Living Car Free - Switching jobs to enable a car lite/carfree lifestyle

I think the title says it all. Have any of you switched jobs to make your current lifestyle more viable? The reason I ask is the current employment I have is 20 miles away, and my schedule is not conducive to being able to spend quality time with my family. The only reason I haven't left is the current economic climate as of late, and my employment is fairly secure since it's in the pharmaceutical industry. Would it be an irresponsible decision to find other employment? My life and all of my interests are here in town, with the exception of my job. Let me know what you think.

It is a personal choice. I know plenty of people who have made job choices to fulfill dreams and have been very happy, I know some others that are still chasing their dreams and are unhappy doing so. Only you can weigh your options and make the choice.

FWIW I have a good job, decent pay, been with the company about 12-13 years. The worst part about the job is having to spend a massive amount of time behind the wheel. No way my job would ever become car free/light. But it is a choice that I am living with for now. Especially in the current economic climate.

Aaron :)

In decades of bicycle commuting I have never switched jobs to facilitate bicycle commuting.

But it is only one of many factors to consider. The biggest one being, is there an equally satisfying job closer to you. Or can you move to make your current job a better commute? Or do you accept both and use a car or motorcycle to speed the commute? There are too many factors to weigh for us to decide at a distance. For a daily bicycle commute, I try to keep the mileage at between 5-10 miles. Over 15 gets tedious.

As wahoonc says, "Only you can weigh your options and make the choice."

I'm thinking about getting a job closer to home so I can change my bike-train commute into bike-only. It'd save me 35 euros (about 45 dollars) a month in fares and quite a bit of time.

I have tried to commute the full distance on the bike, which honestly isn't that difficult, its just with my schedule and the lack of knowing what time I'll be getting off thats the problem. I wake up at 6am to take my daughter to preschool, then have to leave at 1030am to make it at 1230(ride takes me about 75 Minutes but I need time for cool down/changing clothes). By the time I get off(which is often 10 pm or later), I'm worn out and still have a 75-90 minute ride home in the dark. My job is far from intellectually engaging, so at this point I'd take anything else. We've lived closer to work before, but It's not in the best area, and we moved to a college town so my wife could attend school. I've thought of taking a small pay cut and just working at a LBS on saturdays or something to make up the difference. With this and cutting out insurance and fuel costs we wouldn't even notice financially.

Auto insurance right? If you do the math and it works out for you, I don't see anything wrong with lining up a new job closer to home to save on commute costs and get some exercise in the mix.
My husband changed jobs in 2010 and part of the reason was the commute. We investigated the employers by finding people who had worked for them or were currently working for them and asking them what they thought of the company. 2 places were written off due to multiple ex-employees/contracts that warned us off. We knew 1 person and spoke to two others that worked for the company he applied for that had worked there for 1 year contracts. They spoke of good and bad things, but good about the more important things. He's been very happy with the new job, it turned out rather well. But my advice, in this economic climate, investigate potential employers to make sure you know what you're getting into. I don't know where you are, but where I am you can dismiss a new employee for the first 3 months without cause. So we really needed to make sure it was a good fit first.

It's great to look for a job when you already have one. You can call the shots in the interview/negotiation stage, since you're not the least bit desperate for the job. I guess I would start networking in my home town, and get to know the people who make hiring decisions at Rotary, Kiwanis and similar groups, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

What Roody says. It sounds like this job is not so plum that it's worth hanging onto tightly. So, why not have a look and see what you find. I did do that once, working as a shipping clerk for a lamp factory, I found a job making pizza's closer by and transferred over. Turned out to be a much better job. But I didn't do it for the shorter commute.

I have turned down jobs that were a longer commute however. At about the same time as I went from lamps to pizzas, I did get an offer from the Gitane bicycle factory for a job building wheels. That was very tempting, but it was a much longer ride for the same pay.

Well, I had to switch, ( laid off ) but got a job at a closer place that actively encourages being car-free and all things sustainable in general.

The pay is quite a bit less, but the commute is so much better, the fringe benefits and accommodations make life so much nicer, that even if the old place offered me the old job back at higher salary, i wouldn't take it.

I have just a tad bit of an update. We finally decided that it would be easier just to move and get closer to work that way. Finding another job where we were just wasnt panning out, and we had been considering buying a house anyway, so we just pulled the trigger. Now my commute to work is anywhere from 10-16 miles rt depending on what route I take. I also just sold my personal vehicle, which was a big step, but I can say I've been much happier.

I have just a tad bit of an update. We finally decided that it would be easier just to move and get closer to work that way. Finding another job where we were just wasnt panning out, and we had been considering buying a house anyway, so we just pulled the trigger. Now my commute to work is anywhere from 10-16 miles rt depending on what route I take. I also just sold my personal vehicle, which was a big step, but I can say I've been much happier.

Thanks for the update. It's always interesting to see the decisions that people made. You again show us that flexibility and good planning skills seem to be common to many carfree people.

I wish I could. Haven't gone back to commuting since a major accident last summer, mostly due to my wife's wishes.

I would do almost anything to go back to bike commuting.