The house hunting story.

Like a best friend, math can provide an enlightening advice anywhere in our daily routine. For example, just recently it has helped us pinpoint the optimal home location.

For over a year we have been trying to find the hidden gem, looking across ten different suburbs with one child in a car seat and another in my belly. Every weekend started optimistically with googling out the best route through that weekend's Open Houses. But toward the end of Sunday our mood shifted from the excitement of expectations to disappointment and exhaustion. Shall we buy close to my husband's work, my work, our son's daycare, in the middle? A trendy downtown loft or a cozy suburban house? We looked everywhere, getting more confused with each new neighborhood we discover. Then one day, while waiting in-between Open Houses with my son napping in his car seat, it struck me that I can narrow down the desired location just by doing some math.

Location, Location, Location. Optimal Home Location. Commute was a killer of our family time: two hours per day combined for all. Where should we live in order to minimize our combined family commute? What is our Optimal Home Location? With my son asleep in the back, I drew a sketch of the daily commutes to work and daycare for everyone in the family. Then, denoting our optimal home location with (x, y) unknowns, I created a set of equations and realized that for us, a combined commute minimum is reached when the house is closer to the daycare. Interestingly, this was not at all the center of a triangle in-between all the points we commute to, as I initially assumed. This made sense - we drove to the day care twice a day and to the offices once.

Rescued by math suggestion and narrowing down our search space to five mile radius around the day care, we quickly compromised on a house that soon became a home of our dreams. We saved time and money, and improved our well-being. As a bonus, kids are thrilled to have friends close-by. No wonder scientific studies directly link commute length to happiness. One study even shockingly claims that people commuting to work 1 hour each way should earn 40% more in salary to be as satisfied with their lives as non-commuters. Generalizing my computation for every family, I created a free Family Relocation Tool: Optimal Home Location Tool.
Enter your commute pattern and see how you can save your traffic frustration, gain more family time, lower your carbon footprint and improve your well-being. This may be a good example of math saving humanity.