To ask, what is your 'vaguely achievable' dream life?

[RedTravellingSocks]

Not the crazy fantasy one you need to win the lottery to have. The one that is a bit more realistic, more or less, maybe, kinda, perhaps one day, with a bit of luck

Mine would be:

• live in a house with a view of the sea, and a dining kitchen, grow herbs and veg in the garden and have a wildflower patch with loads of bees and butterflies
• keep chickens
• have a dog that I can take on long walks
• work in a bookshop, preferably a small independent one (that also sold cake)
• train as a yoga teacher on the side and maybe teach a bit as well
• take every summer off and travel, as cheaply as possible, for a minimum of 2 months (someone would have to look after the dog and chickens I guess!)

To not work F/T. I’m currently loving being furloughed, and I would prefer not to go back F/T, if possible. Our mortgage is paid off, so I could afford it, so it’s up to my employer...

Current achievable dream life goals
I working as GP three days a week
I want to be married to someone wonderful and have three kids
I want to live in a city near the coast
I want to own a cute little detached house with a lovely garden where I grow herbs and veggies and keep chickens and ducks

*want to be working

I would like to own a home and live my family.

I would love to work a four day week - in a job that I enjoy.

I would also like to move to a detached house with a more private garden.

Definitely can’t afford to do both

Near my family!

Have another dog

Move to my forever ish home and have somewhere feel like home as never had it, ever.

Publish my book

Drop to the next number in stone weight

Be happy, occasionally.

On holiday last year I met a woman who I’m fairly sure has stolen my life and I want it back.

I want to quit teaching, up sticks to my favourite country, own a little shop which sells something unique and creative, live in a house on the hillside overlooking the coastal towns, rescue a few stray dogs and look forward to my UK family and friends visiting over the summer months.

Embracing a slower pace of life would make me much happier. I have Covid to thank for teaching me that.

To be mortgage-free by the age of 50 and able to retire. My daughter will be on the brink of adulthood by then and I'd like time to myself.

Or maybe I'll have another baby and that'll be a pipe dream!

I just want to be able to buy a house and do it up nicely. Have a cat and a dog. Work part time. Doesn’t sound so outlandish but it’s probably impossible

Embracing a slower pace of life would make me much happier. I have Covid to thank for teaching me that

Yes, at the risk of opening a can of worms re: Covid, I think that's true for me too.

To live in a country warm enough to waft around in kaftans all day, preferably in the balerics. I'd need a pool and I'd look after all the stray cats.
Right now I'd settle for a day bed in my garden.

1.Finish renovating the house we have and make the garden lovely.

1. Buy a small place near Malaga and live there part of the year.
2. DH to drop to part time hours
3. Home educate our DC with the aid of tutors/online schools.

It's possible. Just can't quite see how to do it all at this time.

(Whispers: 5. Have more babies)

To have a really nice (comfortable) campervan and spend my free time roaming the country, visiting friends and family, with my two dogs. To have a cute little cottage in the country that I can lock up and leave when I do this (also where house sitters would happily come and stay to look after my dogs if I fancy doing something without them like visiting my friends in Australia and Bali). To have a handsome, entertaining male friend that I don't live with but who takes me out for lunches and to art galleries and all sorts of lovely places. To be slim and have a wardrobe of lovely clothes that all fit me. To do yoga and pilates regularly with private tutors. To go on weekend retreats, cookery and painting courses, and essentially anything that I fancy the look of. To write a bestelling novel, the money from which pays for the above lifestyle. I am aware that DH does not feature at all in this alternative life, which is mildly concerning.

Hoping to retire to a quieter area with a flat garden . I’m fed up of hauling bags of compost , branches and lawnmower up and down garden steps.
I’d love to be able to use a wheelbarrow to lug stuff .
Oh, and I’d love a bungalow. No more carting stuff up and down stairs either.
A garden big enough for a few fruit trees would be the icing on the cake.

I’d love to fall in love again & wear pretty dresses every day, and learn to bake and make clothes and do proper pencil drawings, and just be kind and lovely.
Think I’ve been watching too many BBC shows

To have a nice house (Max 3 bedrooms) somewhere semi-rural but with a train station not too far off. House will have a big garden, where I can grow vegetables and also have a fenced off running/play area for my dogs (all retired greyhounds! Current dog count =1). We’d have spent a lot of time while building the house to put in some environmentally friendly systems such as grey water recycling, rain water collection, solar panels and a green roof
I would be working from home, as a milliner, from a small studio in the garden.
We’d have a nice shed for DH and he would have power tools or whatever he wanted in there.
We’d be more actively involved with dog rescues and would foster dogs to help them find homes.
We would go on UK weekends away at least one a month, European break about once a year and have a big trip abroad every 2 years.
I’d also like to have a cute camper van but this may not work with the dogs

My if we won lotto Dream is a little different

Large bedroom with connecting en-suite to DHs room (he snores)

Detached house (for space and no neighbours to annoy) for grand piano.

Can’t imagine anything worse than running a bookshop with cafe. Arsehole customers and you either sell loads of cake you can’t eat or you eat it and get fat. Much rather have a fab job that pays loads with lots of free time to visit fab bookshop and buy books and cake.

3 bed flat/terrace house in my current area of east Finchley (I own a 2 bed flat) and to be mortgage free

To have a child and be able to afford private school.

I want to say holiday home in Brighton but then I don't think I would like the logistics of looking after 2 homes.

I can't really think of anything more I would like that I don't already have other than a job that pays for the above 2 things I want that isn't super stressful and with nice colleagues.

Mine is literally to just have a nice house (not necessarily big!), a job I love, enough money to be comfortable and to have a family who I love.

I'm half way there

Add to that nice holidays but I already had nice holidays pre covid (maybe more of them?).. I wouldn't want a dog, so much work and it's like having a baby who doesn't wear diapers, except this baby never grows up and would probably become incontinent before I do.

Would like to save more. In my ideal life, I would save 50% of household income.

I don't think a "dream life" is ever obtainable.
No matter how much money we have there will always be spikes

Wow...how depressing @speakout.

Clearly not the case as I am currently living my "dream life"...it's fairly similar to the OP's excel don't work in a bookshop and I have a cat not a dog. Also I'm mortgage free...and in mid 30's. So in terms of dreaming it and making it a reality...yes it can happen.

To be able to travel and work again.
Not sure when that will happen.

I’d like to own a nice 3 bed house, with a utility room and a playroom for the kids. Work part time in my current career, DH to work part time too. Have a lovely garden, do lots of running and spending time with friends. Oh and be slim and wear lovely dresses every day.