Talk to me about.. a new life

Part time is not an option. Can’t afford it.

Then you can’t afford to work 6 months on six months off.

Reduce your outgoings. Cheap, old car. No new bikes. No new ‘toys’. Cut back on TV channels. Don’t buy any new clothes. Live on the unfashionable side of town.

We get away with only me working full-time, because we made the decision from the offset that we’d only get a mortgage based on one salary and that we’d not buy new cars.

Once the kids are at secondary school (they’re 9 and almost-7 now), my wife will increase her hours and work commitment and I can reduce mine.

Fixed school holidays and the mrs having a sister she wants to visit abroad has resulted in us only having half terms free until summer 2014.

😯

mogrim – Member

Why did you have children?

+1, there’s your big mistake. I was doing great on the living-in-different-places thing until that happened.

Suck it up and accept the responsibility, stop thinking of yourself.

You can become feckless later when they’re all growd up.

You’ll be a lot happier when you stop trying to argue with TJ and elf on FB 😉

Nice

Thing is molgrips, with no equity in your house and no prospect of reducing your hours you are stuck in the baby trap for a few more years. When your youngest is a little older Mrs M can get a part time job and then a full time one a bit further on.

Ride your bike and see your mates sometimes if you can. It makes all the difference.

And have a plan, it helps enormously, particularly when you are feeling shite.

i think all of us that are in our 30/40’s ‘the parenting age’ will understand all or most of how you feel. You have our empathy.

Getting out of the situation looks like the trick BUT I suspect where ever and what ever you move to, will still have some of the same feelings for you.

Some call this a mid life crisis, a realisation that where you are is where you have aimed to be so far in life, but actually it isnt what makes you happy.

And now you look for the solution, another way of living, another way of spending you time. Its an age old dilema and not one that man has found the answer for.

So in the little time you have left on this earth work out what is important, it might be a car, it might be a house but its more likely to be time and people.

A few years ago there was a study done of dying people and it asked them what they regretted, none of them said, ooooh I didnt own a porsche. Almost all of them said they wish they’d spent more time with family and friends and regretting not giving them enough time.

I wish I could live what I wrote above, but damn it, I want a new shiny bike/car/house! lol.

You are slap bang in the middle of the skintest bit of having small children. And believe me I KNOW what that’s like! Once both your children are at school the amount you pay out falls massively. Our nursery and nanny costs were around 900 a month up until July and had been that way for around 18 – 24 months. From September that falls to 100.

My advice, money wise is realise that it’s going to get a LOT easier in a few years time and try to limit the debts you run up in the meantime.

As far as time/work balance and stuff that’s entirely up to you to resolve! For me that meant a lot less riding and socialising with friends. Again that starts to ease off somewhat as the kids get a bit older.

you’ve made me feel alot better! thank you

The stuff you post tells us you are a spendthift for whom indulging in (expensive) little luxuries is your raison d’être, Molgrips. Did you ever hire thatsportscar BTW? Hopefully not with two other perfectly seviceable cars sitting on the drive that day.

Your aspirational, keeping-up-with-Joneses lifestyle means you always spend more than you can afford. The day you remedy that your life will improve, until then it will be a rat race as others have dared to pointt out. You are racing around just to stay one step ahead of your creditors.

What you eat and what you spend both come down to self-control. Eat less and you’ll lose weight; spend less and you’ll pay down your debt. Stop and think of the consequences every time you walk into the kitchen or reach for your credit card.

You are a contractor who can work as much or as little of the year as you choose, you work from home loads and lets face it work very little for the money.

Enjoy what you have, not what you want.

PS – I’m all about what I want, not what I have 🙂

molgrips – Member
We’re cursed with ambition greed.

That’s the truth of it. Ambition is working towards what you want your life to be, not the accumulation of possessions.

No point in swapping a suburban house in the UK for a suburban one on the other side of the world.

Don’t know, from where I’m sitting in Spain I’d rather be here than in the UK. Still got a mortgage, though 🙁

Similar to Stoner’s book: http://freecabinporn.com/ Dangerous viewing! (SFW despite the name!)

Where has molgrips gone?

He isn’t actually Working ™ is he?

What a capitalist pig! 🙂

No point in swapping a suburban house in the UK for a suburban one on the other side of the world.

This is a really interesting one, and probably one of the major reasons I haven’t really gone for Australia/USA/NZ/whereever despite being continually told by people (who went on holiday I hasten to add) that I’d love the ‘lifestyle’. Always wonder what dream people are comparing with when they are ‘living the dream’.

Where has molgrips gone?

He remembered that MrsGrips uses STW.

Then you can’t afford to work 6 months on six months off.

Let me explain. As a contractor in IT you earn 2-3x what you do as a permie. I was a contractor for 5 years, pissed all the money up the wall so I made no progress, now I’m a permie again.

Reduce your outgoings. Cheap, old car. No new bikes. No new ‘toys’. Cut back on TV channels. Don’t buy any new clothes.

Check, check, check, check and check. I don’t need a lesson in budgeting, I’ve been through that already. There just isn’t enough slack to transform the situation, but that’s not what this thread is about

What kind of ambition?

The ambition to DO things, not to own them. Many people are happy to go to work with their friends, and socialise with them at the weekends.

I want to travel without a schedule, be a musician, be a top class racer, do the Tour Divide, climb mountains, be a photographer, be well read, be a writer, etc etc etc. Many of those things require a lifetime of dedication on their own.

Your aspirational, keeping-up-with-Joneses lifestyle

You really should not kid yourself that you are good at understanding people. You’re absolutely terrible at it!

I can show you my credit card statements if you think I am living the high life on credit.

This is nothing more than a Mid-life crisis.

I want to travel without a schedule, be a musician, be a top class racer, do the Tour Divide, climb mountains, be a photographer, be well read, be a writer, etc etc etc.

The quicker you realise that this aint going to happen, the happier you’ll be. You have responsibilities now which are lasting. Sorry dude. MTFU.

+1

But that’s not to say that reviewing ones lifestyle is a bad idea.

The ambition to DO things, not to own them. Many people are happy to go to work with their friends, and socialise with them at the weekends.

I want to travel without a schedule, be a musician, be a top class racer, do the Tour Divide, climb mountains, be a photographer, be well read, be a writer, etc etc etc. Many of those things require a lifetime of dedication on their own.

Have exactly the same thoughts on a daily basis. Trying to find a way to do it before having kids and getting nowhere fast. Another year of work will give me ample experience to widen the potential fo contracting jobs in what I do massively. After that, I’d like to think its game on. Truthfully, the 6 months of contracting I did do were some of the most insecure times I’ve known – but that was with a different outlook. I did save a shedload of cash but bottled the 2nd part of the plan to take off and follow my dreams.

Molgrips, no disrespect, but if I had a job that meant I could live anywhere in the uk, I wouldn’t live on an ‘anonymous estate just off the M4’ . If I could get a field services job in my line of work, I’d be living a very different life. As I said, no offence intended mate.

wrecker » This is nothing more than a Mid-life crisis.

+1

But that’s not to say that reviewing ones lifestyle is a bad idea.

+1

Sorry but to me it doesn’t sound like you have the necessary imagination to change anything. take a week off.. ride your bike then come back and tell US what you’ve thought of!

I want to travel without a schedule, be a musician, be a top class racer, do the Tour Divide, climb mountains, be a photographer, be well read, be a writer, etc etc etc. Many of those things require a lifetime of dedication on their own.

So do I, but with a missus and two kids I’m also realistic enough to see that that just ain’t gonna happen. Sorry to say it but I actually wouldn’t call those ambitions, I’d call them pipe dreams.

My niece came over yesterday to borrow a load of kit as she’s climbing Kilimanjaro in a couple of weeks, it made me wonder if I’d ever get the opportunity to use this kit in anger again and I decided probably not. Sad but true.

I used to laugh at people when they talked about adults living their lives through their children but now I think I understand it a little more. For me at least it’s time to realise that I won’t fulfill all those dreams and ambitions I once had, the best thing I can do now is help to position my kids so that they might be better able to fulfill theirs. Not sure yet how to do that short of a lottery win, other than make sure they have a full and rounded childhood with all the trappings that money can’t buy.

Edit to add: I’m not actually the self pitying wreck the above might suggest – I’ve had a great time over the years traveling and getting up to stuff I probably shouldn’t so I have no regrets, I think I’ve just reached that point in life where I’ve realised it’s time to give something back.

molgrips – was it you that was going to do that off-road triathlon?

How did that go?

This is nothing more than a Mid-life crisis.

Not really. I’ve always felt this way 🙂

Molgrips, no disrespect, but if I had a job that meant I could live anywhere in the uk, I wouldn’t live on an ‘anonymous estate just off the M4’

Yep. Can’t afford to move right now, but when I can I will.

The quicker you realise that this aint going to happen, the happier you’ll be.

Of course I realise I have responsibilities, I take them very seriously. But I do not accept that I just have to give up. If you stop trying to make your life the way you want it, what’s the point? I know I won’t fulfill them all, but some would be nice.

Sorry to say it but I actually wouldn’t call those ambitions, I’d call them pipe dreams.

See above!

molgrips – was it you that was going to do that off-road triathlon?

How did that go?

It’s in two weeks, but I’ve pulled out. Can’t afford it.. of course if I were like Edukator thinks I’d have put it on the credit card…

🙂

And how did the training go? It just seems to me that you were unable to achieve that small goal, so aiming for something so much larger is doomed to failure. Not that you shouldn’t have the ambition to stretch yourself, but why not aim for something more achievable?

You need a long term plan. Personally since I’ve moved to London, my plan has always been to release the equity in my London house to pay for cheap living back up North. My friends always joked that I’d move back and buy Yorkshire, I am just about to realise that, but it probably wouldn’t have happened with out some semblance of a plan. If you want to build a shed in a wood, set a date, find out what it will cost and put the plan in place!

I will be mortgage free living in 2 years time, at which point I’m pray for redundancy from (or just leave) the middle management rat race and do something less stressful. Just have to work out what that something is now, all the other parts of the plan are in place.

And how did the training go? It just seems to me that you were unable to achieve that small goal, so aiming for something so much larger is doomed to failure

Training was going ok. If I’d had the money I’d be going, and I’d be completing it. As it happens I’m quite depressed about not being able to do it since it was going to be the only bikey thing I’d manage all year, and I’d put in a lot of work. I wasn’t unable to achieve it, I was unable to afford the fuel, the entry fee and the associated costs.

If there were a big mountain triathlon near home, I’d have entered it.

but why not aim for something more achievable?

What, like a local sprint tri? Cos I’d get no satisfaction from achieving it.

You need a long term plan

Problem with those is that they take a long time, and I’ve messed about for so long already that I’ll be old by the time they come good 🙂

you’ll still be a wage slave living next to the M4 when you are 60 in that case dude

If I knuckle down and try to pay off my mortgage asap, then I’ll be a wage slave at 60.

Which is why I think NOW is a better time 🙂

How many of those ambitions could you reasonably fulfil, Molgrips, even if you worked on them full time? Being good at just one of them would require time, effort and determination – even if you have the genes. Given you have the rest of your life then attacking one after the other you might just do it, but give yourself attainable goals as success is sweet and failure dissatifying

Travel: where to? I like rding my bike around but after a month or so I like to go home because cycle-camping is hard work and I like my cosy routine back home too (as do Madame and junior). You didn’t like Germany which is a country I feel very much at ease in. Where do you feel happy?

be a musician: I played guitar as a kid but realised that I didn’t have the talent to be great. I’ve enjoyed teaching my son though.

be a top class racer I won the British Autotest championship but didn’t have the money or talent to make a living from rallying. Pretty much everything I did was aimed at that though and girlfriends didn’t last – I lived in the car on Welsh Water’s car park when I didn’t have enough cash to pay the rent. Rallying was the one thing in my life that I ended frustrated/dissatisfied with. I’ve done quite well in Winter triathlon so all the training I did to get rally fit paid off, triathlon is quite easy as Madame and now junior are into that too. All we’ve done today is go for a run and a swim. Edit: I did big mountain Summer triathlons too but 59th at Embrunman isn’t top class.

climb mountains That’s what I did when I met Madame and gave up motorsport. We lived in a T2 while Madame wrote up her doctorate and camped under Europe’s best climbing and monutaineering spots. We still ski tour including the odd race, we’ll all climb a Pyrenean summit on Thursday if the weather forecast is right.

I’m not intereseted in photogtraphy beyond snap shots but I do like reading – mainly in French and German. I’m not well-read though, I read what I like, not what a well-read person should read, STW for example.

See that P next to your name, Molgrips? 😉 I made my money in business thanks to being quite good at understanding people. You see, I’ve done some of the things you’d like to do and done them well. I’m sure that starting from your current place I could do them too but not with the combination of South Wales, a family, a heap of debt and a time-consuming job. I hope that either you reaslise that your wife and kids are more important to you than all the other things and enjoy your current life, or that you find a way of reaching your ambitions that means your family is involved and share in your success.

Assuming you want to keep the wife and two kids (I would), you have three variables to work on: location, debt levels and job.

Page 2 and we’ve not sold the kids yet? This place is going downhill.

I’d say 4 variables – spending levels too. And it’s the one that is easiest to take control of.
Think of what you want to do, not what you want to buy.

Or page 3 even. My favourite page.

Have you thought about letting Jesus into your life?

Is educator actually surfmat?

I’m going to buy a big van at some point and drive around the UK and Europe in it.

How many of those ambitions could you reasonably fulfil, Molgrips, even if you worked on them full time?

Any of them, that’s why they are in the list.

you have three variables to work on: location, debt levels and job.

So wait – you mean.. I need to PAY OFF the debts? WOW! That’s amazing! That’s for that insight, I never realised! I’ll go do that now..

🙄

Let’s make this clear: In the past, I spent too much, although not on expensive greedy consumerist tat, but that is in the past. As of now, expenditure is at a minimum. I realise that debts need paying off, but none of you can help me plan that because you don’t have access to my personal finances, nor should you.

So we can get that lot out of the way.

The thread was actually about alternative lifestyles, that don’t require a large injection of money or the liquidation of an asset.

So far people seem to be either a) struggling along in the same boat, b) don’t have kids or c) are happy with the normal situation.

Sorry to be harsh, but it sounds a bit like you desperately want to be doing all these dream things, but can’t actually be arsed with putting in the effort/sacrifice to make them happen?

I sort of know how you feel, but I don’t think it’s healthy. Try becoming a buddhist. 🙂

I don’t agree with having no ambition/drive to do these things btw – but you’ve got to be realistic, then commit to things and really go for it – no-one is going to hand opportunities to you on a plate.

Tramp?

can’t actually be arsed with putting in the effort/sacrifice to make them happen?

Well no, not really.

But as above. I’d like to hear about alternative lifestyles. I didn’t post for help on how to budget.

but you’ve got to commit to things and really go for it – no-one is going to hand opportunities to you on a plate

10, 15 or even 20 years ago that would have been sound advice. However I am where I am.