Moving to be mortgage free

[lulipampin]

Has anyone done this? DH and I currently working in jobs we don’t enjoy much, just to pay the bills. We are currently in SE, looking to move north to the town where we met, which we love and have missed since leaving. We love the town but have no support network there now.

if we sold our place here we could be mortgage free up north. We’ve talked about it for ages but have seen a property that would be perfect it has an annexe for supplementary income which would help take pressure off us even more and would be a place for family and friends to stay when they visit.

However…All my family, BIL and our friends are in SE. We moved to our current house 4 years ago and know our neighbours here and are fairly well settled in the area.

we have 2 DS, one due to start school in sept this year and the other is 1. The 4 year old has some friends from nursery, and sees his grandparents often. MIL lives in Europe and currently comes once a month, my parents are 15 miles away.

it would be awful to leave the people but we are both hating our jobs and dreaming of how it could be if we moved. We would still work, I would probably go part time but we could actually save money for our boys/retirement.

has anyone done this? Or would anyone do this in the same situation? I’m worried we might not make friends easily but I think once DS1 started school we’d get to know people…

any thoughts welcome! Thanks for reading

It depends so much on factors such as age, income etc. You sound quite young to be taking the foot off the jobs and income pedal. Reducing to part time could affect your long term promotion and pension prospects.

Jobs are stressful but so is financial insecurity.

@AlphaApple thanks for your reply - I definitely see your point, we are early 30s, both on average income. Ive never had a job I really loved, so I’ve always struggled with the idea of needing to go in every day to keep the roof over my head. Though I know that’s reality for a lot of people. I think really I’d like to be at home a bit more until the youngest is at school and then maybe look into self employment. But maybe all this sounds really naive!

The only thing I'd add is, make a plan to run toward something rather than running away from your current situation. By all means go part time, but don't use it as a reason to put off making a career plan now. Otherwise, I think you might find that time runs away with you and big gaps in your career can be a turn off for employers if you don't have positive narrative spin. If you aren't enjoying your jobs, what sort of career would you enjoy? If one of you wants to retrain, could the other suck it up for a few years in a less enjoyable role and then the other gets to retrain in what they want to do? If relocating helps to unlock those opportunities, then go for it.

Coming at things slightly differently (based on my recent experience)…

It probably won’t be relevant for a good while for you, but as parents age, it can be super stressful knowing you’re a few hours away from them if they’re in need. That said, it’s not insurmountable if you are. I guess my point is that the support network can work both ways.

I think @Gekko21 makes good points.

You've done well to get onto the property ladder in the SE in your early 30s on "average" income. But the reality is, pretty much everyone has to work to pay the bills, in jobs they don't love.

Move if you want to, change careers if you think it will make you happier, but life is only going to get more expensive with two kids to raise, so be careful what you choose to drop out of.

Another thing to think about OP is that even though you might be mortgage free the rest of life will continue to cost money! Food, bills, holidays etc.

I also agree with @AlphaApple you are quite young to be winding down. It sounds like you might not have found your thing yet. You are young enough to retrain and go in a completely different direction. Maybe you need some career advice?

What is your budget up North for a house?

How portable are your jobs?

Work is work it is just geography if you still have to work to live.

You can’t rely on one annex giving you a financial boost unless you are in London or an all year round attraction city.

I don’t see stepping off the gas for work as a problem as not everyone is career driven, but the support network is a different matter. It’s lovely for your kids to grow up with family near by as well as super helpful during holidays and if they are Ill - then later in life so much easier to be close to aging relatives. However, your kids are at the age where a move would not be very disruptive for them so if you’re going to do it now is the time.

I was in a similar position when my children were small, OP. We were self-employed and couldn't have stopped working and lived mortgage-free, like you, but we did have a lot of flexibility about where we were based, and could have lived somewhere cheaper than the SE. My PILs were very opposed to us leaving the area they lived in, laid it on with a trowel about support network etc, and offered us a chunk of cash for a house deposit. Making a big move is inherently daunting and all the various pressures added up to our accepting their offer.

The thing is that making a big move becomes much harder as your children become older, get settled in school, have friends and lives of their own. And the SE doesn't get any cheaper. And although we had that initial help getting on the housing ladder, as our family grew we needed to move and the initial help was diluted in terms of the size of mortgage we ended up needing. I can't tell you how much we ended up regretting accepting that help, and how many times we tried to figure out ways of cutting down our outgoings but always coming up against the fact that one or other of the kids was at a bad stage to be moved. We really struggled financially for various reasons, and I would say it was one factor (not the only one tbf) in the fact that we split up eventually.

So my advice would be to think very carefully before dismissing this idea, because in practice you may not get a second chance, even if it's not now-or-never in theory. Kids starting school is an ideal time and way to expand your social circle and build a new support network, and there won't be a better time to do this imo.