Is buying or selling a house more stressful?

Mandy and I have moved house twelve times since we have been together. It has become a joke amongst some of our friends who say they never know where to send the Christmas card. I often claimed that it had just become normal for us. People would ask me why I never wanted to put down roots. I would say that we are just good at setting up a new home anywhere we go.

But this time feels more stressful.

As you know we are retired and spend more than half the year on our narrowboat. That certainly feels like home when we are there. But we want to keep a house for the winter, when it is muddy. We want to keep a house for when we get bored of the boat or are too infirm to open locks. We want to keep a house so we have somewhere with a little more space for our stuff.

And this time, instead of moving for my work, we are moving closer to Mandy’s family and friends, from Scotland to Lancashire. This week we have been spending time in both as we look to sell and buy.

The sale process has been fraught. We have been “on the market” for two years and twice we have thought the sale was happening. The first time the buyer turned out not to have the money after several months. The second time, the chain of buyers fell apart at the last moment. We have waited and we hope that in two weeks we will be moved out. It has been stressful, and the solicitors are still throwing out last minute complications such as whether we can find some paperwork the council signed off when we did work on the house seven years ago. But the removal company is booked and we have begun things like cancelling utilities. We have not enjoyed selling the house at all.

We have tried to keep buying a house less stressful but we have failed. The idea was not to look at houses until we were sure the sale was happening. Our plan instead is to live on the boat while we look. But last time we were confident and found a lovely house. Of course that has gone after the failed sale, so this week we have been looking again, with our fingers crossed on the sale. This weekend we are driving round Lancashire viewing our shortlist of houses. This should be an enjoyable time. It should be exciting to find our new home. But for some reason we are not feeling excited. Perhaps it is the worry that the sale could still fail. Perhaps it is the worry that we will make a bad choice. We are not enjoying buying the house at all.

I am naturally a very positive person. I am confident it will all work out for the best. But I don’t this stress. Maybe it is because I no longer have the stress of work, so this seems like a bigger deal. Maybes it is because it is summer, and we would rather be back on the canals. But we just want to hide in our narrowboat.

First world problems eh?

July 5, 2024 0

Ten lessons I have learnt in the first six months of retirement

This week marks the six month anniversary of me retiring, and is an appropriate time to reflect on what I have learnt.

Work is much less important than I expected. Many people would tell me that after 35 years I would miss the challenge of work, and that I would be back soon. It has not turned out that way. I have been offered odd days of highly paid work and have turned them down. Maybe that will change in the next six months but for now, retirement is definitely for me.
Sleep is great. I have always got by on about six and a half hours of sleep. Although I still like to get up early, I now have about eight hours of sleep. It definitely helps my well being.
Food and drink are far too accessible. At work, even working from home, the rhythm of meetings kept me busy all day. Now it is much to easy to reach for the cookie jar. One for me to watch in the next six months.
I love the freedom to do the unexpected. Yesterday, we were moored up, and I discovered the Falkirk monument was nearby, commemorating the battle between Jacobites (Scots) and Hanoverians (English) in 1746. I spent a happy afternoon wandering the battlefield imagining how it would have been.
Mandy and I really like each other. I had heard so many stories of couples that retired and found that over the years they had grown apart. I am not saying we never argue, but most of time it feel like we are a team. I love it.
It can be as motivating to do a trivial job in retirement as to solve a billion pound problem at work. I truly loved my work. I felt I was involved in big decisions that really mattered. I loved being involved in fixing the problem one day when no-one in the UK could make a faster payment. But surprisingly it was equally motivating yesterday to fix the electrical horn on the boat.
I miss the people from work, but am making new friends. The good news is that I have stayed in touch with quite a few of my old colleagues. Also a little surprising because I am terrible at staying in touch. But I have enjoyed getting to know new people in my new life, especially on the canals. Boaters are an eclectic bunch, but always interesting.
I think I will always be a planner. I had great intentions of not planning anything and just seeing where we ended up. But I do plan a lot – where we need to be when, what we need, what we will do. I like to think I am now prepared to be more flexible to circumstances changing. But I do like a plan!
I enjoyed the stress of work, but I am enjoying more the abscence of stress. There is something energising about the adrenaline associated with stress. In most of my roles, I was “always on” 24 by 7, ready to deal with major incidents. It was exciting. But I don’t miss that stress. My blood pressure is down and I feel better in myself.
Retirement is about enjoying the moment, not about distracting yourself. We had plans to go to Orkney for a month and then travel on the canals, as a way of distracting myself from wanting to work. These plans got disrupted by Covid, but in some ways I am glad they did. As we set off for four months on the canals now, it is all about what we will do, who we will see, and how lovely it is.

Are you retired or thinking of it? What is your experience?

June 25, 2021 1

Why even losing a water bottle can hurt

I now this sounds ridiculous. I know it is a first world problem. I know people are dying around the world from the pandemic. But I am upset today because my water bottle is broken.

Firstly let me be clear that this is totally my fault. I put the bottle in a dishwasher and… well you can see. And it is just a water bottle. I am sure I can pick up another for a few quid. But it upsets me. I think there are two reasons.

The bottle has a branding from my last job. And so losing it is a reminder that I am no longer working. I love my retirement, but as each link to work goes, I also lose that part of my identity that for forty years defined who I am.

I find myself getting increasingly upset about trivial things these days. I cry at the most innocuous of films. I cried when I heard my niece had had a baby this week. I even cried at the weekend watching ”Saturday Night Takeaway”, the lightest of light entertainment TV shows. Part of it I think comes from the retirement. I am more relaxed, more vulnerable perhaps. I no longer have to put on my emotional armour to deal with the stresses of a job where managing crises was a frequent occurrence.

And I also blame Covid-19. For more than a year we have lived under the threat of severe illness and death. We have all found ways to get on with it but now that the UK seems to be coming out the other side I think that 12 months worth of adrenaline and cortisol is washing out of my body and making me more emotional.

Or maybe I should get a sense of perspective!

Have you lost anything trivial and been unreasonable upset?

April 9, 2021 3