Finding Enough

March was a little unusual in that we spent most of it based in one place. We finished February at the house of friends in rural Northumberland, and spent most of March there too, while they were away. We made the most of the beautiful surroundings and took to taking evening walks just before sunset to watch the hares. One evening we counted 11! We also took advantage of the proximity to Hadrian’s Wall, which neither of us had ever visited. We walked a 4 mile section including Sycamore Gap, which you may recognise in the photos at the end, even if you have never visited, as it has been used as a filming location many times.

Our friends do not have pets except for a tortoise, who needed very little care apart from occasionally checking he remained buried in the heated area of his enclosure while it was cold out. This left us free to focus on hunting down and reacting quickly to rental properties becoming available.

Sadly there weren’t many places coming up. We are keen to find a base in South West Scotland, so we can liberate the rest of our belongings from storage and find some stability again until we find our permanent home. Our mid-life gap year has been fun, but also limiting in terms of hobbies and the ability to make firm plans. We don’t want to jump into buying somewhere that isn’t right, just because it is available, but honestly, the constant moving around is starting to become tiresome. Having considered many options including buying a small project cottage or even a static caravan on a holiday park, a rental seems the best solution for many reasons.

As you may have read in the media, there is a severe shortage of rental property at the moment, and this is definitely what we are seeing on the ground. Deciding that this is the best thing for us to do is a long way from actually finding somewhere. We don’t want to pay for storage as well as rent, and the thought of trying to find and remove just a few items of furniture from a storage container packed floor to ceiling, fills me with horror. This means we need somewhere large enough that we can move everything and give the container up. We did sell a lot before we moved, but this still rules out 1 bed flats.

We have found and applied for 3 places in the last 7 weeks, all of which required full applications and credit checks before we would be considered for a viewing as there is so much competition. We have very little income on paper, so we are offering additional rent in advance and/ or increased deposits. We are trying to stay vague about future plans, as I suspect most landlords are looking for long term tenants, which we can’t promise to be. That said, we have no idea how long it will take us to find something permanent to buy.

To date, we have found 3 rental properties through agencies which would be suitable, within an hour of our target area. All were applied for within 2 days of being advertised, but we didn’t even get a viewing for the first. The second, we chased across the country to view (7hr round trip). Apparently it was down to us and another couple, but the landlord chose the other couple. The third we are waiting to hear back about. We do have the benefit of being pet and child free, so hopefully something will come up eventually.

We also found one on gumtree and one on facebook. The former we spotted the day after it was posted, but someone had beaten us to it. The latter, the owner is still deciding whether to rent or sell🙄.

In summary, we remain nomadic house sitters for now. We have promised to head south to see family and friends at the end of April, so you can guarantee that’s when anything of interest will be advertised…….

A few days ago we started a new sit through Trusted Housesitters near the Galloway Forest Park, for a cat called Dougie. We are here for 2 weeks, so more about him next month, but there is a pic at the end of this month’s photos at the bottom of the post.

If there is one thing this nomadic lifestyle has highlighted, it is the need for WiFi calling as we spend most of our time in rural areas with no, or patchy, phone signal. This is not helpful when trying to stary in touch with estate and letting agents. My Plusnet £7.30 monthly rolling contract did not offer this, and with a price hike coming in April, it was time to shop around. Research showed that most of the providers that piggy back on the main networks do not offer this, and the main network offerings were not very competitive. The exception seems to be 1p Mobile, but this is pay as you go. So, for the first time since I was a student, I have a pay as you go phone. I am not yet sure whether this will work out cheaper, more expensive or about the same on a monthly basis for me.

With daily scouring of the internet for rental property leads, we didn’t give the freedom fund too much thought in March. There was the normal stream of end of quarter dividend notifications at the end of the month, but this did little to offset the drop in value this month.

• Freedom Fund Value: £1,181,550 (down nearly £18k on last month)
• Monthly expenses: £2,483* or a withdrawal rate of 2.5% if we were to maintain this rate of spending
• Earned Income: £0
• Miles walked: 132 vs. a target of 146**
• Books read: 7 vs a target of 6 (2 per month)

The freedom fund was down and expenses were up last month, but up from a very low level for the first 2 months of the year. When we headed across country to view a property for sale early in the month, we decided to make a week of it and booked a holiday cottage by the sea in Port William. This added almost £400 to our expenses for the month, so without this we would have continued to be below our 2022 monthly average spend. Even with this expense, we were still at a comfortable 2.5% withdrawal rate equivalent.

This month, we did not receive any earned income, only dividends and interest from cash savings. With further interest rate rises and a decent chunk of cash from our house sale, the latter is now supplying a steady passive income. My coaching invoices for Jan & Feb have not been paid, but I did not chase. The total value is not huge in the grand scheme of things, but the tax burden will be less if paid in the new tax year, so I kept quiet for now. My last personal HR contact at my previous employer left last month, so it remains to be seen how long this arrangement will continue for, but they have just added me to their payment system as a regular supplier, so we’ll see.

As I suspected, I was off target for my walking goal this month, due to persistent wet and snowy weather at the start of the month. I almost caught up in the second part of the month, but not quite. On the plus side, more time indoors gave me a chance to catch up on some reading. This month I added the first non-fiction title of the year. It was a book exploring the Finnish concept of sisu. It is not a term that has a direct translation, but it roughly means resilience, determination and a will to prevail. Something I think is increasingly lacking in a predominantly impatient, soundbite-driven world. Interestingly, there was a strong focus on the importance of contact with nature and the outdoors in fostering sisu.

Despite a wintry start, March definitely marked the start of spring. Not only were the hares out in force, but there seemed to be daffodils everywhere and the song of skylarks filled the skies on many walks, both in Northumberland and Dumfries and Galloway. Now there are new leaves and lambs appearing everyday and sunny afternoons are finally feeling warmer.

If you look closely you may even spot a red squirrel…….

Here’s a bonus bit of interesting trivia for you: on our travels in Northumberland last month we came across the last remaining tenter frames in the world. The process of washing and stretching cloth on tensioned frames is where the expression ‘to be on tenter hooks’ comes from. If you zoom in on the first picture below, you should be able to read the official information board. You’re welcome 😏

*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 completed my challenge 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. In 2023 I want to maintain the 146 miles a month this required.