I want to give everything I've worked so hard for up and run away to the country

[tokenname]

Feeling SO fed up right now, and angry, and scared.

I worked really hard at school, got top grades, got into a very well-regarded university etc. with a good degree (not hugely marketable, but useful for certain skills, and then gained post-graduate professional qualifications on top). All this designed to live independently, as my family have issues of their own and can't help me out, and I've got a dread of relying on a DP financially.

I've been working for the last 15 years in a series of fairly well-paid professional jobs, enough to pay my rent and enjoy socialising in London to a certain degree. I've saved a bit but never managed to save enough for a deposit on my own.

A company I thought was pretty secure to work within, as I have for several years, has now turned around and said they're restructuring. My role effectively no longer exists, they've suggested I can interview for a fairly similar role but it would be more and less interesting work.

My landlord this week has said he wants to put the rent up to an amount which would wipe out any saving ability I have, and while I love living where I do, I'm also aware of the drawbacks. It's polluted, it's noisy, I can't do my favourite hobby to the degree I like (it'd be easier in the countryside) but on the other hand it's close to my friends and other things good for my mental health.

I don't know what to do. I feel torn; on one hand I've got visions of the space and freedom to do my hobby in the countryside but I'm sure it'd be very lonely. And the rent up North would be substantially cheaper but I'm scared I won't find a well-paying job to cover it. I know various areas in the North pretty well, but I moved to London as I suffered from depression there, and I'm scared it'd return if I made the move. All the things I'd put in place to keep me feeling secure are up in the air...any advice about how to proceed would be so welcome.

Can you take some time out , sounds like you need a break and it may not be the right time to make a permanent decision right now?

Only my own experience, but I wish now I'd made the move to the area where I would really love to live when I could, away from polluted and crowded towns before my 30s ended. I'm stuck in the place I am now, due to a whole lot of circumstances that gradually add up in the next decade or two of life beyond 40, and will now never be able to do it, and I will always regret it.

Do you have to move "up north"? There are loads of lovely places to live in Britain.
And I'd say that your friends now will always be your friends and that you will also make new ones. "Make new friends but keep the old. For the new are silver but the old are gold".

You are having a rough patch - so acknowledge that, life is really shitty sometimes.

I don’t think you should be making any major decisions right now, so I would focus down on finding a job and a place to live - get your life stable, then you can think about whether you want to make a big move.

Once you have stabilised the day to day, take a step back and a look at your life - you need some financial advice to buy a home and sort out a pension and possibly some career advice to increase your earning power. I’m guessing there might be an option to move to a smaller city with cheaper housing and better access to the county.

Don’t try and fix it all now, just get things stable and then take a step back.

Could you give us a bit more info re. the industry you’re in and where you’re living now?

Things are stable up until about September, if I am not earning at that point then I'll be eating into my savings.

I don't think I can afford to rent in the SE anymore. I could potentially even buy a cheap place in the North but will need a well paying job to do that. I wonder if I need to focus now on getting a good job well away from London.

Try a smaller city? It’s not London or the middle of nowhere, you could move to somewhere like Cardiff or Manchester for example?

Name change fail.
I thought Manchester wasn't much cheaper than London these days, but will take a look!

If you like the countryside it's a damn site easier to live in the country and commute in for work.

Good train links from, eg Cheshire and the Peak District

Hopefully all the education and training and working you have done puts you in a strong position to look for another job ( soul destroying as the process can be ) - you have set yourself up well to make changes

So work out where you want to be, where jobs are close to your hobby and take it from there

If you are planning a major move , you could rent somewhere smaller , less good in the meantime ?

up North

You’ve had a shock - but where?

Stoke? Wigan? Newcastle? Wilmslow? Carlisle?

I see this time and again on MN, where the overriding view is that the north (and no one ever clarifies if this is north of Birmingham or north of liverpool or north of Preston) is cheaper and while jobs may not be as plentiful, the dirt cheap cost of living makes up for it.

That may have had some truth in it once (although still a naive generalisation at best) but now is just wrong and a bit daft. There is fierce competition for houses and flats to rent. They vanish within hours of going on the market, and the prices reflect this. The one bed flat that I used to let out for £400 a month recently was let out for £625. That’s in a nice enough town but certainly not Alderley Edge or Hale or Didsbury.

If you want to live rurally in the North, that also comes at a cost. Cheshire has some extremely expensive pockets. It’s a beautiful county but eye watering cost wise. Everything has gone up here: it used to cost me £65 for my hair to be coloured and cut, it’s now nearly doubled.

There are some cheap pockets of the north but they aren’t where you will find beautiful, unspoilt countryside. They are in industrial towns that are down on their luck, weighed down with unemployment and homelessness and pound shops and they are depressing as hell even to go through, never mind live!

I’ve done it myself - knee jerk responses to general dissatisfaction with life - but on here you do sometimes get this sort of ‘oh yeah get away from that London and somewhere cheap!’ It really is a daft myth.