Where do you live if you have a good standard of living?

[Lanternnights]

Just curious, looking for ideas.

DH and I are generally pretty miserable and demotivated with rising costs. I know I'm not alone in that and I likely am more fortunate than lots of others.

It's been this way for months and we've decided to do some research into making changes. Ultimately we don't like where we live, we don't feel like we have a good standard of living for the output, and we are generally stressed out, feel older, and our health is taking a toll now.

I don't think it's a job issue as we earn the average in our industry in UK, so switching jobs wouldn't help.

I am curious if you have a good standard of living or know someone who does and where do they live? We are interested in emigrating as we've no children and both work for global companies who advertise transfers.

Or am I silly and everywhere is the same?

I'm looking for somewhere our money goes further and we are less stressed/on autopilot.

Another vote for Derbyshire.

Same

Easy to get to Birmingham Derby Nottingham - M6 /M1 / M42 within easy distance
Live in a very small rural village which I love

South east, small market town by the sea!
We love it, have everything on our doorstep, short walk to kids school, the beach, open countryside. We have fairly good jobs and work from home which is a huge benefit.
Lots of trips to the beach after school in spring and summer (and well into autumn this year!), good bike rides on our doorstep, have paddle boards and kayaks so spend a lot of time doing that too! We love it here.

You can go to the beach after work in this country too! Sure in winter it’s dark but the rest of the year we do just that!

East Sussex - cheap, cheerful and full of pensioners! It’s perfect.

@YesItsAPeacock where roughly in Portugal do you live? DH and I are considering relocating under a D7 visa, but can't decide on where. How do you find the language?

Why are people piling on to suggest UK locations when the OP clearly states that she wants to emigrate?
OP, I'm from Malaysia. Amazing life if you have the dosh. Sunshine, excellent healthcare, an abundance of food. Even 20K as a UK salary goes very very far there. When I go back to visit I spend heartily.
The downside is not much cultural activity that you can readily participate in and much greater inequality so if you have scruples probably not for you.

Of course there are other European countries with a lower cost of living than the UK but it won't be much compared to the above.

she is “interested” in emigrating but if you reread the Op it is very much asking only for other countries

Well, exactly.

doesn’t mean only though! i’m interested i. lots of things. Not in isolation! 😂

We're in Sweden and have a very good standard of living. The work-life balance is so much better.

It's not for everyone though. Lots of brits hate living here because there is no hustle and bustle. But if you're into peaceful isolation in endless wilderness then you'll love it.

We live in the Algarve, in a rural area, so not much going on, but we're bumpkins and like it that way. Livelier places are available.

Portuguese is relatively simple if you're used to Romance languages, however the pronunciation is quite hard (where we live the accent is very thick - Lisbon is easier). The most difficult thing about learning the language is that pretty much everyone speaks excellent English, so I have to explicitly ask if we can talk in Portuguese to get my practice in. We're trying hard not to be those kind of immigrants, but in the Algarve and Lisbon it's easy to be lazy. We want to become nationals and get Portuguese passports though, so we're very motivated to pass the language exam.

Scandinavia. We don’t have to worry about heating, child care cost, making lunch for our school children, or worry about being ill for too many days in a year and not get paid.

Alberta, Canada.

But it can be cold. Really cold. Like -50 with the windchill cold. Still, no such thing as bad weather. Just inappropriate clothing.

I'm in the Midlands (East Staffordshire) and we live alright on the whole on roughly £4K a month. General day to day living is fine, kids need new shoes, fine. A holiday is fine but it's not something we can do on a whim and we have to save for it.

However because of the pets and kids we never have any money. I seem to have been at the vets every month since the summer and their food costs a fortune as well as everything else. Kids seem cheap in comparison!

Wiltshire, I grew up in my town and would never move.

Thank you for that @YesItsAPeacock . Much appreciated. I'm good with Romance languages; DH less so, but most people spoke good English when we visited, and I picked up enough Portuguese to ask simple stuff. Having some of the phonics explained by a lovely hotel receptionist was a revelation!

Yes the subtlety of the vowel sounds is something else - very different from Spanish, even though on paper it looks similar.

Feel free to PM me if you need any advice.

What 'hustle and bustle'? Plenty of rural and isolated areas in the UK if that's what you want.
Happy to be corrected but as I understood it Scandinavian countries are very egalitarian with all the good stuff mentioned by @bringsomewood . But the cost of living is high. Food, transport, leisure activities etc.

OP and her partner are childfree. Work for global companies so presumably on decent salaries. Yet want a good 'standard of living'. I have a funny feeling it refers to being able to spend and have fun, rather than basic security.

FWIW DH and I would love Sweden @MrTiddlesTheCat we're quiet homebodies. We're considering it (got job offers from there and a couple of other European countries), just not which to take and whether the finances stack up for renting/selling our current property.

Yes a friend of mine emigrated to NZ 5 years ago and has almost new daily photos on facebook of swimming and wonderful sunsets/sunrises. Plenty of cycle paths too.

I think it depends on what you are into.

S W Scotland, moved her a decade ago. We sold up in the shire's and bought a house on the coast with a couple of acres. We have the most amazing life. We are 10 miles from a large town and in an hour we can be in central Glasgow. Our local town has so much going on and much of it free ( museums in Scotland are free) We have exhibitions, farmers markets, very cheap local theatre and so much more.
We have had to use the NHS a lot here, the standard of care has been outstanding and in fact i am utterly amazed at how personal the care has been, phone calls just to ask how things are going and reminding us they are there at the end of the phone if need be.
Everything is so easy here compared to living in the Shires, property prices that are reasonable, transport links that work and not too many people. I will never leave here.

Scotland.

Good salaries even with the higher rate of SNP taxes.

Big house (which costs a fraction of what it would in the south east of England) big garden, overlooking a park.

Sussex, England, very frequent 35 minutes trains into London, not too far from the coast, lovely countryside, good schools, very friendly place with lots to do.

Ex-mining town in South Yorkshire. Wouldn't live anywhere else. Except Shetland!

Canada