*sigh* this may take a while

vixx_123

We moved from South London to Kent and never regretted it. Love the countryside, villages, seaside here, and the sense of community. It's an hour's commute though, and £6k a year! My husband had to turn down a job in London last year as, although a higher wage, he would have been worse off.

crunchy_time

ohdearhowdidthathappen said:

Has anyone swapped their house for another to be mortgage free?  We had our house valued last week at £750k (£725k for a quick sale).... we're half wondering whether to move further from London, but still within a 90 minute commute.  If we downsize slightly too, we could buy a £400k house outright.  We could then save/invest the £1650 a month we're currently paying on our mortgage.  We'd aim for about 18 months time, which would be an ok time for kids school years (noone doing GCSEs/A-levels).
I think we're having a bit of a mid life crisis and are bored of working so hard to maintain our expensive lifestyle and live in a pricey area that we don't even particularly like

This sounds like a great plan!  We live 90 minutes by train from London but in East Anglia and husband is on London wages.  He works from home and gets expenses for travel to London clients (pre covid) so no commuting costs. We have friends who have sold their semi-detached London house for £550k and bought a 4 bed detached house for £400k with a huge garden - both still commute to London with a mix of working from home/part-time so earn the London wages as well.  They are closer to family.

savingholmes

I like the idea of downsizing. It's good to have options.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Ugh, nightmare.  The lockdown means the after school club can't open!  I use it for my two youngest, 3 days a week and it costs £30 a day which is ok.  I've been scrambling around today to find a childminder with places and they've whacked their prices right up.... the cheapest quote I had was £10 per hour, per child.  That's £60 a day!! And she'd only accept cash so I couldn't even use my tax free childcare account to save the 20%.  Really !!!!!! off about the whole thing.... I've asked her to hold the places for 24 hours while I think about it.  
Asked my boss if I could flex my hours for the month, which of course was a big fat NO.  Grrrr.....

peb

I'd be tempted to report her to the tax man.  

peb

House swap, if you can find a suitable Property fine, I've (from the legal side) done a few but don't expect it to be any quicker than as standard sale/purchase.  Same amount of work

Drawingaline

I would totally downsize. Unfortunately we are having to go the other way, and are doubling our mortgage (if our move goes ahead that is) we are 45mins from London on the fast train, and I can get to the outskirts in 45mins by driving, it's very doable. In fact when hubby was commuting via train, it would have been much easier for him to be working in London, rather than where he was. It was closer, but on a different train line. Where we live isn't the prettiest, but it has everything, and is close enough distance to the south coast, New Forest and South downs. 

And don't get me started on the half hearted lockdown. Still not sure if I can actually work or not. Makes no sense and everything is very wooly.

LondonLiz

Asked my boss if I could flex my hours for the month, which of course was a big fat NO.  Grrrr.....

Delurking as my advice would be to push back on this.   Do set out exactly what you are proposing in terms of changed hours (and I'm assuming that it's not unreasonable given the job you do) and make sure you have addressed any reasons given about why it won't work and suggest the solutions if there are any.  If necessary negotiate a compromise. Politely escalate it if that is unsuccessful.  If you have an HR dept ask for some advice there too -they may be prepared to intervene on your behalf or mediate something.   Worse case, try dropping a not so subtle point that as it's due to childcare saying no might be considered discriminatory given more women than men have these responsibilities.  Or make a temporary flexible working request - there are rules about considering those.  This is some of my 'day job' so can tell you some of these tactics do work if done carefully.  Obviously you know the company culture and may feel it's not a good idea to make too much of a fuss but if they do have so called 'family friendly' policies pull them up on it.  Good luck.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

LondonLiz said:

Asked my boss if I could flex my hours for the month, which of course was a big fat NO.  Grrrr.....

Delurking as my advice would be to push back on this.   Do set out exactly what you are proposing in terms of changed hours (and I'm assuming that it's not unreasonable given the job you do) and make sure you have addressed any reasons given about why it won't work and suggest the solutions if there are any.  If necessary negotiate a compromise. Politely escalate it if that is unsuccessful.  If you have an HR dept ask for some advice there too -they may be prepared to intervene on your behalf or mediate something.   Worse case, try dropping a not so subtle point that as it's due to childcare saying no might be considered discriminatory given more women than men have these responsibilities.  Or make a temporary flexible working request - there are rules about considering those.  This is some of my 'day job' so can tell you some of these tactics do work if done carefully.  Obviously you know the company culture and may feel it's not a good idea to make too much of a fuss but if they do have so called 'family friendly' policies pull them up on it.  Good luck.

Thank you, will try some of these.  She's softened a bit when I suggested working 2 x 12 hour days on their worst staffed days (Mondays and Fridays), OH reckons he can wangle doing the school runs and our 16yo can look after the younger ones from 3.30-6.  Not keen really, but for a month it might be the best solution

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Drawingaline said:

I would totally downsize. Unfortunately we are having to go the other way, and are doubling our mortgage (if our move goes ahead that is) we are 45mins from London on the fast train, and I can get to the outskirts in 45mins by driving, it's very doable. In fact when hubby was commuting via train, it would have been much easier for him to be working in London, rather than where he was. It was closer, but on a different train line. Where we live isn't the prettiest, but it has everything, and is close enough distance to the south coast, New Forest and South downs. 

And don't get me started on the half hearted lockdown. Still not sure if I can actually work or not. Makes no sense and everything is very wooly.

It's all such a pain, isn't it?  I get the theory, but people aren't following guidelines and symptoms are so vague testing effectively is impossible.  Plus the whole tracing system is so clunky and ineffective.  Ugh.  It's all going to drag on for months/years