Moving area for better quality of life.

[Fearful84]

So we are currently going through a no fault eviction, and are obviously searching for a new property.
we currently live in one of the most expensive areas in the country - (south) and it is proving nearly impossible to find somewhere in our budget.
my partner works from home full time for a company based in the north of the country.
rental prices and the quality of what you would get for your money looks so much better the further North, so we are considering it. Our daughter is in reception currently so if we were to make a big move I think it should be now?
i guess my question is has anyone made a mug move such as this ? We would be leaving friends, family etc but we just want to live better than we currently do!

Loads do. Give it a go I would say.

I personally see being near friends and family as central to quality of life, so I wouldn’t.

Come on, @Fearful84 - do you not follow the news? How many millions of people are doing just that - across countries and continents - every single day? They’re no different to you …

Sorry to be so grumpy about it - but I don’t understand how you think this could be anything unusual.

You mention your DP and your DD

but you don’t mention your circumstances in your current location?

Op I recall your thread the other day

Hello, I’m really at my wits end - everything is is expensive, I have no food in my cupboards - I’ve been signed off work for a month due to mental health crisis, so wages considerably reduced. Uc has taken a huge amount from what would have helped this month for a previous tax credit debt.

How solid is your Rel with your partner?

I don’t think now is the time to moving away from friends and family

Where north? Because Yorkshire Dales market towns or cities such as Leeds or York would give you an amazing quality of life, at a price not dissimilar from the south. Whereas the North East would be cheaper but you’d have to pick well to avoid pockets of deprivation and anti social behaviour etc. Sorry, not to offend anybody, I just have experience of both.

I've moved multiple times for different reasons. I now live 5 minutes walk from the sea and it's a game changer, lifestyle is so much better. (We also have fields just a 10 walk away)

Don’t underestimate how much leaving friends and family might impact your quality of life. Do your family provide childcare with your DD? I don’t mean necessarily day to day but does she go for sleepovers, do they babysit so you can go out with DP, are they able to pick DD up from school if needed, if you needed to take DP to A&E would they have DD for you?

I’ve moved from my family, it’s hard. I’ve done a lot of frantic drives when I’ve been told relatives are dying. I’ve found it hard to make friends and most have come from work or NCT. Do you spend Christmas with your family? How will that work if you move? A 4hr trip normally turns into a 6hr trip at Christmas. You can’t expect all your family to travel to you, you moved away.

People move all the time for a better quality of life, often with children so it’s not unusual but you need to seriously consider how much support you get. I would also say, if you move north then you won’t be able to come back to the south as you’ll be priced out. So don’t make a decision based on how you’re feeling at the minute that could have implications for the rest of your life.

You're talking about moving what, 2-5 hours drive away in the same country, speaking the same language, having the same general culture, doing similar activities and hobbies, likely a similar job.

If you've always lived in one place then change can be scary but really what you're doing is a walk in the park compared to what hundreds of millions of immigrants have faced globally.

@Fearful84 we moved from Bristol to Leeds about 10 years ago, partly because we couldn’t afford to buy the type of house we wanted (3 bed semi) in a nice area of Bristol but we could in Leeds. Both DH and my jobs were easy to relocate, he had an internal relocation and I applied for a new position - once this was secured his company moved him.
pros: it is cheaper, easy access to countryside and Leeds is growing at a huge rate, there are far more opportunities here for us than Bristol which is more of an established city.
cons: the move was hard, we had no friends and most people had already formed friendship groups, it’s probably taken 6-7 years to make some decent friends (but we are both shy), Leeds isn’t as cheap as it was, a 3 bed semi in a “nice” area of north Leeds is probably £400k to buy or £1,200 to rent. I don’t know if you drive but public transport is a lot worse in Leeds than it was in Bristol and I suspect most of the south.

also don’t underestimate how nice it is to be somewhere familiar, we found we were constantly lost, simple things like knowing where the nearest petrol station is just makes every day living harder.

moving is also really expensive, moving a long way is twice as much money, you would need to travel up to view properties before you relocate which costs (and it is hard to get a property here at the moment, because the competition is fierce).

Several families on our street have done this. We are in the north east, which has relatively cheap housing. Previous poster is correct that there are some not so nice areas but plenty of lovely ones too. It depends really how expensive your expensive area in the south is, how much you’d lose income wise moving elsewhere.