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?

I second @movingonup20 North Somerset is very close to Bristol and Bath with direct trains to London. Has the coast, Devon is an hours drive away. Lots of countryside and house prices still much cheaper than London.

Sorry if my comment was a bit harsh. I’ve just experienced moving out of London and having to commute back in and the cost and energy is substantial. I recently moved 20 mins up the road and it has put £100 on my monthly travel bill and my commute is 30 mins longer per day so that’s at least 2.5 hours I’ve lost that I no longer get to spend in my nice new area. I would be loving it if I were a SAHM though. I just think that if it means your husband has to make all the sacrifices it isn’t fair.

It can be done OP. But your DH needs to be 100% onboard. I lived in London, and remember feeling pretty much the same as you. I eventually made the move to Yorkshire and can say I’ve never looked back. I still have friends in a London, so pop down to see them occasionally. I see the place with clearer vision now, and see London for what it is - dirty, over priced, unfriendly and overcrowded. It’s okay if you are focusing on a career as there are far more opportunities there, but as far as family life goes, I would have hated to have raised my DCs there.

@dimidavilby
What? Are you the Sheriff of these counties, mind your own business, people can live where they want!

The most logical thing for you to do is retrain and find a job, then you have more options. Why try and convince your DH to move somewhere he doesn’t want to go, where his work options will limited or commute four hours a day putting more stress on him to provide so that you can watch the sea out of your kitchen window?

I moved from the south east to Dorset for family reasons. I'd move back in a heartbeat. I love the beaches and the town i live in but everything is so far away! It's an hour for me to get on a motorway to go anywhere, my town has no railway station, the shops are miles away (Exeter is my nearest shopping centre, but it doesn't compare to growing up down the road from blue water) and employment opportunities are limited in some sectors. My husband and I are lucky as we both work in health and social care so there are opportunities here for us. But other sectors mean long commutes to Exeter/Bristol or having a crash pad in London.

I think your husband is being sensible are thinking about contract opportunities down here. That doesn't mean it can't work, but I'm not sure it's going to be the idyll you think it might be

@DimidDavilby

Cornwall is full. Please consider staying where you are from/returning to your hometown.

What s ridiculous post. What if you were born in London and your parents 'home town' is abroad. Should immigrants never move home?

dividdavilby maybe Op has family in Cornwall, maybe she was born in Cornwall. You don’t know the OP. I didn’t realise small minded people like you existed!

Seconding a PP’s mention of Essex. Or Suffolk coast? Chelmondiston or thereabouts?

Honestly? You’re just thinking about yourself.
You’re a SAHM and whilst that is not easy, you can picture an idyllic life for you and your DC.
The person who has to go out an work and provide for you all, is looking at this and thinking? Wtf? So on top of WOHM, I also need to figure out how I make this work logistically?

He’s right, the bulk of the work will remain in/ around London.
So how do you propose he makes this work so that he can bring in an income and also see you/ his family?

Be careful Op, I work in the city and there are a lot of men who (pre Covid) would be London based tues- thurs, away from their wife’s who had wanted ‘country living’. Only a handful of them kept it in their pants, whilst playing utterly devoted husbands.

Why do you people keep going on about Stroud? It's lovely but so are many places and the OP is very specific about the seaside. Bit daft saying that it's 1hr 20mins from the seaside as if that's a selling point. London is closer to the seaside than that!

*didn't mean to say 'you people', that sounds rude, sorry! just meant to be 'people'

Is it Devon or Cornwall for any particular reason? There’s lovely coast all around East Anglia and so much easier to commute to London - there’s a direct train to Liverpool St.

In general though, no you’re not being unreasonable but I think this might be a situation where you need to compromise and maybe work towards the end dream goal over time?!

Hi OP,
It is very difficult to have it all. We lived in Cornwall for some years and the outdoors was fantastic. The people (both Cornish and non Cornish) were lovely. But being 4+ hours from family and old friends was really tough particularly when my son would say how much he missed his relatives and wanted to see them and it literally wasn’t possible to get together for weeks or months.

If you relocate be fully prepared that due to high house prices and lack of career opportunities locally your kids are likely to leave the county to make their way in the world. If they don’t they may struggle with seasonal, low paid work. Of course that’s not the case for everybody but it is the case for a lot of people. Lots of youngsters get mopeds to gain a little independence in an area that is very spread out with sporadic public transport (would frighten me to death).

How about moving somewhere that offers a little more countryside/outdoors and buying a touring caravan or camper so you can (post covid) have affordable gettaways to the areas that you love.

I've NC for this as it's very outing. I've made exactly this move this year and absolutely love it! We lived in one of the home counties, had a huge mortgage, massive bills, debts and kids in private school. We felt like we were running to stand still and really not enjoying life.

We've now downsized to a lovely little cottage in North Devon with a view of the sea. It is exactly what we dreamed of. Kids now go to a lovely state primary in the village and are much happier than they were in private, we have already started building a social circle and have found people so much more friendly.

We love the winter weather and storms and spend ages looking out at the boats bobbing up and down when it's blowing a gail then curling up in front of the fire. We spend a lot of time out on the beach in all weathers! I'm really looking forward to spring to plan my garden and summer days on the beaches.

Cost of living is cheaper and there's no pressure to 'keep up with the Jones' '. We have a tiny mortgage and our debts are quickly going down.

I'm very lucky that my job enables me to work remotely and we also have passive income that we can live on for when I no longer work.

I won't lie the tourists can be challenging when you are trying to get somewhere but nowhere is perfect!

All in all its the best decision we ever made and my kids are so much happier. Feel free to PM if you want to chat.

@MiniTheMinx I like Hastings too, but again it’s very expensive for anything nice!

@ExpectingToFly do you live in Folkestone and did you move there from London? There don’t seem to be many beautiful parts to it, but maybe that’s unfair?

Ramsgate is another option - I’ve never been but it’s very run down from what I’ve heard. Does anyone know it - is it similar to Margate?

None of these places have the beautiful scenery of Devon and Cornwall though do they?

Our equity is about £200k, total budget about £300k.

Right action plan.

1. Get a job where you want to live- so you have some money coming in;
2. Simultaneously find somewhere to rent where you want to live;
3. Rent out your London house - this should cover the mortgage at least;
4. Move to new place for two years and see whether your partner is able to get enough work in that location.

If he is and you are all happy then sell London house and buy near the coast.

If not then move back to London house

@flaviaritt

I’d love the coast, too. But realistically, OP, your DH is right, isn’t he? His income would be precarious anywhere on the coast, and you don’t work. I don’t want to pour cold water on it but it’s not the best thing to cling to something that isn’t likely to happen.

In my case my DH works (sort of) in the city. He earns a good wage (not a fortune) and I have a new career starting. It might be that we can move in ten years, or we might be stuck here. Let’s see how fed up he gets!

This.

It's a tiny bit selfish of you OP.

Maybe concentrate on allowing DH to earn good money now, with Devon as an early retirement aim.

@Dopeyduck

Perhaps you’d have to consider going back to work and not being aSAHM if you were yo move and DH work was limited. How would you feel about that? Could you discuss it as an option? Perhaps you should look at countryside not costal and it would give you more options. What about new Forrest / Southampton? It’s still commutable to London and there is coast / countryside

New Forest is expensive.

The best life for your DC isn't necessarily living in Devon or Cornwall. Kids can be bored rigid living in small places as they get older.

If your DH's job really is tied to London then I don't see how you can do it, realistically. Unless you move and he does a weekday-lodging thing in London.
Does he work on site, as opposed to being able to WFH?

@Daisymaze

Cornwall is full. Please consider staying where you are from/returning to your hometown

Haha is everyone from Cornwall as insufferable as they are on here?

I’m Cornish and hopefully not insufferable!

DH and I were both born and bred here and, after 15 years away for university and starting careers, moved back home to raise our own family. I’m a teacher and he’s a vet so we’re lucky that we have professional jobs that we can do here. We both know that we could be making significantly more money elsewhere in the country but have prioritised the lifestyle.

I agree that many people from Cornwall and Devon on here seem rudely territorial but there is a reason for this - watch Simon Reeve’s excellent documentary which started this week for an insight into what life is like for so many Cornish young people who can’t afford to live here as adults. One of the reasons for this is that house prices are inflated by people coming in from London etc with enormous budgets. This has, in turn, led to lots of cheap housing being built on the edges of towns like Truro where there isn’t really the infrastructure to support so many people.

That said, if I could sell up my hypothetical poky 3 bed in London and buy a beautiful house in Cornwall with an acre of garden for the same money, I know I would be doing the same.

Have just seen your previous post about having a 300k budget. You will struggle to get anything nice by the sea here for that I’m afraid!

Is your DH from London too? Has he family close by he could crash with if he had a demanding contract.
I live in a city too it can be exhausting and over priced.

Have just seen your previous post about having a 300k budget. You will struggle to get anything nice by the sea here for that I’m afraid!

We could probably stretch to £320k, and I’ve found a few small cottage type places by the sea that look really nice!

Most likely Having to travel many hours to see my DC for the rest of my life when they leave home would massively put me off doing this, as nice and peaceful as it seems down there.
The opportunities for young people are just not there. It’s great for primary kids no doubt but that goes by in a flash and then what?