Hi, interested to be joining this simpleliving forum.
I am an Englishman just the wrong side of 40 currently living in Sweden. I quit my job for a software company in the UK three years ago, determined to forge a new direction for myself. I took some time out and travelled, played music and ended up in Sweden with my Swedish partner. Sweden has turned out to be a whole lot harder than I imagined it to be, and in my experience the anti-thesis of simple, self reliant living - more 'hand over your money, and we'll look after you how we see fit'. But thats another story. Determined to give Sweden a go, I struggled through the bureaucracy, hard winters and scarce job market until I had no choice financially but to return to the IT world. Luckily I got some work with a nice company as a web developer. A year and a bit later, tired of the constant struggle towards keeping my head above water let alone working towards my goals, I decided to return to the UK and found a good web development job. I still have a house in the UK so the transition back is not too painful.
My goal, as it was three years ago, which has taken a ,not inconsiderable, detour is to cash in my house in the next few years and buy something somewhere where i can live mortgage free, 25-50% self sufficient, grow veg, brew beer, have a workshop, make enough money with web development so that i can have some sort of cushion whether that be with contracts or ongoing work from home agreements.
Besides doing crazy things like moving countries I have been living simply for quite a few years. Live by the motto - useful or beautiful? - neither then chuck it. My partner, however, is a scaredy cat Swede, spoon-fed nanny state fear-mongering, emotionally blackmailed by the mobsters in state-funded insurance from the earliest opportunity! She is also a fairly serious hoarder! i am formulating a theory as two whether the two are intrinsically linked!
Nice to meet y'all!
Ed
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Originally Posted by edpf
