Pack in the job, rent out the house, get in the camper van, fuck off

Any chance of severance or redundancy at your institution? As so many of them are offering deals DH just got almost a years salary tax free from his, he has only retired a year earlier than we had planned. We have six friends now that have taken severance in the last couple of years.

Someone wrote campervan or motorhome, it’s actually a Motorhome for us. It’s going to cost roughly what we paid for our house 26 years ago.

The biggest regret of your life won’t be what you did, It’ll be what you didn’t do

That's a cliche and doesn't always hold true. Some things that people do turn out to be disastrous. It's implying regrets for things you choose to do never happen.

what you didn't do here could be not saving or earning enough to be comfortable in older age.

Horses for courses. If I were the OP I'd consult a good IFA and ask for advice on long term financial planning.

Yes a bit of supply teaching and whatever @GotTheBug can get?

You could save up and have a lovely pension and get bone cancer like he did.

If I hadn't taken any risks in my life, I wouldn't have lived in other countries on my own, learnt new languages and experienced new cultures. I wouldn't have had children either. I would have stayed in the UK and granted, I would have had a stable career, probably, but who knows.

The only certainty we have is now.

The biggest regret of your life won’t be what you did, It’ll be what you didn’t do

The crux of this is - would you be very unhappy never to do this?

Is it such a burning ambition that you're prepared to take the risks of financial and employment hit and lack of savings in old age?

You can mitigate some financial fall-out but not necessarily all.

I'm not a risk taker as you can see from my posts.

The risk is that not only are you possibly going to plunder your savings, but you will be losing around (estimated guess here) £60K a year at least of joint gross income.

As PPs have said, you need to do the sums very carefully.
The actual profit from renting out your home- if your mortgage allows it.
Your pensions that you can access later.
The equity in your house when you downsize, accounting for the legal fees, tax and ES fees. I assume you've had a recent valuation of your house.

Your bottom-line annual net income needed to give you a reasonable standard of living into old age. Based on life expectancy of 85-ish.

I have lots of friends and family that do this.
All live in very touristy places and so vacate during the summer and rent out their houses.l to holiday makers. They use a local lady to manage their properties while gone.

If it's doable I would. Life is for living and it'll give some awesome memories.

Just not sure about the landlord thing. .might be hard to navigate emergency stuff if you're on the move. Maybe get some sort of agency in. I don't know much about it.

I think it's a great idea and there's plenty of advice out there from people who have done similar. It would be better if you knew someone personally to rent your house to, someone you trust - maybe lower rent but no agency fees and less worry. Or sell, downsize and get a lock up & leave place plus storage.
Consider asking for a sabbatical e.g two terms for your DH could add up to about 8 months if you head off at the start of summer hols and come back after Easter.
You may be able to work as you travel either as a digital nomad or picking up occasional jobs. Look into the 'woof' scheme too. Also house sitting abroad for a while, park up and have the benefit of four walls and facilities.
BTW, if you haven't got a driveaway awning for your campervan, I'd get one - extra space.

Also... possibly pick up work whilst on travels.

Fellow teacher here.

Do it.

You are a long time dead.

I'm like this too, 'oh another beautiful beach' or yet another amazing mediaeval village. We became a bit bored but this might be because we had busy and very fulfilling jobs so didn't need to 'escape' as such. I would say to keep moving and experience different cultures in the time (but, obviously the more you move, the more expensive it gets). It sounds like this will mostly be a Europe/Uk planned trip?

I think you will find thats the feelings of the majority of people who currently work in education,

Or take a look at the state the UK is in and never come back

Or they find something that they both find fulfilling and never come back

Im not sure why you want to take offence at this point. It’s clear in the context of the post he’s unfulfilled because as it says he has itchy feet and wants to take a year out to do some travelling. Then after that he can come back refreshed, he’s considering dealing with this unfulfilled/itchy feet feeling by taking a year out. No children are harmed in the making of this person having a break and living their own life.

*MonsterasRock

Given the rental income is going to cover the mortgage and expenses then the savings shouldn’t really be dipped into that much

Renting for a year is something a lot of people want. They maybe between houses or have bought and need a home whilst the place they have bought gets renovated/built
Not everyone looking to rent is looking for a forever rental home.

Also it would state on the advert that the rental would be for a finite length of time so no one who wants to rent for more time would go for it

I also agree that once in your 50s there does seem a stigma about employing “older “ people

Being a teacher though I think there is tutoring and other self employed work that can be picked up

Sometimes you have to go for something risky because it leads to so many other experiences and opportunities

Friend after her 3rd marriage broke down and feeling very depressed she suddenly realised that she had no ties keeping her in the UK

She sold everything she could, bought a caravan and packed young teenage children in the car and drove to Dover. They drobe around Europe for a while then arrived in a new area. She said the first day there she suddenly felt at peace like this was where she was supposed to be.

10 days later she had applied for residency, children were in the local school and they had moved into an apartment and she had found a job after a chance meeting in a cafe

She is so much happier and healthier and looks 15 years younger

Dc have careers that they wouldn’t have ever thought of doing if they had remained in the UK

Well, I’d argue that unfulfilled isn’t the same as not liking, but I see where you’re coming from.

Work out the costs of renting your house out (and not getting it back without prolonged court costs and rental losses) compared to selling up.

Go and don't look back! Get sabbaticals if you can. Both my parents suffered ill health relatively young and my dad was very ill on retirement and didn't get the one he dreamed of. We've recently lost friends suddenly in their 40s, really changes your perspective. Don't wait until retirement to do these things if you don't need to

Absolutely mad not to do it.

We did it, late 40's, handed in notice and travelled around Africa. Cut short by pandemic but had six amazing months.

Got a new job upon our return albeit lot lower pay but I have now returned to above my previous pay grade.

Knowing how easy it is to drop back into our old lives, we have got the urge to do it again and are not daunted by it. Planning for four years time. I will be 55, husband 65.

Get those bags packed and the wheels in motion. You'll regret what you don't do rather than what you do. What's the worse that can happen, you don't like it, come home and get new jobs. Go for it.

This. Someone I know worked her fingers to the bone to pay off her mortgage and maximise her pension ready for retirement. She developed dementia in her early 60s and now all the money’s going on care home fees. Do it while you can.

Idea is great , I've done similar but not permanently.
Where would you go?
If Europe and you have UK passports you need to be aware of limits on times you can be there.

Haha.. no it isn’t!.. I was 48yrs old when I retired to Spain full time 🤓. I’m now 54 😎 ….sometimes ya just gotta take the leap 😉

Anyone can appreciate that being unfulfilled as a teacher isn't good for students.
If unfulfilled means not enjoying what they do.

Maybe the OP didn't mean 'unfulfilled' (she seems to have clawed that comment back) and maybe she meant no promotion prospects or her H wishing he was doing something different.

The point I was making was that if he wasn't enjoying his work, how much less might he enjoy it having had a year away?

I wouldn’t sell.

I would though look at holiday letting and finding a company who will take on the whole process and management and you get sent the proceeds. (Unless you want to organise it yourself from remotely) Where you live sounds like somewhere that would fetch a much higher fee during any school holidays and the spring, summer and autumn months

Letting out your house this way means you don’t have to find storage for your bigger items of furniture and everything can remain in place. It is just your personal items and any breakable stuff that you don’t want breaking

Storage fees are extortionate so with that in mind look at selling any stuff you really don’t need or want on FBMP or Ebay
How big is your loft? Can you get stuff in there and if you run out of space in the attic then storage containers (advertised on FBMP are so much cheaper than the storage units in the big buildings

Selling stuff means you can raise funds for your trip

Dont forget to make sure you have insurance for everything

Get your house ready with matching plates, cutlery and glass ware etc and spend money on good quality bedding/white cotton sheets
duvets and pillowcases, at least 3 sets and good towels

My only misgivings about renting on a long term basis is the government don’t appear to understand consequences to policies they are bringing in and renting returns to the 1970s where landlords can’t get rid of tenants and you arrive back to the UK effectively homeless