Anyone successfully pulled out of the rat race?

[MrsDoolittle]

Dh and I have been discussing the possibility of just pulling out. Both of us are doing stupid mileage to work - 70 miles a day each!! House prices here are hideous and I would like to avoid all traffic. What's more we don't see an end in sight. This is it for how many years? I would love to have a couple more children.
So we have been thinking... just supposing we jumped out of the 'rat race'.
Has anyone done this? Anyone else thinking of this?

Err we don't have a mortgage! But we think it's about time we did - we're just waiting for the market to settle down a bit. We are in Oxford and we couldn't afford a shed here!! That's with 2 full-time above average salaries. But then that's largely due to the fact we would like another baby!

Never was in 'the rat race'. Life is or isn't as 'rat race' as you make it. I don't think it has a/thing to do w/living in the country, although it makes for good television programming. I've lived in cities all my life, but was a very active outdoor athlete - rock climber, skiier and later high-altitude mountaineer. Outdoors or urban, there are just different sets of challenges. If you see them as stress, however, then that's what they are.

Right now, we have no mortgage. We can't afford even a studio flat here. But it's of no concern to us b/c our values aren't centered around owning things. We are debt-free.

Peace and calmness are the constructs of a centred soul. If you have these, then there's no 'rat race', no matter what conditions you live under.

hmm, have not always been in rat race & spent much of working life abroad avoiding it in conventional UK sense- though in both v highly paid career jobs & lowly but interesting voluntary sector work.
now, like so many, unexpectedly mortaged to hilt, earning loads relative to many I guess, yet still feel broke! something went wrong somewhere there... guess it's really hard to move away from London's orbit and all its many opports for really well-paid work, tons of jobs, familiarity, culture etc etc. don't know what to advise, as not got it sorted myself, just do what makes it worth getting up in the morning i suppose, whatever that is which motivates you.

Feeling broke can often have n/thing to do w/money.

am intrigued expat - can you explain a little more?

Well, let's just put it this way: if money can solve it, it isn't a problem.

I've been technically skint all my adult life. I'm skint right now. But I don't feel poor, or stressed or rushed and anxious.

Robert Louis Stevenson said it best: 'Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.'

If you have more than your basic needs covered, yet you still feel broke, maybe it's time to examine the kind of poverty you're really in.

i don't feel broke - just don't feel that i am where i want to be - an intangible, unmeasurable emotion

you sound like you are at a good place

it is great to know that balance can actually be achieved, rather than just discussed - it's finding out how to get there that's evading me

balance is all in the mind is what i'm driving at. it has n/thing to do w/the size or location of where you live, what you do for work, etc., altho those things can affect it immensely - b/c we let it do that.

where reason cannot show you where you need to go, then follow the impulse!

expat...you mentioned you didnt have a mortgage...if you dont mind me asking, why dont you have a mortgage? are you renting? or did you pay for your property outright?

We rent. Can't afford to buy property in this town.