Are we daft to consider leaving London in these circumstances?

[LifeWobble]

DH and I are mid-40s, have 2 primary aged DC, good jobs, live in a nice London suburb with good schools, all amenities on the doorstep. Lots of green space around by London standards. Live in a small but nice house. Basically we’re happy here.

Except…DH feels like he has come to the end of the road in his current career. It’s making him utterly miserable. He is by some margin the main income earner.

In the back of my mind is a “get out plan” that involves selling up and moving to a cheaper part of the county where we could be mortgage free and not reliant on DH’s income. He could quit his job and take some time out to evaluate what he wants to do with the rest of his career.

My career would be very limited by moving out of London, as I’m in a heavily London-oriented profession. I could probably stay in my current role but move away from London but getting another job in the field that would let me work remotely could be challenging.

AIBU to consider it?

I used to live in London. In my opinion, people don't realise how ripped off they are with regards to property!

I'm now in a very pretty seaside town, just 15 minutes from Edinburgh (on the train). So, we have all the benefits of being close to a Capital City and all that offers, and our own little town also has 2 fantastic primary schools, a very good High School, 5 "posh" restaurants, every take away you could imagine, Asda, Aldi, Dominos, Subway, 5 gorgeous sandy beaches....our house is right on the seafront, with amazing views of the Forth Rail Bridge and the sea. It has 5 bedrooms. It is worth about £250k here - in London it would be about worth a few million!

There is no way I would go back to London.

If you reduced your expenditure, potentially living off your wage for the next 12 months and throw all of his salary at the mortgage for 12 months will you reduce it significantly?

This would maybe give him an out in 12 months time.

My set up is in some ways similar to yours OP. I can relate to the appeal of escaping Greater London.

If you're happy in your work and that is well paid, would it be possible to review your finances to see if your DH can take a reduction in salary or time out to re-train. Can you reduce your spending so he can do this?

Quality of life is more important than money in my opinion, though I appreciate you need to factor in long term financial security.

Sashagabadon, other parts of the country are also great for teens

That sounds absolutely amazing Blondedoglady!!!
Are you originally from that area? Are the local people welcoming?

The big worry for me would be what would happen if you moved house and your DH gave up his job but did not feel better. I agree with the poster about taking time to research your plan. I actually think it might be a good idea to look at your budget and how feasible it would be for your DH to take time out - unpaid leave, going part time (not realistic in some fields I realise). What 'talking therapies' are available in your area? This is something that could help your DH.

You may need to consider your pensions also if tied to your current jobs, how much will you lose, how long will you have to work? Now is when you have to build a pension up, not ehen you retire!

You haven't got a big enough budget to buy s house somewhere with good schools and live n the proceeds.

So you both need to find jobs somewhere else. He needs to find a job before he moves.

A few sessions with a professional career coach, is it wfh, the industry, the pressure etc. What doesn't he like?

He moves to 3/4 days a week to give heads pace to think about he wants to do.

You spend weekends visiting potential places to live. In all weathers

@Momicrone

Sashagabadon, other parts of the country are also great for teens

No doubt but london is where they live and where their friends are. There’s also plenty of parts of U.K. that would not be good for teens. London is great for teens in particular. Free public transport, loads of free interesting things to do. No need to just hang about

We are in a very similar position, once you leave London it’s very hard to come back so I don’t think we ever will, I think the children will be happier here as they turn into teenagers and young adults, if they move out of London when grown up we might follow. I definitely wouldn’t want anyone to stop working at this stage of life and career.

200k on the mortgage isn’t, by London standards, very much. Can you pay it on your income comfortably even if you needed to remortgage to do so? If you can I would stay out for now whilst he reevaluates.

This is a bad case of 'the grass is always greener'.

Do you have an idea of where you would like to move to? Do you have an idea of what you would do when you got there? Do you know what the cost of housing is in this area? What do you like to do in terms of socialising? How about schools?

Unless you have a very good idea of all of these things, you are living in cuckoo land. Go away and think about what you would like to change, then go and spend a week in the area. Have a look at what career options you might have there. Think about what opportunities your children will have there in terms of starting careers. Think about what the impact will be on them in terms of what they can do.

Think about whether the timing of doing this would be right, or whether you'd be better waiting a few years and THEN doing it.

You are in total fantasy land and have definitely been watching too many move to the country / grand designs type programmes.

If you are serious, you need to break it down into all the things you are looking for, all the things you want to change, all the things you would lose and what you might gain from it.

If you have only £200k left to go on a £900k house and you have careers in london, have kids and are in your 40s, I think you'd be pretty crazy to just do it, without having a properly good idea of just how good you have it right now. It strikes me you haven't really got much idea of what the reality of the alternative is (which is the classic 'escape to the country' mistake for Londoners).

Take your time. Investigate the reality.

We did the move to a market town. Its been amazing for us. Schools are so much better than London and there is virtually no crime. We need significantly less money than when we lived in London so loss of earnings has had literally no impact on lifestyle and our home is much bigger. We are both so much happier and no stress . Life is too short to be miserable and there is life outside of London!

No, I wouldn't move, if I were you. You have described lots of pluses in relation to where you live. Children settled in schools, easy access to third level colleges when the time comes. You are happy with your own role and so on.
Can your husband look at some kind of retraining if he wants to work in a different role?
I definitely have read threads on here where the fixer upper idea, while the man takes time out, didn't materialise into a dream home and a contented ever after.

I live in The North and usually on these threads I say yes, leave London if you can
BUT it sounds to me like your DH is running away without much of a plan where you should all run to/how it will work

With your budget it would be a no brained for me. You can get a decent four bed detached around here for 400k. You won't need 100k to fix it up if you are doing the work itself and the high schools have GCSE pass rates over 80%.

With those figures you’ll still need an income though

Unless there’s other large amounts to live off

In which case it gives you options where you are too

It sounds like you risk being in your DH's position in a few years time and might need to relocate again for your own career. Sorry if you've said, or don't want to say, but what field are you in? And how much of an idea does your DH have about what he wants to do?

Btw, nice areas outside london with good schools might give you a shock in terms of house prices. You might not have the financial space you think. £700k could buy you an amazing mansion in some areas. In others, you will struggle to get change for a 4 bed fairly modest detached. Not quite the dream house you aspire to. Which if you are looking to be mortgage free, and not work for a while, and perhaps have a 'project' isn't necessarily going to work.

Think about transport, transport, transport. You will find it hard not to have two cars in most places outside London. The kids will need lifts to most things, especially as teenagers.

Why does he need to stop working to re-evaluate his career? Everyone else has to do it in work or they can’t pay the mortgage.

If you will be the main breadwinner for a while it makes no sense at all to cut yourself off geographically from your work. You could move out round Sevenoaks, Henley, Guildford to be commutable distance, but you’re aware won’t get a bigger house. I’m not sure it’s the ‘worst of both worlds’ to have the same size house if you really want to get out of London, but you don’t really sound like one of those people who really dislike London.

But as a lifelong Londoner myself, the lure of open countryside pales at the hassle of not being able to get things or get to things quickly and having the whole world on your doorstep.

Sometimes trying leaving the rat race just leads to bigger stresses than the ones you had.

I live an hour from London. £700 k will just buy you a 4 bed but it will be tiny. £900k is more like it.

I have a totally different take to most people. Money and living in London aren’t the most important things. It’s your and your families happiness. Even if you do one career if you are good you can transfer skills to another job you can do from home or locally.

People see living in London as some kind of prize but it’s really not. Living in a small village or town is just as good and there is low crime and pollution. Schools outside London are just as good and with money saved on housing you can afford private ones.

The replies in this really do read like London is the elite and anywhere else is a total downgrade

Sounds like a mid-life crisis sort of thing. A kind of - is this what life will be like for the next 20 years.
It is easy to make moves at this kind of time of life that you will regret. And you have children to think about.
He needs to reevaluate in his current job what he wants to do. And he needs to be realistic. Plenty of people seems to have unrealistic ideas of what downsized jobs actually involve.

@Jane1978xx

I have a totally different take to most people. Money and living in London aren’t the most important things. It’s your and your families happiness. Even if you do one career if you are good you can transfer skills to another job you can do from home or locally.

People see living in London as some kind of prize but it’s really not. Living in a small village or town is just as good and there is low crime and pollution. Schools outside London are just as good and with money saved on housing you can afford private ones.

The replies in this really do read like London is the elite and anywhere else is a total downgrade

I don't think that at all. I just think that moving would be a whim, rather than properly thought out.

What's a London-oriented profession? I'm from London. I left at 18 moved up to Liverpool. Everything is three times cheaper and everyone is a hundred times nicer and more laid back. I was at university so working poverty wages and maxing out irresponsible lending debt but let's fast forward to me at age 26 getting itchy feet. I worked in the council after graduating and had a nice life, lived in a two bed flat with a friend for £400 a month all bills included. (this was 2007).

I went back to London, had to fork out £500 a month to live in a shared house with six loons and a crazy landlord, three times over, was on a salary of 28K with living costs eating everything up. I ended up depressed and sick.

I moved back up to Liverpool, took a ten grand pay cut, got my own flat again for £320/month, and have never looked back.

Life up here is so much more enjoyable. I visit London and even a short visit raises my anxiety levels. It's a fun place to visit but I would never live there again.

Much of the North is grim but there are some gems. I'm not suggesting you come here, but visit and find somewhere you do enjoy that isn't a city that charges you three times the cost of everywhere else in the country to attempt to live there.

All jobs you can think of are available up and down the country. Though I'm fully remote now by choice but I enjoy the city a lot via theatre involvement and education stuff for my daughter.