All change.

Our family has lived in rural Northumberland for almost 25 years now. We’ve brought up two nippers, changed houses, changed jobs, and survived cancer.

In three weeks, our elder nipper will be packing up, and heading off to university to pursue a new, and exciting life in the city. It’s only Newcastle, but she’ll be residing in halls of residence for at least the first year, and it’s going to be quite a big change to all our lives. Our 16 year old is now one of the million or so NEET kids that Reform UK is committed to crushing in a couple of years time - he leaves his bedroom for maybe 15 minutes a day, sleeps during the daytime, then rises at 6pm to spend the entire night on a computer or phone. Boomer critics will have their say, but they aren’t living with a 6ft neurodivergent child suffering from anxiety and depression who has shut themselves down, and has retreated from the outside world. It’s something we couldn’t have predicted only a year ago.

So - we have a child studying in Newcastle, a mother who works in Newcastle, and a young’un without any qualifications whatsoever who has expressed an interest in studying at Newcastle College in due course. The only sensible course of action now, is to end our rural project, write off the £130K in rent that we’ve already paid to a wealthy inheritee, and buy a small home in the city - nothing flash - just a comfortable pad that will allow us to provide support to our kids moving forward.

At 61, and 58 respectively, it’s a time when we should have paid off a mortgage and be looking forward to some form of retirement, but that’s off the cards for us. There’s no respite, no big pensions, and no inheritance coming, so we will probably need to work solidly until our deaths. Our mortgage eligibility is severely curtailed by our ages, and it’ll be an expensive prospect for a small asset, but it has to be done. we currently need £4k a month just to exist. our food bill by itself was £1300 in July!

It’ll mean an increase in travel cost and time for me, but as long as everyone else is good to go, that’s a sacrifice worth making.

We’ve set a prospective target of January to secure something suitable, so the chase is on. I’ll keep you updated!