No mortgage, but no job?

GracieP

What do people who move to the country do for a living? We've been looking at ways that we could move back to Ireland in the next few years as our original plan of moving back to Dublin and my husband finding work seem unlikely with the state of the Irish economy.

One way we could move home is to buy a house in the country, which I think in a year or so we could buy a nice one for cash. Obviously not having rent/mortgage we wouldn't need such a huge income. If we were going to do something like this it would only be if we could make a huge lifestyle change, in which commuting would not feature.

If it wasn't for the recession I'd probably do something like set up a boarding kennels, but I can't see that being a big earner when people can't afford holidays. The same goes for a small organic farm. I think these industries are dependent on the public having a disposable income, once the going gets tough it will be Tesco value veg for most people. So what do people who make this type of life change do? Is it just a romantic notion that works in a boom time when you can get people to pay lots of money for goats cheese and handmade soaps? Are the alternative lifestylers starting to find that their "self-sufficiency" was as reliant on the boom as everything else in the main stream they opted out of? Or is is really possible to opt out of the rat-race.

amcluesent

>Are the alternative lifestylers starting to find that their "self-sufficiency" was as reliant on the boom as everything else...<

Yep. IMHO.

Organic this and that's are fine until you are made redundant.

Weekends away on creative writing courses are less important than paying the council tax.

Corporate "team building" is simple now - 'shape up, or ship out!'

Forget the tantric crystals, I want tamiflu!

The kids love Lidl's now anyway!

Proper grafting self-sufficiency may be viable, but expecting to life off the froth of other peeps lifestyles isn't a goer when crushing debt deflation, paying for the good times and taxation will be the watchword in Britain for 10 years or more.

PixiePie

GracieP wrote: »

The same goes for a small organic farm. I think these industries are dependent on the public having a disposable income, once the going gets tough it will be Tesco value veg for most people.

But if you can work the figures to provide people with good quality, organic ultra fresh vegs, and add some value to the service (box deliveries maybe?) and make it work for not much more than Tesco value veg then everyone is a winner. I think you have to be clever with your marketing, but people don't always just think 'base item price per item has to be cheapest'. For eg - we've just started to get a fruit and veg box delivered once a week because there was a good incentive to start now (£50 to spend after a couple of weeks) - for £15 hopefully we will get all the fruit and veg we need for the week, and therefore won't have to visit the big supermarket, only getting a couple of items a week (eg milk) from smaller retailers at a saving, and a community saving as well, and therefore will save the £40 we spend on pants stuff that we don't really need but go 'yum that looks nice'. Therefore, whilst the OH said it was expensive we worked out we will actually save a load of money doing this. The fact that it is delivered to us as well means we can spend more time working on our business so aren't loosing money whilst we take the time out to go shopping.

You need to research your area though, are there any companies already doing box schemes there? If not, why not? Are people not interested? Has the idea not been properly marketed to them?

If you think you can't go down the fresh produce line, what about other small cottage industry type things? List all the things you either already know how to do and enjoy, or would like to learn - jewellery making, wood turning, cards, etc etc and look into them. With the internet now you can sell things from anywhere (as long as you have access to some sort of mail service) so there's a whole host of things you can do and sell online.

IMHO it is very possible you just need to look at the area you are moving to to see if you can exploit it (in the nicest possible way), and list all your SWOT points to see the problems you may have, and the opportunities that may be within yourself. The biggest problem is property - and if you can do it morgage free you are laughing.

bo_drinker

Is the recession in Ireland any different or going to be different to any where else?? The Irish always struck me as people who can be flexible and diversify if needs be, I know some who have in recent times.

PasturesNew

Having lived in an area where a lot of people were moving for just such a change, there were only a few ways:
- be a public sector worker who relocated and kept their job (most popular)
- be a creative and negotiate a "work from home" deal with current employer (very few and far between)
- be in business and leave the business where it was, relocate to the countryside and simply commute once a week for essential meetings (usually they were Londoners so would fly there once a week)

You really need to "take your work with you", rather than turning up, getting the house and THEN trying to start something new.

carolt

Work online.

Loads of stuff.

Just make sure you have an internet connection.....

donnac2558

bo_drinker wrote: »

Is the recession in Ireland any different or going to be different to any where else?? The Irish always struck me as people who can be flexible and diversify if needs be, I know some who have in recent times.

Its very very bad in Ireland. Companies are closing weekly. Many companies came to Ireland as they got great deals to do so. With America and other European countries having a hard time they are retreating back home. Things are very expensive to buy in Ireland because of the euro. Loads of people are coming up to Northern Ireland to shop for food etc as it uses sterling and much cheaper. The Irish government has cut unemployment benefits and had an emergency Budget trying to raise money.

Mozette

PasturesNew wrote: »

Having lived in an area where a lot of people were moving for just such a change, there were only a few ways:
- be a public sector worker who relocated and kept their job (most popular)
- be a creative and negotiate a "work from home" deal with current employer (very few and far between)
- be in business and leave the business where it was, relocate to the countryside and simply commute once a week for essential meetings (usually they were Londoners so would fly there once a week)

You really need to "take your work with you", rather than turning up, getting the house and THEN trying to start something new.

Lot of folk have been caught out with that lately - offices in smaller places closed down, and if you can't travel or relocate, tough. No way I'd move from the city until I'm retired.

amcluesent

Public sector middle-manger in the NE is a cushy-number, cheap as chips housing, you're on £50K and her indoors is getting £30K as a teacher, can live in a detached in a village a commute into the 'toon.

drc

GracieP wrote: »

Are the alternative lifestylers starting to find that their "self-sufficiency" was as reliant on the boom as everything else in the main stream they opted out of? Or is is really possible to opt out of the rat-race.

Not sure if it's classed as 'alternative lifestyle' but apparently psychics and clairvoyants are doing a roaring trade during the financial crisis;

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/02/05/psychics.economy/index.html

It's not surprising really as when times are tough people look to god/spirituality for help/salvation.

GracieP

donnac2558 wrote: »

Its very very bad in Ireland. Companies are closing weekly. Many companies came to Ireland as they got great deals to do so. With America and other European countries having a hard time they are retreating back home. Things are very expensive to buy in Ireland because of the euro. Loads of people are coming up to Northern Ireland to shop for food etc as it uses sterling and much cheaper. The Irish government has cut unemployment benefits and had an emergency Budget trying to raise money.

Add to that, at the height of the boom 29% of our workforce worked in construction. They just kept building and building and now more than 1 in 6 properties are empty. So our single biggest employer is defunct and we have ghost estates littering the country. Even one off country houses are all over the place. I saw one I liked online and when I looked at the location map I saw nearly 50 properties for sale in the same small village.

We make almost nothing, nearly everything we export(ed) was made by MNCs. The whole economy was basically building and selling houses to each other, which "canny investors" snapped up and often didn't even bother renting out. They bought entirely for the sake of capital appreciation. Initial mortgage offers were generally about 5 times combined income but it was very easy to get more. I know a number of people with 8 times combined, 100% IO mortgages who borrowed the deposit seperately.

Foreign friends of mine who used to live in Ireland described the country as having loads of jobs if you wanted to work in a call centre or a building site. If you had ambitions to do anything else you needed to leave. Which was pretty much spot on. And this was when we were at the height of the boom.

We over charged for everything. When we came to London we thought houses were really cheap here as they were much better value than they were at home. Consumer goods seem to be about 60% more expensive in Ireland on the whole. And leisure consumables even more so. When we moved to London my salary jumped up by about 30% my husbands by about 150%. So we had a far, far higher standard of living here than we did in boomtime Ireland.

Ireland is in a bad, bad way. But our families are there, most of our friends are there. At some point in the next few years we want to go home. But my husband, in particular, will find it close to impossible to find work. So at some point is likely to have to choose between his career and living at home, and I think he's starting to lean toward home.