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As a small business owner, I saved hundreds per month by not driving to work at all. I biked or walked. To enable this, I intentionally purchased a home within

As a small business owner, I saved hundreds per month by not driving to work at all. I biked or walked. To enable this, I intentionally purchased a home within walking or biking distance from the office and located the business is a town with a low enough cost of business to allow that.

duxup 7y ago
Man I dream about being able to bike to work. Maybe one day...
- subleq 7y ago
  What is preventing you now?
  - duxup 7y ago
    About 40+ miles ;) There is a place not far from me that i've seriously considered applying to that is VERY close. If only for that reason ;)
    - subleq 7y ago
      I meant in a 5 whys type of way. Why must you live 40 miles from work?
      - okmokmz 7y ago
        >Why must you live 40 miles from work? If you're in a major city it just isn't feasible to purchase a home within walking distance of your business. In the Seattle area, for example, house prices would be easily over a million for anything nearby
        nostrademons 7y ago
        In a 5-why's sense it's almost always feasible for you to purchase a home within walking distance of your business, it's just not feasible for everyone to purchase a home within walking distance of their workplace. Home prices are over a million dollars for anything nearby? Get a job that can support a million-dollar home - $1M requires an annual income of about $200K to be affordable, which is easily doable at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Boeing in the Seattle area. Can't get a job at one of those? Get a job at one of their smaller competitors, become a top contributor, get known in the field, and make some friends who work there. Lack the relevant skillset for that? Learn it - there's a wide open Internet searchable by Google and a lot of textbooks on Amazon where you can teach yourself the sort of theoretical CS that these companies desire. That's only 3 whys. You could also probably have substituted "rent an apartment" instead of "buy a house" and the number of employers that pay you enough to afford it would go up significantly. A lot of people don't want it that much, and that's fine - that's why not everybody does live within walking distance of their employer. But if you want something enough, there are paths you can take that open up the possibility, you just need to be prepared to sacrifice in other areas.
        okmokmz 7y ago
        This is a major oversimplification that is not at all feasible for most people. Sure, I could theoretically get an engineering position at Amazon, buy one of the highly desirable multimillion dollar properties within walking distance that sell before they're even on the market, sell my current house, move my family and possessions, and so on. How reasonable do you think that recommendation really is for most people? Also, this is talking about people running their own businesses, and I certainly don't run Amazon or have the funding to both open my own business anywhere near Seattle as well as purchase a house within walking distance. Sure, you can skew the entire scenario and say it's reasonable to work for a major company as an engineer rather than own your own company, rent an apartment rather than buy a house, and make any number of other changes but that isn't really what is being discussed
        nostrademons 7y ago
        If you run your own business you often have a much easier pathway to living close to work: move your business. Commercial real estate rents often fall off even faster than residential ones do as you move away from the city center, and the competition from other local businesses tends to thin out. If it's a desirable and affordable place for you to live, it's likely a desirable and affordable place for your customers to live, which makes it an ideal place to situate a local business. And being flexible with your lifestyle and assumptions so that you can get what you really want in life is exactly what is being discussed here.
      - duxup 7y ago
        I bought my house 10+ years ago, and changed jobs and careers since then. Moving is costly, in dollars, and in changes for my family. And then my wife would work 40+ miles from work...
  - bigwavedave 7y ago
    Commute distance, legality (biking from city to city on the interstate is a big no-no), inability to shower after a ride, weather (I'm looking at YOU, Scotland!), medical conditions, take your pick.
    - benj111 7y ago
      "interstate ... Scotland" Where are you based?!
- nostrademons 7y ago
  I used to do it most of the time during the summer, living 2 miles away from my workplace. (Now I work from home, so "going to work" means rolling out of bed and grabbing a laptop, modulo getting the kid ready for daycare.) I'd highly recommend it - aside from getting exercise & outdoor time, feeling refreshed each time you get into work, avoiding all the rush-hour traffic (in my area, getting over the Shoreline/101 bridge in a car could take as long as the entire bike ride in), and not needing to find parking, you also feel like you're doing something good for the environment, and my workplace had a program where they donated to charity every time you biked/walked/scootered/rollerbladed in. Like many other "nice to have" things, it's a matter of making it a priority. I'd had an hour commute when I worked in downtown Boston, and when I moved out to Silicon Valley, I told the realtor that was showing me around "No more than 15 minutes away from work." He was like "15 minutes? That means Mountain View, Palo Alto, or some parts of Sunnyvale. It'll cost you a lot." I said "I'm prepared to pay." Would be nice if cities were built in a way that not just a select few high-earners could walk or bike to work, though. Right now, every person that moves into bike commuting distance of the major employers tends to displace someone who needs to move further away (oftentimes much further away); only way to avoid that is with more density.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I work from home at least 2 days a week so there is that ;) I totally agree with your description about the opportunity to be close to work. It's sort of sad that those who are often struggling with other things, career, money, are also the folks who can't afford to save time by being close to work.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Your inability to do so is the result of infrastructure, zoning, and parking minimum rules your (and your predecessors') politicians put in place, unfortunately. Incidentally I built a site mapping homes for sale and rent over transit and bike routes (not roads) for Ireland, would it be useful for Scotland as well?
nostromo 7y ago
Yeah, but that home near your business could have been a paying customer. The article I just read would rather you buy a home far from your business. :)
okmokmz 7y ago
That would be nice. Unfortunately, in some areas such as Seattle where I'm currently located, you would have to live hours away from any major cities to find anywhere where you could open a business and purchase a house walking distance from your business without a million plus dollars
- davidw 7y ago
  That's a political choice that places make.
- markstos 7y ago
  In Richmond, Indiana it costs less than $100k to buy a building on Main Street downtown and about $55k to buy a house 1.5 miles away.
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    Yeah and how many dev jobs does that city of <40,000 have on Main Street?
quickthrower2 7y ago
A small (non-growth) business owner should really never need to drive to work. Before they start or buy the business, choose where they live and where the business is going to be carefully.

duxup 7y ago

Man I dream about being able to bike to work. Maybe one day...

subleq 7y ago
What is preventing you now?
- duxup 7y ago
  About 40+ miles ;) There is a place not far from me that i've seriously considered applying to that is VERY close. If only for that reason ;)
  - subleq 7y ago
    I meant in a 5 whys type of way. Why must you live 40 miles from work?
    - okmokmz 7y ago
      >Why must you live 40 miles from work? If you're in a major city it just isn't feasible to purchase a home within walking distance of your business. In the Seattle area, for example, house prices would be easily over a million for anything nearby
      - nostrademons 7y ago
        In a 5-why's sense it's almost always feasible for you to purchase a home within walking distance of your business, it's just not feasible for everyone to purchase a home within walking distance of their workplace. Home prices are over a million dollars for anything nearby? Get a job that can support a million-dollar home - $1M requires an annual income of about $200K to be affordable, which is easily doable at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Boeing in the Seattle area. Can't get a job at one of those? Get a job at one of their smaller competitors, become a top contributor, get known in the field, and make some friends who work there. Lack the relevant skillset for that? Learn it - there's a wide open Internet searchable by Google and a lot of textbooks on Amazon where you can teach yourself the sort of theoretical CS that these companies desire. That's only 3 whys. You could also probably have substituted "rent an apartment" instead of "buy a house" and the number of employers that pay you enough to afford it would go up significantly. A lot of people don't want it that much, and that's fine - that's why not everybody does live within walking distance of their employer. But if you want something enough, there are paths you can take that open up the possibility, you just need to be prepared to sacrifice in other areas.
        okmokmz 7y ago
        This is a major oversimplification that is not at all feasible for most people. Sure, I could theoretically get an engineering position at Amazon, buy one of the highly desirable multimillion dollar properties within walking distance that sell before they're even on the market, sell my current house, move my family and possessions, and so on. How reasonable do you think that recommendation really is for most people? Also, this is talking about people running their own businesses, and I certainly don't run Amazon or have the funding to both open my own business anywhere near Seattle as well as purchase a house within walking distance. Sure, you can skew the entire scenario and say it's reasonable to work for a major company as an engineer rather than own your own company, rent an apartment rather than buy a house, and make any number of other changes but that isn't really what is being discussed
        nostrademons 7y ago
        If you run your own business you often have a much easier pathway to living close to work: move your business. Commercial real estate rents often fall off even faster than residential ones do as you move away from the city center, and the competition from other local businesses tends to thin out. If it's a desirable and affordable place for you to live, it's likely a desirable and affordable place for your customers to live, which makes it an ideal place to situate a local business. And being flexible with your lifestyle and assumptions so that you can get what you really want in life is exactly what is being discussed here.
    - duxup 7y ago
      I bought my house 10+ years ago, and changed jobs and careers since then. Moving is costly, in dollars, and in changes for my family. And then my wife would work 40+ miles from work...
- bigwavedave 7y ago
  Commute distance, legality (biking from city to city on the interstate is a big no-no), inability to shower after a ride, weather (I'm looking at YOU, Scotland!), medical conditions, take your pick.
  - benj111 7y ago
    "interstate ... Scotland" Where are you based?!
nostrademons 7y ago
I used to do it most of the time during the summer, living 2 miles away from my workplace. (Now I work from home, so "going to work" means rolling out of bed and grabbing a laptop, modulo getting the kid ready for daycare.) I'd highly recommend it - aside from getting exercise & outdoor time, feeling refreshed each time you get into work, avoiding all the rush-hour traffic (in my area, getting over the Shoreline/101 bridge in a car could take as long as the entire bike ride in), and not needing to find parking, you also feel like you're doing something good for the environment, and my workplace had a program where they donated to charity every time you biked/walked/scootered/rollerbladed in. Like many other "nice to have" things, it's a matter of making it a priority. I'd had an hour commute when I worked in downtown Boston, and when I moved out to Silicon Valley, I told the realtor that was showing me around "No more than 15 minutes away from work." He was like "15 minutes? That means Mountain View, Palo Alto, or some parts of Sunnyvale. It'll cost you a lot." I said "I'm prepared to pay." Would be nice if cities were built in a way that not just a select few high-earners could walk or bike to work, though. Right now, every person that moves into bike commuting distance of the major employers tends to displace someone who needs to move further away (oftentimes much further away); only way to avoid that is with more density.
- duxup 7y ago
  I work from home at least 2 days a week so there is that ;) I totally agree with your description about the opportunity to be close to work. It's sort of sad that those who are often struggling with other things, career, money, are also the folks who can't afford to save time by being close to work.
CalRobert 7y ago
Your inability to do so is the result of infrastructure, zoning, and parking minimum rules your (and your predecessors') politicians put in place, unfortunately. Incidentally I built a site mapping homes for sale and rent over transit and bike routes (not roads) for Ireland, would it be useful for Scotland as well?

nostromo 7y ago

Yeah, but that home near your business could have been a paying customer. The article I just read would rather you buy a home far from your business. :)

okmokmz 7y ago

That would be nice. Unfortunately, in some areas such as Seattle where I'm currently located, you would have to live hours away from any major cities to find anywhere where you could open a business and purchase a house walking distance from your business without a million plus dollars

davidw 7y ago
That's a political choice that places make.
markstos 7y ago
In Richmond, Indiana it costs less than $100k to buy a building on Main Street downtown and about $55k to buy a house 1.5 miles away.
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  Yeah and how many dev jobs does that city of <40,000 have on Main Street?

quickthrower2 7y ago

A small (non-growth) business owner should really never need to drive to work. Before they start or buy the business, choose where they live and where the business is going to be carefully.