So fed up with my life

[onandon8]

I live in London and am just so fed up with the people, the busyness, the noise, the pollution and the cost of everything, particularly housing. It’s really getting me down.

I want to sell up and buy a cottage by the sea in Devon or Cornwall, but DH will only consider counties close to London as there are always employment opportunities here.

I know what he’s saying but I don’t want to carry on with the rat race for the rest of our lives, living in an average area with a massive mortgage to pay each month.

I also read threads on here saying London schools are the best, and wonder in which part of London these posters live? Primaries near us are good/outstanding but the secondaries are dire - I can’t consign my DC to a life of that.

I would love to send them private but we don’t have anywhere near that kind of money. All the local private schools offer bursaries, but surely they must be inundated with applicants - does anyone know how easy it is to get one?

AIBU to want to leave London behind and have a different, simpler life in a small seaside town, with a mortgage of about £400-£500 per month?

@Sohardtochooseausername

I don’t know anyone who left London and wished they hadn’t. When I left London (moved back to Scotland) my income doubled and my mortgage halved. My work experience from London was valued and I had a good choice of places to live.

I also know people who have moved to Hertfordshire and Kent and would say similar. You can’t beat having a bit of space, fresh air and disposable income!

I left central London for Bucks and I miss London hugely. We have loads of space but have to drive everywhere, the roads are still crazy busy, the NHS and council services are way worse than London, people are just as rude as London, it's boring, the restaurants are pricey but low quality and unimaginative with a very narrow range of cuisines, the parks are all rammed here (London ones are much bigger so never feel as crowded). We are here for the excellent schools only.

@onandon8

However shedloads available in Deal (and on the coast which the OP wanted)

I’ve looked at Deal. It’s very pretty but also expensive! I think you need a budget of at least £400k to get something nice there

Have a look HERE, tons of houses within your budget in or close to Deal! Mostly semis, a few detached...

How about moving to a provincial city.Village and country life can soon wear thin if
no city amenities.I know i come from a Suffolk coastal villags ,can be bleak in winter and full of holiday makers in summer.I now live in Norwich and would never ever move back to coast.I certainly wouldnt want to live in any small town or village in Norfolk or Suffolk .Insular and very Tory,and few amenities.

Norwich is a lovely city,you are very near the coast and it has all the city advantages once this rubbish lockdown is over,house prices affordable compared with London, and good train service to London.id honestly reconsidser small town living,it sounds great but it often isnt.Take it from one who grew up in a village and lived there a while.You need to drive everywhere,public transport is often non exsistent or in frequent and people are not always friendly and as said its very right wing and not very diverse.I live 20 mon walk from city centre and am way happier than i ever was living on coast.

cjpark has all the warnings right on life in Cornwall, but a well-established freelance with a good contact list can absolutely make a life here. There isn't a lot of decent work that originates in Cornwall, but if you bring work down here with you and a solid network and reputation then you can maintain it for years as long as you can make the casual connections regular enough, which will involve regular long day trips. You won't be looking at Padstow, Rock, St Mawes or Helford as places to live but there are other (delightful) towns and villages. On a practical side, I would suggest not venturing too far west. Towns like Launceston are good bases, but not on the shoreline, though 25-30 minutes to North or South coasts and only 45 minutes to Exeter and a fast train to London. Decent secondary school too. Stay close to the arterial roads for your DH's sanity, but good luck. If you're looking at retraining in book-keeping, what about seaching for a course with a slant towards agriculture, especially livestock and dairy?

Move up north

Surely if your DH is a designer he is WFH? I'm struggling to see why he would need to be close to London for that type of work? Why doesn't he set up his own design consultancy, I have friends who live in the South West and have done this. I'm pretty sure that the majority of their contracts come from London, but they rarely visit or have face to face meetings with clients. Could this be an option for your DH?

We had a place in Cornwall. Loved it. But found it very remote especially in winter. Moved to Shropshire. Always thought I needed to be by the sea until we moved here. Now visit the sea for day trips and enjoy it but am in the beautiful open, changing countryside every day.
If you can work from home surely you can live anywhere. Why choose congestion and crowds everywhere when you don’t need to?

I think that most freelance designers WFH now, but you need a good base of clients, and good clients, with work needing doing, tend to be based in cities. There are, put simply, not many substantial corporates to be your customers in Devon and Cornwall, so most of the commissions originate elsewhere. The local work tends to be coffee shops and hairdressers.

We've lived in Cornwall for 30 years plus, and I grew up here. But when we retire we'll move on.

You are not being the least bit unreasonable, although you may be being a bit impractical. Especially in regard to DH's employment. What you might do is to pick your favorite areas, go onliine, and explore employment opportunities in DH's field. As well as cost of living compared to where you are now. Either you will be convinced that this is an idea for retirement, or you will convince him that it can be done, and done well!

Mind you we did bring the kids up in a city . And glad we did so. So much more for them to do and better NHS

Id sort out improving current life first tbh !! Get a job, start saving ! After Covid enjoy the city life - there so much to do in London with children!

Then in a few years when you have some more money saved and you have been back at work / have more experience - you can move then

I’m dying to move back to Ireland (currently in London) but we are gonna take it slow - probably think it will be in 5 years - we are saving away each month so when we go back we have the equity on our flat we sell and our savings towards our next house in Ireland!!

Also we plan for one of us to travel back ahead of the other to try lock a job down before packing up our lives completely!

I get your unhappy but if you want the move to work you need to plan it carefully and wisely ! It can’t be a quick thing you do on a whim

I'm a Londoner born and bred. Sometimes I think I would like to live somewhere more spacious, but I do believe London has everything you could want or need (obviously apart from a beach). Cornwall is one of the poorest regions of the UK and also received millions in grants from the EU (which of course, is no longer the case). I think it would be a struggle to make a living there and there would be limited opportunities. I think right now you need to wait and see what happens after Brexit and the pandemic. We are going to have to rebuild our country and there's no telling what is going to happen next year. If things are bad now, they will be worse in the next few months. Do your research in the meantime, speak to people from Cornwall (those who don't mind outsiders!) and make a rough outline of a plan. It's good to have dreams and ambitions but they also need an edge of pragmatism and reality.

OP doing a book keeping course would be a good move for potential future employment as you mentioned this earlier.
I do agree with your DH actually that being nearer work opportunities are important for the future as this situation won’t last forever. Kent and East and West Sussex still allow for closeness to future work opportunities.

Perhaps you are a bit fixated on the seaside idea without all the practicalities of it? It’s true that lots of southern seaside towns are deprived and there are drug issues. It’s just a fact I’m afraid.

What about opening your mind to Kent towns that will offer you lots of what you want with the sea close but a short drive and still decent transport links for your husband and your children for the future years.

It’s also so important to really visit all these potential places rather than web search and hearsay as you just can’t build a picture of what’s right for you without this. Work down the train lines for a start and visit literally everywhere you fancy and some that you don’t.

I’m older than you but moved out of London two years ago to Hampshire and believe me it is very, very different. Lots of good but it’s not all “roses round the door” and public transport (lack of it) and things for teenagers to do is a real and valid issue. I haven’t got children to worry about but there really isn’t loads for them. There are County Lines drug issues even in up market market towns. There are still the odd drugs paraphernalia dropped near playgrounds where the young congregate as nowhere else for them to go. The coastline is a mixture of upmarket and deprived as is Kent. Before I came here I thought all of the south coast line was going to be like Whitstable and believe me it’s not!!

Do your research well otherwise you could be sorely disappointed and take into consideration what your DH is saying about accessibility to future job opportunities as that’s so important.

Does it not depend on what the only employed household member needs? The husband has multiple people as dependents, so his location needs are the most important. I mean, I personally want to be miles from any human, but I am unemployed, so that’s just a nice daydream.

I am born and raised in Kent and I wouldn't recommend it at all, it sounds like what you want is proper rural and Kent is sadly not that anymore. Don't compromise

We moved to Kent 10 years ago for DH's job, wasn't sure about it at the time but now wouldn't live anywhere else. We're a 15 minute walk from the beach and from countryside and I've never seen a needle on the beach. My guess is you'd find needles on the beach in Devon and Cornwall if you're unlucky. We have great schools too. If you're so unhappy in London then a compromise would be better than staying where you are. You could always retire to Devon and live your dream.

That orange landing gives me the creeps

Try somewhere in between, so an easy commute for your dh and an easy trip to the coast for you, what about Wiltshire, it has great transport links to London, surrounded by countryside and 30 mins from the sea. I love it here.

We moved for exactly the same reason - from Wimbledon, where we still have a horrendous mortgage but rent it out, to the countryside in Somerset where we now rent.

Salaries aren’t the same down here, and job opportunities aren’t either. My DH works with graphic designers, and although there are lots of design agencies in Bristol, it really isn’t the same calibre of work.

You really have to ask yourself if you’re going to be happy with less, or just ok with more.

For what it’s worth, we love the space and the lifestyle, but don’t move unless you have a job secured - it’s hard to find work in design and related industries right now.

There are probably a lot of people watching and coming across this thread so if you post where you are thinking of I think you’d get some really helpful comments

I’m not going to post that on here as will no doubt get even more grief. Will check out the local FB groups as another poster suggested

I am born and raised in Kent and I wouldn't recommend it at all, it sounds like what you want is proper rural and Kent is sadly not that anymore. Don't compromise

@RestlessMillennial I wouldn’t describe Kent as proper rural either but DH thinks I’m being ridiculous! Why wouldn’t you recommend Kent?

Thanks to all the latest posters for the good advice

I wouldn't recommend Torbay where I live, as it's scruffy and downtrodden, but the South Hams are gorgeous. I was brought up in Hertfordshire where there some lovely villages. I have always detested London.

A mortgage of 500 wont get you a beach hut.