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Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

I switched to working remote professionally 1 1/2 year ago and worked 1 1/2 year remote on private projects (Firefox committer, university projects) before that.

I make about 20% more money (before tax) than on my last job.

I save 1h every day on commuting, which I had to do on my last job.

I buy my food in my local store, which is much cheaper than buying food in the city.

I have my "own" office, without any people talking, getting sick, etc.

I probably could improve things a bit, by moving into a cheaper city, but overall I'd say, remote work has made my life much better.

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I moved to a cheaper city. I miss the big city. Going to in fact move back, even though I am remote.

The ?? $1k I saved per month is not worth all the good stuff I lost from the city (but it depends what you value)

Sure, but there are many big citys with varying rent prices.

For example, Berlin is much cheaper than Munich.

I'd never move to the coutryside again. I'm just no small-town guy.

I moved from Chicago (One of the cheaper "big cities" that actually has jobs), to a medium sized city (population: 250k).

I got almost double the house size, and 1/2 of grass to call my own... but now I can't walk anywhere, and life is too short to spend it on a mower. Plus I now spend a ton to take care of my house/yard, and I need a car, etc. etc.

Big city life is the way to go ;)

I've been working remotely for 7 years now. Do you ever miss contact with other people? Fun in the office, interesting conversations, etc.

Hm, no.

I'm living with a friend who also works from home, so I get a bit "kitchen-talk" every day with him.

Also, one of my girlfrieds is working shifts, so this gives me the opportunity to work from her place, when she works late, so we can still see us and talk a bit. The other one works near her flat, so when I work from there, we can go to lunch together.

"one of my girlfrieds"

How many girlfriends do you have? ;)

All of them :P

Two at the moment and I don't know how I could do it, if I had to be in office 40h a week.

Are either of the relationships long distance?

No.

Both of them live 20-bike-minutes away from me.

Ive been working remotely for almost the same time as you. I do miss some of the interactions but I've replaced them with connecting with other tech folk through social media and going to local meetups. Almost as good.

There is one thing we did not mention, and I'll likely blog on it later this year: being remote does not mean (for us) working at home or even working completely "alone".

For instance, I work in a co-working space where other co-workers are either remote or freelance. I chose a co-working space that is not IT-specific, which is even better. So I have sort of colleagues there, we discuss about many things, sometimes about our respective jobs/works, but most of the time about life in general.

Yes.

I work 70% of my time at home and 30% where I just happened to be :)

But I got the best equipment (table, PC, chair) at home, so I prefer to work from there.

I'd see this as more valuable, for me personally.

Yes, Web-technology is my passion. So I do it even in my free-time.

Building app stacks, games, trying out new things, talking to people about it :)

I force myself to attend as many meetups as possible. I find it beneficial to just attend and even if you have no interest in the talk, it's nice being around other people who potentially are

I tried that, but it's hard, I'm not a very social person and the meetups I attended here were not very interesting...

I like to go on hikes with outdoors-oriented Meetup groups. I like hiking anyway, and I frequently find someone to have an interesting conversation with. If I don't, no problem, it's still fun to do the hike anyway even if I don't talk to anyone.

To expand on this a bit, I also find these Meetup hikes great for learning about trails in my area I otherwise probably wouldn't know about, so I can go back to them on my own later or with a friend or date. Also there's a lot of singles in some of these hiking groups so it can be a good way of finding new dates.

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