Anyone else disillusioned with life in London/The South East?

RacyRed

I took the leap last year and it has been the best thing I ever did.

The move enabled me to be mortgage and debt free while trading my 1/2 share in a not-so-great flat for a spacious and comfortable 3 bed house.

I work part time now, earning a fraction of what I used to, but it is more than enough to pay my bills and be able to save a bit for a change. I even have enough money (and time) for a decent social life for the first time in years! I am so much better off, even with a seriously huge pay cut.

Once I've persuaded my friends in London to make the move as well (and many are considering it) I'll probably forget all about the place.

And as for beng tired of life, I feel as if I have my life back at last

not_loaded

RacyRed wrote: »

…I work part time now, earning a fraction of what I used to, but it is more than enough to pay my bills and be able to save a bit for a change. I even have enough money (and time) for a decent social life for the first time in years! I am so much better off, even with a seriously huge pay cut.
Once I've persuaded my friends in London to make the move as well (and many are considering it) I'll probably forget all about the place.
And as for beng tired of life, I feel as if I have my life back at last

Good comments, RacyRed. I feel it’s all about the old old question of ‘living to work’ or ‘working to live’. Only you can decide where the work/life balance lies.

I’m 45 mins from London by train. I virtually never go there as it all means nothing to me.
Within 10 to 30 mins commute there’s plenty of work if you want it. Within 4 mins walk I can be sitting on a rock in deserted woodland without a care in the world.

RacyRed

not_loaded wrote: »

Good comments, RacyRed. I feel it!!!8217;s all about the old old question of !!!8216;living to work!!!8217; or !!!8216;working to live!!!8217;. Only you can decide where the work/life balance lies.

I!!!8217;m 45 mins from London by train. I virtually never go there as it all means nothing to me.
Within 10 to 30 mins commute there!!!8217;s plenty of work if you want it. Within 4 mins walk I can be sitting on a rock in deserted woodland without a care in the world.

Exactly.

For me, London came to mean working all hours, trying to get to and from work when what should have been a 15 min journey regularly took over an hour. Finding myself squeezed up against complete strangers on over-crowded busses and tubes. Coughs and sneezes and all sorts of other nasties, unavoidable in those conditions.

And once home I was too exhausted to want to do anything except the necessities and sleep. And if I'd had the energy for socialising I'd not the money left over once I'd paid rent, transport and household costs. Insurances - 3 times higher there than they are where I am now, and so many other things are cheaper because they no longer have the name "London" associated with them.

It takes me 6 minutes to walk to my favorite spot in the quiet woodland near me, and 10 mins if I want to sit among heather and wild herbs

Oh, and everyone on the bus says good morning to everyone else

jonewer

Theres not much in London.

Apart from the Imperial War Museum. Oh, and the National Army Museum, and the RAF Museum in Hendon.... they're all free also... HMS Belfast and the Tower London you do have to pay for but still....

Then theres the Science Museum, the Natural History & Geological Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum... Still, not much to it is there?

Plus theres the Cabinet War Rooms.... And Maritime Greenwhich... And the Greenwhich Observatory.....

Then theres Borough Market and the Golden Hind and St Paul's cathedral....

And the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.... and the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain... and the Coulthard Gallery and the Wallace Collection....

.... And the Southbank Centre and the National Theatre.... but who cares about all that stuff? But then again, theres the National Opera House if you fancy that kind of thing...

... and theres the Mall, and Buckingham Palace, and Horse Guards, Changing the Guards every day and Trooping the Colour once a year....

....and Whitehall, and Nelson's column, and Trafalgar Square and the Cenotaph and Westminster Abbey... dont forget the Palace of Westminster either...

Then theres Tower Bridge and the Thames by Richmond, Battersea Park, Hyde Park, Green Park, Regents Park and Kew Gardens... never mind about that nonsense, eh? But theres also Clapham and Wandsworth and Tooting Commons if you fancy a picnic south of the river.....

Then theres the Albert Hall and Theatre-land... Twickenham, Wimbledon, Wembley, Lords, and the Oval...

All served by the Eurostar, Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted airports, and about a dozen major domestic railway terminus

Not much to see really. Best go live oop nurth somewhere. At least theres some pigshit there.

RacyRed

:rotfl:jonewer

I don't think anyone would argue that there is a lot to do.

But the question the OP asked was about quality of life, which is about more that occupying free time, assuming you have any.

And at least the pigshit up here is from farm animals - can you say the same for some London streets?

dx052

RacyRed wrote: »

:rotfl:jonewer

I don't think anyone would argue that there is a lot to do.

But the question the OP asked was about quality of life, which is about more that occupying free time, assuming you have any.

And at least the pigshit up here is from farm animals - can you say the same for some London streets?

Exactly!

I have done all that, been there etc, got the T-shirt

quantic

My old boss used to own a 3 bedroom flat in central london, after living there for best part of 20 years he sold up and moved up North, using the flat sale to do a 6 bedroom barn conversion while mortgage free. I was amazed at what he could build from the sale of what was just a little flat.

Tr1pp

well me and my gf have bought a place in kent (within the M25 boundary), shes grew up in london so she is more comfortable with the price we paid (which was still a good price) BUT im from leeds so i know we could have a 2-3 bed house for the amount we bought our maisonette for although the less said about that the better...its all relative right?!

as far as being dissilusioned and quality of life goes...im at uni where as she is working full time. luckily she earns 35k so in all honestly i cant say we struggle. we cant go drinking and shopping in london every weekend or anything like that. I will admit we dont visit the capital or get out socialising as often as we would like but thats mostly down to the sheer amount of course work i have to get done. when i do finish UNI I dont intend to go back up North as i have no doubt with our combined income we will be more than comfortable and be able to take advantage of what living near the capital has to offer.

I will always think London / SE is expensive regardless of how much I earn but i like the variety of things i can do down here. I suppose my argument as with many others is soley reliant on how much i earn, im just lucky that i have an decent household income, otherwise i would hate it down here

property.advert

It depends upon where you are in your life cycle. If you are single or a couple with no kids and on the upward path, London can be great, if you have decent incomes. Buying somewhere is a priority as house prices become horrendous the longer you leave it and unless the end of the world comes, prices will surely rise over time. Renting is so expensive anyway if you rent near enough to really be able to get to central London.

When you have kids, schools become important. Going private runs about £1000 a month for either nursery or prep and senior schools are up to double that. These are net figures so roughly double them for gross salary amounts. So about £25,000 / £50,000 of gross salary per sprog for private school and that is for 21+ years until they are out of university. Please don't jump in about tax allowances and sub 40/50% tax bands as you've already used those to live on. This is marginal income at marginal rates of tax.

Then you have the crime and scum and the great unwashed who live in London, even in some of the nicer parts. Unless you really are loaded you cannot get away from them and they will not move away; their number is increasing.

Move away and you get more property for your buck, you can choose an area with much better free schools, though their is still a regional premium for houses in the catchment area. That said, you can buy a heck of a lot more property with that extra £1000/£2000 a month of income which would otherwise have to have been spent on private schools. Go private anyway and you still save on cheaper property prices.

The big downside is commuting more and additional transport expense. You could hit 90 mins to 2 hours of commuting each way but then again you could commute from north London and be faced with multiple train / tube changes, squashed in like sardines and hit by poor reliability. I know !

In the end the decision is personal. My guess is that with 2 high earners then you'd continue to live in London and pay for a nanny and private schooling. If you earn the OP's suggested £20k then you are unfortunately not really in the game and you would almost certainly benefit from moving somewhere else. With one earner at a decent level it becomes marginal and that is where the quality of life kicks in. Go look at some places outside London and then come back and you'll see the scum on your doorstep, the wasters and criminals and the lowlifes. Everywhere has its problems but London has more.

MacsReturns

jonewer wrote: »

Theres not much in London.

Apart from the Imperial War Museum. Oh, and the National Army Museum, and the RAF Museum in Hendon....

I]yadda, yadda, etc, etc, ditto, ditto[/I

Then theres the Albert Hall and Theatre-land... Twickenham, Wimbledon, Wembley, Lords, and the Oval...

All served by the Eurostar, Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted airports, and about a dozen major domestic railway terminus

Not much to see really. Best go live oop nurth somewhere. At least theres some pigshit there.

This is all true, but it's all still there even if you're only visiting for a day/weekend/however long you can bear it

I tried London, lasted about 6 months. Noisy, dirty, smelly, overpriced, crowded, unfriendly, head so far up its collective fundament it thinks it's the whole f'ing country.... I got sick of seeing nothing green other than mouldy cheese in the fridge. 'Course, that was all a long while ago -- it might have improved since then, but I haven't heard it's all been demolished, so I doubt it.... :rotfl: