Noisecanceller

F that noise

Sputnik

Trip mix varies month to month, but inside 15% will usually get you turns. Inside 10 to avoid weekends.

Im splitting hairs, your overall point that it requires seniority is correct.


However I would respectfully dispute the difficulty of dropping drops and picking up "easy" OT. I started doing it around 30% and had zero difficulty. Wish I'd started earlier. I see folks far junior do it with better results so it sure ain't that I'm the smartest guy in the room.

Love/hate commuting/day turns--something for everyone. Part of what makes this such a great job. I sucked at commuting so moving was a no brainer. Base has more options, I like options. Half the airline (Air Line) commutes, that's a lot of evidence it works

To the OP, the financial options this career provides are fantastic. I don't have to make decisions based primarily on lowest cost. That is a huge change from the reality of my life before. If it is financially doable to move to base, don't let the mortgage rate be THE deciding factor. Many people don't have the financial means to even consider what you are suggesting, we do. Good luck

sailingfun

Keep in mind the biggest single factor that governs trip mix is work rules. If you have very strong work rules credit time almost always forces longer trips. It's very difficult to pull long legs out of the flight segments to build turns without driving up credit on the longer trips and reducing overall trip value. I once worked with other pilots to show the company a better bid package could be produced. One of the goals was to create more turns and two day trips. One we pulled long legs for turns it became impossible to build the rest of the bid package without a substantial increase in credit. The flight attendants have lots of turns. They also have lots of 3 day trips worth 14:30 ect... If they had our work rules a lot of the turns would go away.
One last consideration. Prior to the last merger 5 day trips were considered to long domestically with regard to QOL. Post merger the company agreed to limit trips to 4 days. This produced a huge number of pilot complaints to bring back the 5 day trips. The company said fine, it helps with credit. Be careful what you ask for!

hopp

I think you meant to write "within your means", didn't you?

Second gen retired major captain. So here is my advice; Don't follow the crowd.

My dad lived right on the edge of his budget and took on plenty of debt. He went through a furlough and an involuntary base transfer. It was hard on the whole family because of the financial stress. He had lost his " captain castle" which I helped build in 1969. He died after 22 years of retirement with a near zero personal balance sheet, and owing money, including the IRS. Life can throw unexpected curves.

I learned from his mistakes. I'm retired now and still living in my dream "FO" home. Children really don't dream or care about living in a mansion, or owning a big boat. They care about stability in the family, and good experiences. That is more doable while living well within your means.

Invest in your family's emotional future. If you have kids, it is very likely they will need help at some point after they leave home. It's just the crappy state of our ever inflating economy and the fickleness of the job market. Be prepared for that.

Your legacy won't be positively affected because you own really nice " stuff", like houses, boats, cars. It will be about how generous you were with. your time and money.

SonicFlyer

Yes and no... To keep things simple one's primary residence should be considered a consumer item just like any other purchase. This is different from an actual investment property.

sailingfun

We can agree to disagree. Homes appreciate. Consumer items don't. Owning a home leverages a large amount of capital with a relatively small upfront cost. You have to pay to live somewhere unless you have a great tent and a luxury underpass. The appreciation in a home compounds. The post above talks about living in his FO home forever. That's great but given what the market has done the last 30 years that cost him dearly. I recently retired and sold my last house to build my dream old guys house. I used the equity to build my current house debt free and still put a nice chunk of money in the bank. Over my airline career it cost me zero to live in nice houses. 200k down on a 1 million dollar home produces a 20% return on that money if the home appreciates 4% a year. As the home value compounds that 20% return goes up and up! It's likely your payment would actually go down over time with refinancing. If you worst case choose to rent your payments are only going up over your career.

PilotJ3

Sure, till the market takes a dump on everyone. It’s coming, inventory is building up, people got greedy and now they can’t sell and buyers are in strike. I’m one of those, not paying 1+ mill for a house that’s not worth 300-400k. Not paying for 500k for a house that’s worse than my house built in 2013.

House correction is already started in TX and FL. Also as boomers starts to die and their kids can’t pay for HOAs/Taxes/Insurance, homes will seat vacant because not many people will be able to or willing to pay for those prices.

Millenials and Gen Z, don’t care about big houses, boats, planes…they just want to experience life differently than their parents. We are having less kids or no kids, a lot are in financial distress and have college debt. Most of them just want to travel or have more time off with their families.

Culture is changing and will be changing. All those benefits you got, not everyone will be able to experience.

sailingfun

The market will take several dumps over the course of a career. It always comes roaring back. I Know a bunch of guys who short sold during the giant dump in 08-09. They got crushed when the market came back and ended up priced out of the market. They were also paying far more in rent than my mortgage payments.
You keep trying to state that home ownership hurts quality of life. I would argue the opposite. It's the basis for a solid financial footing to allow all the things you state you value. We never lacked for vacations or quality of life enhancements. I get that some people want to put every dollar into savings and take zero risks. Most people I observed like that also spent almost no money on vacations or quality of life. I oftened wondered the reasons many of them were saving so much money. I assumed it was so they could afford the very best wheelchair down the road.

Released

Personally I think a couple more desirable bases would be more beneficial to the group as a whole. 50% of the air line commuting is absurd.

To OP, I'm not sure if you've made up your mind or not, but I hope some of these comments have been helpful. I was in your shoes two years ago and decided to continue commuting. The family being happy and safe around friends and our entire family while I'm gone at work means a lot to me. We bought a home in an incredible area before the price hikes as well and couldn't find anything remotely reasonable price-wise in bases we were considering. Our mortgage was only going to increase $1,000 so I can't even fathom increasing 3x like your situation. We're walking distance from 1st through 8th grade schools and 2 miles from the high school with lake access. We're only a few years in and already have made countless memories.

In my opinion, living in base is only a viable option in these situations if you choose to apply for other positions that pull you from the line and keep you home almost every night. Otherwise, I couldn't shake how selfish I was being with uprooting from a place we love just to be able to drive to work and still be gone half the month with my family alone and unhappy. A remedy to the situation has been bidding home layovers. If you can do this, you're essentially getting all the time lost due to commuting back and more.

Good luck with your decision and trust your gut. It's just a job and there's so much more to life to focus on and appreciate. Especially after 65 when this job is a distant memory and what's left is everything you've built and cherished along the way.

SonicFlyer

Not always. And especially not always more than standard equities market rates of return.

In other words, depending on your home for retirement funds is high risk.

Buying the least expensive home you can tolerate will free up a lot of exess wealth that, if invested properly in a diversified global equities portfolio, will absolutely out perform the home purchase in most cases most of the time.

However, it is indeed possible to get lucky by having one's home value increase at a faster rate over time than 'the stock market.' But that's rolling the dice. And same for investment properties... the real benefit is that you get someone else to invest the money for you, OPM.... but again... much higher risk.