Move out and live close to school or live at home and make commute.

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  1. What should I do

    • 13
      Stay home and commute
    • 3
      Move closer to school

16 members have participated

Hello everyone, I am hoping someone can give me some input on what I should do. I currently live with my mom which is 45 minutes (no traffic) away from school. Right now I am only on campus 2 days a week so the drive back and forth has not been so bad. However, starting the 28th of September, my credit hours go up to 16 and ill be taking pharm. and fundamentals. This means I will need to be at the school 4 days a week, and my clinical site (which is about an hour and 15 minutes from home) 1 time a week. All together this is at the very least 10 hours of commute each week. I have found an apartment that is 3 minutes aways from the school, and 30 minutes from my clinical site. I don't know what to do, I will be taking out another loan to help with rent, and I also have money saved up, and plan on working 1 day a week. I don't know what to do, do I move out and be closer to school, or make the commute and save money. I would suck it up and make the commute but I'm just scared I'm going to get worn out after a while with all the driving. Another thing to take in consideration is I will need to be at clinical at 6:45 am, and 2 days of the week at school by 7:45 am.

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Specializes in ED.

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. I currently live at home, which is about 45 min away from campus, and my last clinical site was over an hour commute. This will be the third year I have made this commute, there are days when I really dread it, but overall its not that bad. And despite the long commute and cost of gas, I save a huge amount of money by choosing to live at home.

My advice is to stay at home. Your future self will thank you for not taking out more loans.

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Are you paying your mother rent, or are you living there (and eating, doing laundry, watching TV, etc.) for free? Are you sure you will actually be saving money by paying rent on an apartment closer to school? That seems unlikely to me, unless you're paying your mother a significant amount of rent now. How well do you and your mother get along? Would you have a roommate in the apartment to share the expenses?

If I were in school again, I'd be doing whatever I had to do to avoid taking out any more in loans than absolutely necessary.

Best wishes!

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I would only make the move if a roommate was involved to split the costs. However, I noticed that my classmates who lived in apartments close to school seemed to have environments, both in and out of their apartments, that were not conducive to effective study. If it were me, I would stay at home. There are worse commutes.

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@motomonkeyThanks for your input, I know the best financial decision would be to stay home, I'm just scared I'm gonna get drained from the drive ( I hate driving lol)

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Moving out is expensive, but you might be able to rent a room in a house or apartment. That could be cheaper! Have you looked around to see what the housing costs might be?

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@elkpark

Thus far, yes I pay equally with my mom as far as expenses for the home, and I do my part with laundry, grocery etc. I will be saving money staying home for sure, but I'm not sure if its worth the stress of living far from school. And yes my mom and I get along great, but it would also be nice to have my own space.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Driving is a really good time to decompress and process. I have ALWAYS lived some distance from all of my clinical jobs. It helped me leave work at work and home at home.

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@motomonkeyThanks for your input, I know the best financial decision would be to stay home, I'm just scared I'm gonna get drained from the drive ( I hate driving lol)

Well try it out and see how it goes. If it becomes too much, move.

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Driving is a really good time to decompress and process. I have ALWAYS lived some distance from all of my clinical jobs. It helped me leave work at work and home at home.

ITA. And, also, while I haven't done it, I've had classmates who recorded lectures and then listened to them in again the car, so as to use the driving time productively.

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If you get along with your mother I would definitely suggest staying at home. Trust me, if you aren't careful those student loan payments will grow very fast if you aren't careful. If you haven't already, to get some perspective, setup a meeting with financial aid to review what your loan payments would be based on the loans you have taken out as of right now.

Trust me, I know how much you want to get your own place. I moved away from my parents when I was just 20. It can feel great until the bills start to roll in and you realize how much money is saved living with family. Your future self will thank you.

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That commute doesn't sound too bad actually, I've always had a 30-60 minute commute and you get used to it pretty quickly (unless you are dealing with crazy traffic). One thought...Perhaps you could compromise and get a hotel room on nights before clinical, so you don't have to stress out so much on those days? You are likely to be up late doing prep work and that combined with a long commute might make clinical more difficult. Priceline has some very good deals, and even getting a room 4 times a month would be cheaper than paying for rent.

More importantly though, how is your situation at home? Can you study undisturbed? Are relations okay with your family? What does your debt/student loan situation look like? Is your car reliable, or will you need to worry about added wear and tear from commuting? How much is rent? Lots of factors to consider here, would be helpful to give more detail.

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