to think I will never be able to live in Cornwall again unless we live in a tent and clean toilets for a living?

[livethedream]

(Have name changed for this one as am currently bleating on a lot about this in real life.)

I used to live in Cornwall when I was in my twenties but I accidentally moved away, met DH, had children and am now stranded in the town I grew up in anD I hate it.

I dream of going back to Cornwall and bringing up the DSs there, and decided to focus on making it happen and we have been looking for a job there for DH who does IT support. There is nothing advertised, ever and we've been looking for nearly two years.

He could take a lesser job and pay he was on 15 years ago, which would then put us in a rubbish position to get a mortgage, or we could resign ourselves to never buying and rent something very cheap whilst we both do random minimum wage work to make ends meet.

I dunno, on the one hand I feel like if we want it enough we could make it happen, but then in reality I just don't see how. Shoudl I just accept this and go and live somewhere I like much less but where employment isn't nigh on impossible?

What do you mean, rent somewhere cheap?
There is nothing cheap to rent in Cornwall....

I've found 3 bed houses to rent for around £500pcm which is £200 less than we pay now. But then we'd no doubt be earning less too.

How the hell does anyone live down there without being wedged? Sigh...

Hi,

We move to Cornwall 1yr ago and LOVE it here!

Could your Dh look for a job in plymouth and comute?

We found it a struggle at first (Dh is a builder) but soon found our feet.

I wouldn't say never ever, we live in the yorkshire dales and I would love to move back to the hamlet I grew up in but had to move the market town instead. We keep our ears to the ground for prices and opportunites, if you would be happy renting because you love the area then go for it, only in the uk is so much emphasis placed on 'buying'

500pcm?!?! Wow! For a 3 bed house?! Thats a studio flat here in London! (Zone 6)

We've been looking in both Plymouth and Exeter and it seems that nothing ever comes up in 2nd line desk top support. Maybe two jobs have come up in the last two years, and they have both been for £10k less per year than he's on now.

He would have to take a job that is totally different to the one he does now which would inevitably mean a massive drop in income.

If I thought that a few tough years whilst we got ourselves established woudl lead to decent prospects/standard of living I'd be off like a shot, but I don't want to find that we're skinted and scratting around for rent money forever.

But I will be sad forever about not living there! We coudl just be sensible and move somewhere up north where there is work and more affordable housing...but...

You've got to be happy.

But I just moved back down to Cornwall for my job and to be honest, I wish we lived somewhere else. I remembered it as an idyll in my head, and it is lovely in the summer but...

The property market is really slow down here.

It's hard to find a decent house that isn't ridiculously priced; where I am at the moment, you either have the choice of a dark, dingy old miner's style house, or a brand new house with ill proportioned rooms.

The nearest big town to us is Truro... cue a 45 minute long drive (IF you don't get stuck behind a tractor) to get to a decent supermarket.

For some reason, lots of things don't extend to Cornwall. There is one Waitrose (on the border with Devon), there are no John Lewis', no decent shopping outlets, lots of the delivery services from supermarkets don't reach a lot of people.

Be prepared to spend a lot on petrol. A lot. A car is an absolute must. There aren't many places down here that you can live that has everything within easy reach.

There is no such thing as a Vue multiplex/bowling alley/Nandos/insert any number of things in Cornwall.

In the winter, it can be quite an isolated place to live.

But, on the other hand, there is more to life than shopping/entertainment complexes. The beaches in the summer are delicious. There are some beautiful places to live, and we live in one of them, which makes us pretty well break even with all of the above. It really depends on you and your family, but don't be disillusioned. Don't move down here just on what you remember because in your head, you'll remember the lovely mediterranean summers on the beach. Maybe you could move further down to the south west, but stop short of Cornwall? What's wrong with Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth? There are some lovely places just outside any of those three, and they're not so isolated. Plus they have the benefit of a motorway...

Have you approached the MOD? They have a LOT of bases in and around Plymouth, and they don't have their own IT people. They hire them in from the outside. For criminal prices, I might add. I just called up IT support to get a wall socket (with an internet plug sockety thing. I don't know what they're called) for another computer in my office for the girl who just started working in here. They asked £3000. We said no. They still charged us a £450 callout fee. The MOD don't always advertise, sometimes you can just call their bases up, get put through to their civillian relations people and see what jobs they have available.

Jazzie - I'd be really happy to live near Exeter or Plymouth, but it's the same situation! I used to live in Exeter, north Devon, North Cornwall and South Cornwall and work was a big problem for me then. I'm now thinking I'm going to set myself up as a freelancer but it will take me a long time to do this, I need to fit it around looking after our very young sons and it won't be steady which is why DH needs to be in stable employment to pay the rent.

Oooh, Jazzie, that is interesting. I was wondering whether it was worth just directly targeting companies in Plymouth whether they were advertising or not, on the offchance. I'll look into that, thanks for the tip!

Hmmm - totally see where you're coming from on all counts.

Moved to Milton Keynes from Devon where I'd lived since the age of 5. Managed to stay there for 5 years do get myself a good job and now am VERY VERY lucky that I still work for the same company, but they were happy for me to move back to Devon (after meeting my DH when I came back for a weekend) and I now work from home.

A lot of companies these days do let you work from home - I guess for your DH that would be tricky though if he's in IT Support. Is it call centre based?

But in respect of the money, if I wasn't doing this job and working from home, we couldn't afford to pay our mortgage at all. An equivalent role for me down here would pay about £15k less than what I'm earning - so God forbid that I lose my job, we'd have no option but to sell up and move into rented.

Of course none of this is helping you, sorry, but have a think about working from home options. Is there a different role that your DH could do with his current employer that would allow him to work from home?

Well, we do it but wages are low,house prices high.
Jazziejeff makes a lot of valid points.
Also water prices are high and a monopoly, roads are jammed in summer/ bank holidays, public transport dire.
I would never go back up north or back to a city tho.

Dawn - sounds like you've got quite a jammy set up!

DH is contracting at the moment after being made redundant and it's all a bit temporary. (As is our entire living situation - we sold our house last year and started renting to make it easier to move when the right job came up. But the job market's been tough the last year or so!)

Ultimately I think DH would like to retrain anyway and I have a few airy fairey ideas in my head that I'd like to look into (like living in a tipi for a bit whilst we get ourselves sorted!) but it's hard to be airey fairey when you've got to figure out how to put a roof over 4 heads...

I was under the impressiont there were lots of retired types living in Cornwall. They may well all use internety stuff, but perhaps have problems with computers.

Would your DH's skill set extend to troubleshooting computer problems, setting up home networks etc. as his own business? Are there any areas there where perhaps IT people in general are thin on the ground and he could offer things like web design, IT classes (above and beyond those offered by local college - or indeed act as a tutor to colleges)?

Just a thought, like!

The air here has no internet in it

alexsdad - I like your thinking, and I think DH woudl like that too. He's been talking about moving more into teaching at some point. I wonder if he could set up something like that, and what the competition would be like (and what the scope would be?) Definitely worth a look. THanks!

It's not just cornwall; we're from Somerset and we won't be going back.

Oh compared to prices in Londoin etc house prices look good.... but the wages there are minimal too, which is the problem. Actually the town I grew up in is cheap- but for a reason, a reason enough to prevent me ever accepting living there agin.

There are other palces as nice as the ones we remember from our childhood though. We landed in a part of Wales that is both beautiful, cheap and easy to access three cities from. it just takes a certain amount of bravery and luck to find somewhere good.

Careful of the MOD, defence cuts rapidly approaching and it will be the peripheral support those cuts fall on, as the front line needs to be maintained first.

Where are you Jazzie? My house is in the Tamar Valley, and I really miss living there. For us, there is a choice of Waitroses as we are not that far from Okehampton, so can shop there or in Saltash. If you want all the high street chains, then why live in Cornwall - that's part of the charm. I now live 20 minutes from the centre of Brussels and hardly ever go in, as everything I need is in the little town we live in, and the rest I can do by mail order.

Price wise, I rent out my period 4 bedroom detached for £850 per month, plus the bills and the CTax. That's top of the market I think, so I haven't raised the rent for 3 years as the tenants are fine and we cover the mortgage out of salary anyway.

SanctiMoanyArse (brilliant name!) I've also cnsidered Wales as it's not disimilar to Cornwall in patches but less famous so less crowded, but I thought we'd be in the same boat there work wise too.

Can I be very nosey and ask whereabouts you are and what the work situation is like there?

I think I'm reckless brave enough for all of us, but it's the luck bit that's stalling us...

I am near Helston scary.... right down in the back of bloody beyond with the RN. I lived in Plymouth as a child and can't believe I missed out on a posting there!
I don't want all the high street chains exactly, but the fact you have to drive over 2 hours to be able to get what you want is a tad ridiculous in the 21st century I think. Still, I didn't choose to come down here, I got posted here so I do see more of the negatives because it wasn't a move of choice.
OP, yes I'd definately target individual companies for work. You don't know until you try, and some companies 'internally' fill a position to avoid advertising a position.

We live in a palce called Caerleon- Newport is quite badly hit atm but DH's field in fairness is very differnt (was in haulage management). IT wise, there are quite a lot of universities and IT comapnies around Cardiff / Newport way, and you might find you like the Gower for example.

I like Wales: i'd head right off to Pembrokeshire but not for DH (who is doing a degree in stage and theatre lighting at the adavnced technology dept in Glamrogan. My own experience though is that schools tend to be better here (we;'ve ahd issues but only as my boys ahve SEN, generally theya re good) and having the Assembly on side has helped LOL.

if you could live with rural but not sea, you could also look at work in bristol / Gloucester / Bath and consider MOnmouthshire, Usk and Raglan in particular arer gorgeous.

Our friend used to be XO at Culdrose; Seahawk Gliding Club is there isn't it? Dh drove his glider down one day and had his CofA done there.

You get Cornwall, and the RN sent us to Brussels; still better than Portsmouth or Collingwood methinks, and dh says MoD job over his dead body.