To move away from family and young adult DC to pursue my dream?

[ScoobyDoesnt]

Brief summary: I’m F51 and divorced with 2 young adult DC living at home, one working FT, one at local uni due to graduate next summer. Mum and siblings / their children live locally to me now.

Have a great job working 4 days a week earning £60k plus commission/bonus, own my house mortgaged with c£200k equity (relevant later). Mainly work from home, with maybe 4-5 days in London a month.

DC1 will be moving in with partner next year, DC2 could end up working anywhere when graduated. Both have a good relationship with their DDad who lives locally.

There’s a part of the UK I’ve been visiting since I was a child and absolutely love. I’ve been 4 times this year, and get grumpy when I come home! My absolute dream is to move there, potentially have my own cafe or similar business (currently work in leisure and hospitality) and be able to spend my time in a place I love, on the coast, quite touristy but not to the extent of what I perceive in say Cornwall.

My AIBU: should I sacrifice good job / income and moving away from family / DC (it’s about 3 hours drive) where I could buy a cheaper property with a smaller mortgage and run my own business. Plan would be to do so next year. Or am I being selfish?

I think moving to location you love while keeping the secuity of your job and good salary (which will be better than the local average wages) is a great idea,then you can see how it goes.

location and feeling at home in a particular place can be so key in feeling at peace and connected to somewhere. I moved from southeast to more rural coastal area away from family and friends and feel totally at peace here. No regrets at all, so carpe diem OP.

We often go on holiday to somewhere similar to the one you described and I can get grumpy too when we come home.

There's a local joke, "how do you get a small fortune in X, start off with a huge one".

I would visit in the Winter, have a look at the footfall. Just stand outside the property you're interested in and count how many people walk past in an hour.

Also check out what the energy bills and business rates are likely to be.

Sounds fabulous (will be hard work though but you’ll know that). You’ve done your bit for them. Your time now. Best of luck.

I would investigate renting out your current house for a year to cover the mortgage, then move and rent in the new location and keep your current job. Try it on for size for a year so you get all the seasons in the new location. Then make a decision on selling your house and buying in the new location etc etc

I was just about to type the same thing!

TBH I wouldn't do it. I live in an area like the one you're describing (Welsh coast, quite touristy), and it's very beautiful and I'm very lucky to live here. But any location which has lots of seasonal jobs is a crap place to run a cafe. Even the locals don't tend to use them as much in the winter.

Also, we get many people coming here after visiting/owning a holiday home here, people who genuinely love the place. So many of those get really lonely. They might join clubs etc, but yet again, clubs and social gatherings do dwindle a lot more than you'd expect between October and April.

Just keep your job and move. If you can work remotely then you can work from your new location. Travel up to London when needed.

If your job allows you to wfh why not move/rent and commute from where you want to live ?
Test the water before throwing away a lucrative job, chances are running a cafe could be more of a daydream than a wise financial choice