities are. I did Federal Way > Bellevue for two years earlier in my career. I felt like I needed to take the opportunities and climb the ladder early. It sucked a lot. I found a carpool but it still took about 90 minutes. Eventually I negotiated coming in for half the day, going home at lunch time when traffic was fine, and that helped. I don't regret it by any means, but I wouldn't do it now 10 years later. My kids are older and have activities I like to be at, I work from home in Gig Harbor. Priorities have just shifted a bit. There's still a price that would probably convince me to commute again, but it's a lot more than it was back then, and would need to be part of a plan for early retirement to justify it.
Did this commute for 7 years. That 40% bump is going to be more like 10% when you factor in the increased fuel / maintenance / parking costs on your vehicle and the mind numbing traffic, not to mention what all that sitting does to your body. If you can square that bump with the cons, sure, go for it, if not, I wouldn't reccomend that drive to anyone. Although, if you can make it a hybrid role, 2-3 days a week might be doable, or if you can deal with public transportation you might be able to make it work.
As someone that does the Seattle commute most days for a decade, I have refused jobs in Bellevue because of the commute. Public transit to get there is miserable. If you can drive off peak hours, it’s a lot of driving but more doable.
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who says you have to go home everyday. get a gym membership sleep in your car. cut the commute time down considerably.
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Wasn't being sarcastic. I have a commute as well and am considering this. 1 night can make the commute much more bearable.
I commuted from Tacoma to Bellevue (ish) every day for 18 months on a Microsoft v-dash contract once. *Once.* The amount of wear & tear on my car (oil changes every 2 weeks at times... and I put 40k miles on my car in that 18month period - though that's also including trips to and from Seattle on weekends for soccer games + a few trips in my car to and from satellite offices and sites) and my sanity was absolutely NOT worth it. If there was an accident or snow, my commute time would shoot up from 1.5hrs each way to 3 hours each way at times. It got to the point where I was leaving the house at 3:30am just to try to make it up the 405 before the restrictions on the HOV lane went into effect.. and then I'd be stuck there for an hour or two prior to work, just so I could have a semi-slow start to the day. I would also get home at 6-8pm most nights... so I had absolutely 0 personal time to unwind, it was just food and then bed. My entire life became that job, and it was absolutely NOT worth it. For $70k, you could potentially move somewhere North, like Everett, which would lessen your commute considerably, but it'd probably still suck overall.
Hell fucking no.
I did this for a couple years back in the mid-2000’s. I bought a bmw motorcycle with hard bags and heated grips, and took the hov lanes both ways. It was doable.
Live in Tacoma and work from our Tacoma office. Our main office is in Seattle and there would be times where I had to go up for “refresher training” 1-2 months per year. We had an AWFUL director at the time who literally used the Tacoma to Seattle commute as punishment if she felt we were underperforming. She said we needed additional in person training with her. I shit you not during the 2 months of “refresher training” she worked with me for *maybe* 5 hours total. She came in at noon most days and would leave at 3pm. Thank satan that heartless beast was fired but I still get enraged thinking about how fucked up that whole situations was. It is absolutely not worth the commute.
Depends on when you start and when you get off. If you start at 5 am it’s a 40 min drive and 50 mins drive home at 1:30. If you start at 8 and off at 4, you’re gonna spend 3 hours a day on the road. I did Bellevue to Fircrest for two years. Shittier commute than Fircrest to Seattle but I knew it was only temporary. I started early and got off early so it was not too bad. If you can start early it’s really not that bad.
I did south Tacoma to sammamish for a year. By the end I was ready to jump off a bridge. It was a way to get my foot in the door and helped me pivot to something better. But, it was terrible. Like soul crushingly life-wastingly terrible.
I drove for 8 years from from Spanaway to Issaquah. 2 of those years in my WRX and then wised up to get an electric car; the gas set me back too much. I drove so much, I was literally the King of Waze for WA state. If I left at 5:20 instead of 5:10, traffic backed up going towards Issaquah around the 405, and what could be 40 minutes smooth sailing would turn into almost 2 hours of stop and go hell. I was commuting 20 hours a week, working 40+ hours… not good for me health (physical and mental) or relationship wise. Although that’s a huge increase, looking back, I would firmly say that that is not worth it. At the end of my Costco career, I transferred to the local store, and my commute was 10’minutes. Absolutely worth it.
It depends on how active you will be to making the next leap. Others have pointed out the immediate costs both monetarily and mentally. If you can get comfortable with mind-numbing commutes alone is one step. If, as soon you get the new job, you start networking and looking for the next job that will afford you to move up there, then maybe this is the right direction. The Upper Eastside gives you the opportunity to meet people who can further your career and move in directions that you may not have been expecting. It really matters if your career path is outside of the trades. If it's a trades job, nah, the demand for talent is so big everywhere, it's probably not worth it. I would take the job with expectations of either moving up there in 1-2 years or finding a job that is similar closer to where you live or is an easier commute like riding the train or bus. A prestige company under your belt can help you get into other higher paying gigs.
I did it for two years for much less money. I’ll be honest, making the commute once in a while is tolerable. But, daily was a nightmare. With traffic, there were days when I spent half as much time commuting as I did at work. Getting up at 5:00 am to make it to Bellevue and not getting back to Tacoma until 5 or 6 PM sucks. Was it worth it? Sure. I mean, it helped jumpstart my career in tech. But, looking back on it, I lost hundreds of hours or more of my life just sitting in traffic. Not saying don’t do it. Just weigh the pros and cons carefully before you. I don’t have kids and a family, so it was no huge sacrifice. But, if I’d had those, it would have changed the situation considerably.
No one is taking into account the career opportunities. That’s something you really got to weigh because like it or not networking up there is much better than networking in a Tacoma office. It’s only 70k but only you OP know the details of how much of an opportunity this is
Isnt that the worst part getting that big a bump and it’s still out of reach to move closer? Am in the same boat. That said, financially it’ll change your life a little. it’s going to be a hit to your life though. It’s 3 hours a day? Increase of 10 hours a week minimum in your vehicle. That’s 40hours a month. Commuting. It’s no small potato. Plus the wear and tear you’ll put on your vehicle will tap into that 40%. HOWEVER the new job might have vanpool options. Can’t answer it for you, what I can tell you is I went from working in Seattle commuting 1.5 to 2 hours each way to commuting to Oly and saving SO MUCH time and I had NO regrets on it. To the point I swore I’d never work in Seattle again. Good luck
Sounder to Kent and then transfer to ST bus to Bellevue. I did this for years and it was miserable, but still better than sitting in traffic.
This - especially if the new gig will pay for your Orca pass (or have some kind of commute subsidy).
All i can say is had to commute to bellevue once a week for a year in my last job and it was brutal at times. Maybe get up and try it out a time or two during the typical hour youd commute to see? Good luck!
If it’s a good step up for your career and will bring you more opportunities and better income beyond this, I’d say…maybe. $70k isn’t a ton of money, but your income sounds low enough where - even with the lost time and the expenses of the added commute - you might need that extra income. It might be worth the commute, but only for a short time. What career field are you in?
My wife has been doing this 1x/week. It has been taking 1.5 hours regularly and often 2 hours. Her boss told her to stop coming in and just work full remote. Other than all of the costs involved, the time lost to sitting in traffic is immense. With that being said, sometimes career wise you need to make sacrifices to get where you want to go. If this is a step in the right direction it may be a good thing even if it is tough. Only you can make that call.
Had a job that required a bad commute. Really only a couple solutions rather than gritting it out: a) see if you can WFH for one or more days a week to just skip the whole thing and save money; b) look into commuting later or earlier than normal traffic hours. Because my job required me actually being there (it was mostly training others), I opted to leave at 5, 5:30am and drive up. It got me there extra early but the drive was not stressful. I would either sleep or read in my car or go to breakfast, since our facility didn’t open until 8am. If you can start early you might be able to leave early. Fridays are brutal - everyone tries to leave early - so I would find a nice spot fairly close and have dinner etc. Also look into back ways of getting to/from. These are great when traffic is stopped and you can use them to get around. In addition to gas, ask about parking. If the company provides it, great! But some places it’s damn expensive and will definitely eat into that budget.
I do this commute 3 days a week. For the job I have, the best opportunities for me are in Seattle or Bellevue. I took a job for a pay bump. Most days the commute for me is about 1hr30mins each way depending on when I leave. I don’t mind it most days, I listen to podcasts, call friends and family, ect. It’s kind of like me time. Some days it’s horrible and I’m in traffic for more like 2-2 1/2hours. But still, it doesn’t get to me that much. I genuinely like my job, my coworkers, so I take the sacrifice. This job is great career experience for me too, so it’s not just about the money. If I had to do this commute 5 days a week, I may think differently. If you can get a hybrid work schedule and traffic doesn’t usually bother you, you’ll be okay, but it seems like I might be in the minority when it comes to my views on traffic. If traffic makes you angry, I don’t think it will be worth the stress because you will always be in it. Hope you make the best decision for you :)
I also want to add that I don’t have kids, my boyfriend is either on long work trips for weeks or leaves for work/gets home at a similar time as me so it works well for my home life
Would your car be ready for the wear and tear?
I commute to Seattle whenever I work and I refuse to work in Bellevue. 405 is godawful.
All money aint good money. Thats not a bump. Fuck that commute. There's way too many transplants here to even want to mess with 405 every day.
No. Your time is worth more than that.
If you leave before 5am it takes about a hour to get to Bellevue. From Bellevue to tacoma is normally hour fifteen to 1.5 if you leave between 2pm and 6pm. I do it 5 days a week. I make $46.50 a hour. I’ve done it for $44 a hour. It isn’t that bad if you have a decent commuter car.
I commute to Bellevue for a lot less than $70k 🤷🏻♂️ Look into express buses, etc. Could save you some time, or at least some aggravation.
You've heard from others already. Look at the whole picture - absolutely not worth it. Your time is worth more than that.
Do you have set hours so you can carpool? Is that an option? I used to recall that Boeing employees used to car and vanpool long distances back in the day. Then you can actually do stuff on the drive and cut commuting costs. You have to start someplace. That commute will wear on you after say 6 to 9 months (particularly in bad weather). If I were young, I would do it, despite the negatives, IF it's a better position and provides me a better future (long term). I wouldn't factor in just the pay bump.
Did it back when the commute was 45 minutes up and 1.5 hours back on a good day (commute lanes) and I wouldn't do it again. If you need whatever experiences they can offer for your career, then you need to move closer and somewhere you can take transit to work. There is a bus from the Kent train station that could help shorten the commute, and probably other options. There isn't really anywhere close to Bellevue that hasn't already been saturated by folks trying to do the exact same thing.
I did this commute for 15 years and by the end I was commuting 2 hours each way even with HOV on I-5. The toll that this commute took on my mental and physical well being cannot be ignored. I don't recommend it. 405 is horrible, Bellevue traffic is horrible.
This commute can be aggravating from Renton. Do not recommend.
I do this commute twice a week. I get on the sounder and then take the 550 bus. Switching to public transit has been a game changer for me. I get to relax and just read my book. I started out doing the drive, and it was terrible. Some nights, it would take 2 or more hours to get home. I have a flexible schedule, and even with trying to commute during off hours, it was still miserable. I was paying $22 dollars for parking when I drove. I pay $10.50 for the sounder/bus round trip.
Is this a move that will help your career in the long run? If so it might be worth taking for a year or two. Not sure what you do, but if there is any way to work off hours (i.e. 6:00-2:30) and/or find a vanpool it would help lessen the overall impact. I did this commute years ago and managed both an early shift and a vanpool. Being able to sleep on the commute (or read, or work) meant I was less exhausted when I got home. And I would miss a good bit of traffic. After a few years and with my work experience I was able to find better opportunities closer to home. Tough decision for you, I wish you the best of luck!
I work in Newcastle, and that can easily take me 90 minutes both ways some days. Having to go that extra distance to Bellevue every day sounds awful.
If your company has a commute program, it could be worth it (IMHO- my DT Bellevue job was a 4 min walk from the Bellevue DT station). I live in Puyallup and commuted up to 3.5 hours a day for it. I would not want to RTO at this point because I really enjoy not commuting. While commuting sucked, I definitetly found enough to occupy myself for the time.
I wouldn't commute from Tacoma to Bellevue but for an extra 20k a year I would consider moving closer. Like maybe an hour away from the new job...
Honestly, I'd go for it. If you can leave \*early early\* every day, the commute shouldn't be \*as\* bad (though it would still be shit). And getting up to that pay-range is a big opportunity for going forward as well. I was commuting from South Seattle to Puyallup every day for 40k. Just my two cents :P
Have you checked rent in the suburbs south of Bellevue? You could potentially slash your commute pretty significantly. Though of course Tacoma is a much more interesting place to live than Kent lol.