Thankfully there is no new Prime Minister to talk about this month, but plenty of cost of living doom and gloom. The outlook for our planned property purchase is sadly not much more cheerful than the current UK economic outlook. Having started November hopeful that we might be in before Christmas, with our seller agreeing to move into rented accommodation and rent back the grazing, things changed quite quickly. We haven’t quite drawn a line under the idea of this particular smallholding, but the seller can not find anything suitable to rent (near enough to her livestock). After her planned onward purchase fell through, she found something else she was keen on, but last week she was outbid at the closing date. This leaves us almost back at square one, but with much less currently on the market 😦
Our solicitor seems keen for us to withdraw our offer, but while there is nothing else available that we want to buy, this seems pointless. We have left our offer on the table until such time that we find something else. We are now waiting to see what happens first; either the seller finds something else to buy or something suitable to rent, or we find something else we want to buy. The run up to Christmas is never a busy time on the property market, but with all the economic uncertainty and rising interest rates this has been compounded.
We are trying to see the opportunity and be grateful that we seem to have sold at the top of the market. Theoretically we are now in a very strong position with no chain and cash in the bank, with a potentially falling market. I think we need to let the disappointment sink in and focus on something else for a while so we can reset and move on. Looking back on the month, we had far from a miserable time, despite the very wet weather for most of it.
We started the month in a house sit near Dumfries in a house of 3s; 3 golden retrievers, 3 cats and 3 chickens. We arrived on the same day as storm Claudio, which made driving in a van interesting, but found the place without too much trouble. The homeowners’ converted barn had lovely views and the dogs were good company. It took the cats a couple of days to warm up to us, but once they did one in particular was a real character. I was going to insert a video below showing Bertie the Persian cat’s daily routine of getting in the sink and demanding someone turn the tap on. Unfortunately, the upload speed where I am is so slow, that it would take all day, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Towards the end of the week Bertie became much bolder and tried to steal dinner off our plates. I had never looked after a Persian cat before. They do have a flawed design. It’s impossible for them to eat anything without getting it all over their face, and they regularly need their eyes to be wiped. I expect its another example of human breeding to accentuate characteristics.
After that sit, we decided we would take a break from caring for animals and have a bit of a holiday, exploring a bit further up the west coast. This meant actually paying for some accommodation (shock, horror!), but also meant we got to choose our location. With holiday lets not being in huge demand in November, we got a great deal on a cottage overlooking Loch Fyne and enjoyed some spectacular sun rises from our bedroom window (see photos at the end). The weather was pretty awful, so we didn’t get out a much as we would have liked, but a wet weekday was the perfect excuse for a fancy seafood lunch. We were also quite close to the Knapdale beaver project, so couldn’t resist the possibility of seeing a beaver in the wild. Sadly, they were all keeping a low profile while we were there, but there was plenty of evidence of recent beavery activity.
Although the scenery was magnificent, we both agreed that we couldn’t really see ourselves living there full time, so we will keep the focus of our search a bit further south.
It was while we were there that the news came through that our property purchase was unlikely to proceed. This, coupled with the miserable weather and short days, caused our mood to drop for a while. We scoured the internet for other properties that would suit us, and when we found little of interest, we decided to list the friends we hadn’t seen for a while, and plot them on a map. We made that the reason to move to the next place, and headed to Shropshire and another (absolute bargain) holiday let, via Cumbria and Cheshire.
Catching up with friends and family definitely helped lift our mood and put the focus on something else for a while. The weather also played along and gave us more opportunity to get out exploring on foot again. After Shropshire, we moved over to Hertfordshire to visit Mr.Wombat’s parents for a few days and spent some time getting their allotment into shape. It had been a while since we had done any gardening, so it was quite therapeutic to be out working the soil again.
With hindsight, we should probably have stayed with house sitting, as that gives some structure to the day with animals to look after. We thought it would be good to have the freedom to explore without having to worry about animals, but when challenging weather made walking less appealing, we felt a bit lost with no direction.
With so much changing in our outlook, we weren’t paying any attention at all to the freedom fund, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when updating our numbers. I wasn’t looking forward to totting up our expenses for November, and with good reason….
- Freedom Fund Value: £1,192,145 (up £32k on last month)
- Monthly expenses: £3,389* or a withdrawal rate of 3.4% if we were to maintain this rate of spending
- Earned Income: £0
- Miles walked to end November: 1632 vs. a target of 1602**
The freedom fund has perked up a bit this month and is back to a similar value to the start of the year. This is a good thing, as our expenses have shot up this month. This is due to two main factors; firstly we spent 2 weeks in holiday cottages this month and secondly we have done a lot of eating out with friends and for convenience while travelling. We also booked a cottage for a trip with friends next July and there was a significant cost saving to pay up front. Actually if you take out the cost of the various cottages, we came in at around £2200 for the month, which is normal for us at the moment.
I have shown £0 earned income this month, but I have started to do a few hours remote coaching and mentoring for my previous employer. I will include the income when they actually pay me, which I am expecting to be a little while. I have sent all the details they need to set me up as a supplier, but past experience with the HR team leads me to expect not much will happen until my first invoice lands and then it won’t be straight forwards.
I am still on target to complete my walking challenge by the end of the year, but November did use up most of the buffer I had built up. I love a crisp winter morning walk, so I am optimistic I will finish on time, if not a little early.
So what next? We aren’t really expecting much else to come up for sale until early spring, but will be monitoring our target areas closely. I have also signed up for property auction alerts, as this could also work well for us, if the right project were to come up. In the mean time we have got back into the house sitting groove, and I am typing this in an impressive rural hall in Suffolk. I’ll write about it more next month, but let’s just say, there is a reason the stereotype of a cold draughty old country manor exists.
*Includes £500 per month personal allowances (£250 each), which may not be spent in the month, but which is not tracked. Some of it may show up in the freedom fund in the future, if savings build up and are invested.
** I challenged myself to walk the equivalent of Lands End to John O’Groats and back in 2022. This is the longest overland distance between 2 points on the UK mainland or 1748 miles.
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