The job that pays vs. the job that stays

Yes. Now I'm going to read the extended question to see if my answer changes. It did! Make that hell, yes. 1. You will be shocked how much time you save by not commuting. You can use that time at a second job, doing independent work, networking to build your career, working out, or whatever other things are missing from your life right now. 2. You will save money by not commuting. 3. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Temp work is a sickness in the business world right now - companies are hooked like heroin. "Might" find you something? If they want you, they'll make an offer when you give notice. If not, they probably wouldn't have anything to offer when your contract ended, either. 4. The new job is a career trajectory. The old job is not.

Best option: Get a start date in January. Finish out the month in the temp job first if the new job will hold. This would be the best option, but if not, oh man OBVIOUSLY quit your temp job! You'll be choosing THREE WEEKS' pay at one job over a permanent job! That would be a bad choice even if the new job WEREN'T better in literally every way except for pay. Your question is "in three weeks' time, should I choose to have a job or no job?" What kind of a question is that?

Take the new job. Best option: Get a start date in January. Finish out the month in the temp job first if the new job will hold. But take the new job.

When I clicked on this thread, I assumed "VERY temporary" meant something like a year. With that timeframe, you have an interesting question. With less than a month? There's no way I would consider staying with a temp agency expecting to find a better job. Job searches these days can easily take half a year. The hint should be in the name - "temp agencies" do not provide reliable permanent work. If they did, they would not be temp agencies.

Thanks everyone. Guess I needed some reassurance; the SO was a bit worried about the financial hit because we really like to travel and save a lot of money to do so. I pointed out that I need to have a job that will allow me to travel, otherwise any money saved is just sitting in the bank. One thing you might want to do is to hit up the place you're working for now for freelance assignements you can do at home. They'll pay a shit-ton, and you can do them when you're not working at your awesome new permanant job. This is essentially what I did today! I walked in to temp job, laid my cards on the table, and the manager asked if I wanted to work remotely until the end of my contract. I can do that and start the new job. I should have done it before I asked here, but your responses certainly gave me enough backbone to go in and do it. ;)

Three weeks of work with an insane commute vs. a permanent job (that sounds pretty awesome to me)? Are you seriously even considering staying at the temp job? Dude. This should not even be a question.

It sounds to me like your quality of life will be greatly improved by taking the permanent job. Especially if you can look for a second job or later transition into a higher paying job through this new industry and connections, this sounds like a winner move to me.

Just want to chime in that money isn't everything, especially when you don't have the time to enjoy using it. Besides, as others have mentioned, your current job is only guaranteed to give you another 3 weeks, so you'd be needing to have something lined up anyway. I'm a bit mystified why you're asking the question in light of that.

Commuting has a lot of hidden costs, including coffees/breakfasts and lunch purchased out, simply because you don't have time to plan and prepare and do those things at home. I don't know if that describes you - maybe you never eat lunch out - but when I had a 2-hr/day commute, I often blew off prepping lunch (too tired, not enough time, rushing and forgot my lunch bag), which cost me maybe $60 a week in going out for lunch and other snacks. I got coffee on the run (maybe $10/12 week?) instead of at home, because of rushing out the door. And then when I got home, my partner (who also had a long commute) and I ate out maybe 3 nights a week because we were too tired to cook, hadn't had time to stock the fridge with a good shopping trip, and just wanted a fast hot meal. So, minimum, $120/week between us getting dinner out. I don't know if these are your habits. But when you stop giving away 4 hours of your day for nothing (try averaging your salary over that to get a true cost per hour), you can invest time int he things that reduce your cash cost. Make coffee and breakfast every day at home. Keep the larder full so you don't eat out just because you have no better ideas. Plan a menu in advance so you know what you're eating each night instead of going out. For me, these were the big costs of commuting - not the time, not the train fare or gas, but the knock-on effects of having just 2-3 waking hours at home each day, which left no opportunity to plan, prepare, and use our income in smart ways. If you do that, you might find you really don't even notice a big difference in your income level, because you lose less of your take-home to lazy, exhausted, impulse spending.