Option 1 is move close to work. Maybe I'm just lucky but our city as the cost of doing business downtown kept going up most of the larger companies built office buildings on the north side of the city outside the outerbelt. I've worked here since 2001 and had to drive 20 miles each way. Last year when we were looking at moving I found all these nice houses between 150k and 200k in all the nice suburbs and then found this house for 169 right across the street in a small subdivision. I did everything I could to get in the house across the street, went real easy on the inspection, paid all the closing costs nstead of asking them to, etc. So I now work .5 miles from work. If somehting happens I can work home, bicycle, etc. Even if I were to be laid off from my current job there are lot of other companies around this area so while I would have liked to have been further outisde of the city to have some more land I can;t compain about having everything I need within a mile radius.