I lived in a one-bed flat in south-east London, then shared a two-up, two-down with the Other Half in E17. I quit work, renovated the house (doing most of the work myself, but making sure it was top notch) and then we sold up.
We rented in Oxfordshire and North Yorkshire, keeping our capital intact until we found the croft. It only took five years searching.
Even then, we only just had enough money for the 25% deposit the mortgage provider wanted and we had to have a third of the mortgage as interest only. It means that when the OH's retirement comes up we'll have to sell up or find some money from somewhere.
But, it also means we were able to move to the croft while the boys were little and while we were fit and healthy enough to do all the hard work by hand.
I'd much rather have 25 years of bloody hard work, no money and happy kids, then have what appears to be a decent salary and be stuck in suburbia or the inner city.
About the only wary note I'd sound is to think very carefully about what you want from a place.
In hindsight, we should have stuck to the original plan and bought more land with a rundown house for about £25-30,000 less than we paid for the croft. We could have then sunk that money into a wind turbine, PV panels and a used electric van (eg a Kangoo Electrique) for commuting/shopping trips. (Keeping the Defender for heavy haulage and family outings.)
The monthly savings on energy (electricity, heating oil and diesel) could then have been ploughed back into the house over the following 10 years or so. Even allowing for maintenance and replacement costs, we would still have been ahead by about £180-200 a month. (Enough over the past four years to have paid for a tractor, more fencing and pig arcs, and still spend a grand or two on the house.)
What we actually did was buy less land with a good house — and paid for the privilege. We had enough money left over for solar hot water, which has helped, but it's proved extremely difficult to keep energy costs low enough to have money to spend elsewhere. And we certainly don't have the money for micro-generation now.
As to why we shifted from the plan, well, you'd have to talk to the Other Half...
She does agree with me now, though.
