AIBU to ask is there life after London?

[poppingshop1]

I know there is, but is it a good one?

DH & I are true Londoners & live in a lovely part of SW London that I grew up in. We have a lovely life, mum around the corner, excellent school which DC1 attends around the other corner, lovely neighbours, etc. BUT we are starting to think we should leave. 90% of our childhood friends have moved out to either zone 5/6 or the home counties. 3 of my close friends (met through NCT) who live nearby have all decided to leave & told me this week.

We want more space (property is 1300 sq ft) which we can’t afford unless we move to other parts of London (don’t really see the point) & husband is finding the tube more & more stressful. Plus the general hustle & bustle is starting to grate.

However the idea of moving to the suburbs terrify me (don’t mean to offend), worried I will be bored/lonely & DH might struggle with the commute as he’s used to 30 mins door to door. I’d prefer to live in a 3/4 bed terrace close to amenities than a 6 bed detached in the middle of nowhere.

My 3 NCT friends are moving to other cities (Bristol, Edinburgh & Bath) & I’m starting to think that moving to another city could be a great option.

I’m lucky that I freelance so 90% of my work is wfh. DH would obviously earn less working in another city but still plenty of finance jobs around at the 70k mark and as we have at least 500k equity our cost of living would ideally be lower, I feel we might have a better quality of life. My mum is likely to move to be closer to us (she’s an immigrant, so no other family here).

Has anyone moved from London to other cities? Did you regret it? How hard did you find it settle? Where would you go?

Belfast is such a cool city and so cheap! I bet you’ll love it @leia.

Up north we have shops, banks and even cash tills - a plane just flew overhead and l even saw a bus this morning .

@DonnyAndVladSittingInATree she said her mum would prob move with her, in the opening post actually.

We moved out of London when I was pregnant as DP had to quit his job (wouldn't let him have time off to see his mum in a hospice after a sudden cancer diagnosis) and my parents bought us a property in our old hometown to live in. DP enjoyed being out of London at first but I hated it almost immediately, DP is now of the same opinion after a year. We are planning to move back in the next two years as we have 80% of the cost of a sizeable flat or house in our desired area ready as a deposit. Our current town is rated one of the best places to live in the country, but it isn't a patch on the part of SE London we lived in previously. So even in very favourable circumstances - no housing costs, bigger house with garden, families both close by etc. we still regret moving out. There's no more hopping on a tube to go to gallery openings, gigs, restaurant launches and the random events which pop up over London all the time which made up the bulk of our socialising and we miss it terribly. We are only an hour away on the train and my parents have a flat in central London we can stay in whenever we want but it's just not the same. Maybe you should do a trial year as a PP said and rent before you make a decision to leave London. If you like living out of London you can then deal with selling your current home and finding another. In terms of friends moving away, you can't be in the same place as all of them and ime it is easier to visit friends who have moved out of London to various places by travelling out of London rather than a smaller town or city with less good transport. If you've never lived anywhere else you may find it a difficult adjustment.

A friend moved from SW a few years ago to the home counties. Nice big house, gated, rural....is miserable as sin and misses the community feel of London and hates the countryside.

Oh or Bristol, Bristol is lovely!

500k equity, you work freelance, DH can get a finance job @ 70k outside London and your mum will move with you?
You do realise that you can have the best of both worlds don't you?
With that amount of equity you could buy a big house outright no further than 1.5 hrs from London! With your combined wage you could travel to and stay in London as often as you'd like!
How often do you actually go out in the week currently?
I visit/go out in London very frequently. I love everything about the place but would I live there? Never.

Thanks for the people defending me & I really didn’t want to annoy people. I’m not saying London is the best I’m saying will I miss what I know.

wasonthelist Does that surprise you? As soon as the school holidays came around my parents took us back to their families.

My mum said she would move but who knows if she actually would, lots of her friends are moving to be close to their children/grandchildren who have left London so I suspect that’s put the idea in her head.

I've lived and worked as an adult in Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and London.

I would rank them: 1) London 2) Leeds =4) Manchester and Sheffield - Shef is better for countryside and ease of living but it lacks jobs.

I would not live e.g. York or Harrogate and commute to Leeds. I did not like Birmingham when I was there on a 3 month work project.

I quite liked Nottingham but I was only there for 1 month project so prob not long enough to get a real feel for it.

£500k equity, you freelance, DH can get a finance job @ 70k

With that sort of money I wouldn't move to the suburbs. You would need a damn site more money to get a bigger house. Where I live 1200sq ft houses are over a million. Anything bigger and you are looking at a jump that your salaries wouldn't cover the extra mortgage.
Personally I would stay.

Forgive me fluffy. I missed chunks of the Op when my eyes were round the back.

Rowtheboats

**but I find Northern cities have a completely different culture that I think would be harder for you to adapt to.

Interested to know what the 'completely different culture' is? (friendly question )

wasonthelist Does that surprise you? As soon as the school holidays came around my parents took us back to their families.

It doesn’t surprise me and of course it is perfectly valid, but growing up in England I’ve been expected to be familiar with London and the South East of England - particularly by people who originated there - I feel for the sake of the UK as a whole we need to have more interchange - the whole Country is dependent on a tiny area for so much and yet so many people there have zero experience of anywhere else - unless we want further fragmentation, divisions and resentment of course.

Moved to London with first H hated it, the noise, crowds, everything, 2nd DH was born in Sarf London, also couldnt wait to get out, moved to big town, hated that, met me at work, we moved to small town, village, he is now Mr greenfingers, we both love i, although there was a commute to work, carefully worked out cost wise, for me nearly 100 miles round trip. My DD was born in London, lives there now, nd is trying to get out.

It's not funny to pretend that there aren't vibrant amazing cities that aren't London, with plenty to do and see and a great quality of life. Its insulting and its arrogant and its really fucking old

This ^^

I'm not sure how an intelligent adult, with access to the internet, books, news and everything can actually still be labouring under the idea that living outside of precious London would be so radical.

And I've lived there too.

London is the biggest shithole in the country OP. Most people realise that when they eventually leave. Rotten place with a much higher proportion of rotten people and a pay gap between rich and poor so huge it's absolutely sickening.

I certainly wouldn't feel proud to be from there.

You seem very narrow minded and blinkered, OP. Why not make a start by visiting other parts of the UK. We don’t bite, you know!

That’s interesting, do you feel you have enough space? Garden size doesn’t bother me as park a few minutes walk away just the living space.

Well, our last city was pretty expensive too, so our flat here is scarcely any smaller in square feet, and it's MUCH brighter and more "fancy" in a number of ways. Apples and oranges, really.

As we're in a flat with a crazy neighbour, although there's a garden, we don't use it, but same as you - we have a giant park about 2 minutes away, and if we must, Hampstead Heath is just a couple of stops away by overground. We have more and better outdoors time than we did in our last place, really. I hate going to the playground with a fiery passion, but at least here there are nice cafes on the way!

Essentially, we have less space but more resources.

As expats, I don't feel any particular need to live elsewhere in the country. I want to be close to the airports that cheaply serve the three countries we go to regularly, I want lots of freelance clients, and my DH's super-limited career has much better opportunities here.

HOWEVER, there are beautiful cities elsewhere in the UK - you could get a beautiful home in Newcastle or Manchester, Edinburgh is fantastic (expensive though) and there are beautiful but expensive places like Cambridge and Oxford where there are great schools, an urban environment, but still a commutable distance from London.

I personally would strongly dislike living outside a city, but that's just me.

Lots of us live in other parts of the UK and manage to rarely if ever vist London and yet somehow my life is ok housing , bills etc very cheap, my children also go to excellent schools beleive it or not in the Barren north west of England. I do find some posters very insular about London

I'm always interested to understand just "why" London is so good, and what it has that other places don't, besides higher paid jobs? OK, I appreciate there are more museums, theatres, venues, etc but how often do Londoners actually go to them - is it weekly, monthly, yearly?

We once spent a weekend with some friends who had moved to London for their work - they were living near Watford and commuting in for work each day. They'd been there a couple of years and admitted that they'd not actually been into central London at all, not for culture, not for sightseeing, not for shopping. They basically never left Watford except for the daily commute.

I couldn't move to the suburbs either - nothing beats the countryside. I was also born, raised and university in London. It doesn't matter where you live, providing you have great friends and neighbours. And once you leave London you will never want to go back.

How can people generalise about ‘The North’/‘Northeners’/Northern culture? It’s just beyond ridiculous.

There’s a huge difference between areas and even within towns or cities themselves. Just as London would be a very different experience if you were in Hackney or Holland Park.

Life’s what you make it. Wherever you are.

Poor old poppingshop . People get their knickers in a twist at the mere mention of London. You'd get less snippy responses if you asked about moving from the countryside to a city (any city, other than London).

MiL moved to Bath from London. I thought it was great when we visited. Just a really comfortable place to have a life in. Lots of people seem to make that move and love it. I'd quite like to but I know that we can't because dh's job is London-dependent. The London commuter towns didn't hold the same appeal.

Agree with renting for a year before committing.

You seem very narrow minded and blinkered, OP

No she doesn’t, (to me). I’ve lived all over the country (NI, Scotland, SW, SE, but never in London itself) and also abroad. I’m not getting the hump that she’s curious about moving out of London and how that will be. I don’t think she’s been in any way offensive and I actually don’t get what people are getting all chippy about.

Struggling to keep up!

mookatron good idea re staying with friends. I actually passed my driving test this year in preparation.

scrabbler3 yes that’s my fear, finding ths transition to the suburbs harder.

user Increasingly we are finding we stay in a little area so not really taking advantage of all London has but perhaps when the DC are a little older we would?

Brighton. Has its own amazing vibe so you're not in London-lite suburbia. Close enough to London that you can still use it regularly and your partner could commute. Great freelancing community here too.

Schools are a little tricky so you'll need to pick your area carefully or find religion. House prices here on much of a par with London, but you can get more for your money if you look carefully.

I could've written much of your post 10 years ago-born and raised Londoner, immigrant parents who love the sun so as a result I'd never really visited anywhere else in the UK. Moved down here and loved it immediately. Gave DH's home country a go for four years since then, but we both decided Brighton gave us the best of everything. PM if you want any tips and good luck with your decision 😀