DH and I live in London with 10mo ds. Neither of us were born here, just ended up here for work/creative endeavours I'm aware that sounds wanky. Our tenancy is up in May next year and we'll need to move, partly because having a one bed flat is proving tricky with a non-sleeping baby as well as a cat so we'll need to upsize, and partly because we know the landlord will be putting the rent up beyond what we can afford.
My problem is I just don't know where to move to, and feel a bit sad that neither of us have anywhere we particularly want to be. I like our current area but don't feel massively attached to it - we probably can't afford to rent locally any more anyway, and it's also quite hard work getting out of London to visit family, as public transport links aren't amazing and driving takes twice as long as it should thanks to London gridlock.
I'm aware we need to be thinking longer-term about schools and somewhere we'd like ds to grow up, but we also need to juggle two London-based jobs and childcare (plus DH is in a band so needs to be able to continue to rehearse and play live in London - obviously not a priority at all so would be the first thing to go, but is something to bear in mind).
Moving further out into greater London just means spending more on commuting, while not really saving anything on rent; moving out of London completely sounds like a bit of a chicken and egg situation as we wouldn't both be able to commute into the city due to the high cost, but can't afford for either of us to be out of work for any period of time so a new job would need to happen either before or simultaneously to our move - which is now only 6 months away - especially so we could secure a tenancy somewhere. I can't even look for a new job until March as otherwise I'd be paying back my maternity pay which I can't afford to do, and DH doesn't drive so would need a job he could get to by public transport. And also - how the hell do you just decide to move somewhere? In nearly 15 years I've only had to decide which new part of London to relocate to which is easy!
I guess what I'm asking in a roundabout way is AIBU to feel a bit trapped and unsure of what our next move should be, or am I just being a massive wimp about the whole thing and really just need to throw caution to the wind? How did you all decide where to live, and do you feel at home there? If you've moved out of a city, how did you balance the domino effect of changes in jobs / commuting / childcare?