1 Hour Commute Experience
I'm certain that a lot of people are going to tell me not to do this. I'm hoping though to get the input of people who actually HAVE done this for full time and what their experiences were like. I don't think this is something I will do the entire time I'm an analyst, but I was hoping to save some cash for at least a half of a year before transitioning to living with a roommate in a 2br (especially with the rebound in rent and potential jump again in covid cases). I'm from NYC so I wouldn't have to pay any rent with the 50-60 min commute by train. If you've done this, please let me know how it went for you!
Rent is free. When you wake up from your train nap it’s time to return to the office.
Not NYC but another North American finance city.
I strongly recommend you not to do it. It sucks. I get in pretty early and nothing blows more than having to get ready at the crack of Dawn and maybe get a couple minutes of shitty sleep on the train. God forbid you miss your stop cause you slept through it. the commute home honestly isn’t that bad, but it eats into your sleep time. When you’re home, you want to get something to eat, wash up, etc and you’ve killed a good hour or so of sleep.
I dont think you need to be particularly intelligent to be a banker but you need to be sharp. Do this routine four times over and by Friday you’re pretty dead on your feet.
i think another huge aspect is your social life is going to take a hit. You’re going to be dead tired on Friday’s, thus but thé motivation to get blasted diminishes substantially. During the week, I’m not gonna go home and do that commute again to the bars. If you have a nice scene where you live, you’re chilling but otherwise I would highly reccommend you consider that.
also - say your team has last minute plans to go get drinks after a deal launches, like random text at 8pm for 9pm drinks. It’s a logistical challenge to either get to the city in time, or like find your way home in a non sketchy way that doesn’t cost a ridiculous Uber.
I hadn't considered the last minute get-back-to-the-area things. Thanks for bringing that up! I wish hybrid was still a thing so that I could say I'd just go home at 9 PM consistently and not worry too much about being in the office late. I'm worried though about how my firm would perceive that from a 1st year analyst....
I did it for a short period of time and it is NOT worth the potential savings. Do you know how helpful 1-2 hours of sleep is? You will also naturally become a social outcast if your team goes out for drinks or dinner or something and you don’t. Bad idea. Heed this advice.
Did the reverse commute this summer and wasted so much time on the train. Do not recommend.
This is somewhat difficult to do even with a 9-5. Do not attempt this in banking, you will go insane. You make nearly $200k. Be aware that trains out of the city usually run 1 time an hour late at night so you could be hanging out at Penn/GC for a very long time. And most Uber drivers won't take you that far out of Manhattan in the middle of the night, so you can't even count on that.
Actually useful advice: Find some other cheap IB dudes and flex a 3 bedroom into a 4 to save some cash.
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Never done it -- but why wouldn't you cab it back home? Can that 50-60 minute be cut to 30-40 minutes?
I do know people who have commuted 20-30 minutes plus on 90 hour work weeks for their duration and were fine.
I say, as long as you know the tradeoff, I think if you can save an extra 10K, might as well do it now.
When your 21 your body can literally go through anything. During my stint in IB, your body literally adjusts to the lifestyle.
That being said, finance is a long game, once you do 2 years of IB, you'll have the chance for most exit opps. It may be worth it do invest in living closer for that 6 months for future payoff. Your bonus is likely going to be huge, I don't think an extra 10K will matter in the end.
Again, short-term thinking vs long-term career.
It would be a 50-60 minute commute in the morning. I would always be able to take an Uber back home for free. I'm used to 1hr+ commutes since that's what I've done my whole life for both school and internships, but I guess I was more concerned about the toll it would have on my long-term health, even if short-term I don't "feel" it, you know? But your input helps!! Thank you.
No one really knows what the toll will be on your health TBH - It's banking after all.
Good luck, there's sound advice in this thread!
I’m in real estate with shorter hours and it sucks. Even if it’s covered it’s still an hour each way of your time. Leave at 8,9,10pm or later tired af and you still have an hour then you get home and have to do what you need to there.
It takes a toll on everything.
Like anything in life, you can get used to it. I would suggest you do it for the next 6 months and see how you can handle it. If it is something you can handle, great you will save a ton. If not, just get an apartment in the city, there are a million of them.
Did you do this? How did you cope with the problems people mentioned above (namely, getting back to the office quickly when called)?
It’s a new day man and working from home is a thing. Mention to your Md your long commute and that when they ping you late it makes sense to log in from home. Of course, if you have a jerk md all bets are off.
You'll likely have other analysts to cover for you as well (hopefully)
I would discourage this. It’s one thing to do this in a very flexible work environment or where many people commute in, it’s another to be the “odd person out”.
Others have mentioned the main concerns but I’ll reiterate some:
1) you are just starting your career, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and unfortunately those can stick with you for a while. You need to match the “rhythm” of your team. So if you are the person having to take off early or miss events it will be noticed.
2) stress: you will want to head home at a decent hour and you’ll need to tradeoff going to events or working late vs getting home and catching that train (or uber and being “offline” for an hour). It’s unneeded stress at this point in your life.
3) last minute events or work; you’ll never make these
4) health: you have 24 hours in a day. Along with the other tradeoffs mentioned you’ll probably sacrifice your health as well. Those 2 hours commuting can be spent in the gym (even if just 30 mins). There just isn’t enough time in a day to “waste” two hours.
Again, it’s the beginning of your career, a lot about life will be new and difficult (paying bills, figuring out how to manage time with a heavy workload, making new friends) make this part of your life easier, why work so hard to get to this point to only handicap yourself once you’ve finally broken in? Seems like a bad tradeoff (you spent all this time not making money and working so hard to get here, now you want to make it harder once you have the opportunity to crush this career path?).
Lived in the city prior to starting full-time and I am just about to move into my apartment in December. First things first what are you saving for? is it to pay off debt, general investing, or something else? Regardless I can tell you that half a year isn't really going to do you again good because even if you are saving 2k on rent each month, you have to factor in things like food, social life, other basic items you have to buy for yourself now that you're an adult. Of course, the benefit of saving could mean not worrying about furniture but the reality is you'll still most likely have to dig into those savings you built up when it's time to move.
I will say during the past few months that I've commuted to work, I felt like I was wasting a lot of time doing an hour or more. Not to mention that the MTA can be unpredictable sometimes, which has made me do Zoom meetings walking to work. My VPs and MD have been chill about it, but I can tell you it's very hard to contribute to a meeting when you're navigating foot traffic.
If you don't care about your time and especially social life out of work by all means save and stay home for a bit. I know a few guys and gals who are frugal and did a whole year living at home. If you are even 1% unsure about how you want your time to play out I truly believe you should try to grab a place asap. You'll thank yourself in the long run because you would've been saving yourself about 10 hours+ (if you go to the office on a weekend) every week. That's 10 hours for things you like to do outside of work that you wouldn't have had otherwise!
In summary, I've found it unworth it as most of my savings will be going to furnish the new apartment and all I got for it was missing out on events I could've otherwise gone to had I gotten an apartment earlier. Hope this helps a bit!
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