(Originally published on www.britishbullsh.it. Click here for more of my articles.)
Does not commute: IT boffin and ex-Londoner Paul Tunnock crunched the numbers and saved himself a fortune.
Computer bod Tunnock, now living in Clackmannan, Scotland. Photograph: @marktee
After 8 years of living and commuting within the larger London area, tech whiz Paul Tunnock, 41, had finally had enough of London’s extortionate house prices and cost of living, and turned his prodigious programmer talents to finding a solution to his money woes.
The gleeful geek typed up an algorithm which, after plugging in a series of spreadsheets of housing market data, wages, and cost of living indices, clunked out an answer. The machine’s advice? To not live or work in London.
“It was really quite obvious in retrospect,” laughs Tunnock, who promptly upped sticks and moved his family to Clackmannan in Scotland.
“My wife wouldn’t believe it at first,” he continues, sitting on a bench in Johnstone & Cochrane Park, shoulders hunched against the wind and driving rain.
“She kept crying and asking me if I was serious. But the machine doesn’t lie. We’re living the dream out here. Yesterday I bought a car for the price of a mixed salad!”
Tunnock’s revelation comes months after fellow ex-Londoners Gary Bule and David Lawrie performed their own great escapes: the former commuting from Barcelona, and the latter from the beaches of Barbados.