Sorry kids, NO INHERITANCE!

After selling her family home, Tess Stimson reveals why she's spending every last penny

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My husband Erik leaned over my shoulder as I logged into my computer and opened up our bank account. We had just £907. But then I hit the refresh button, and there it was - six figures instead of three, more money than I'd ever had in my life. We'd just sold the big Victorian house where we had raised our three children, and this was what was left after we'd paid off our mortgage. But unlike previous house sales, we weren't going to plough it back into another property, we were going to spend every penny.

Leaving the family home was certainly a wrench. We'd lived there for more than 15 years with our kids, Henry, 31, Matt, 28, and Lily, 23, and I loved it.

It had Tiffany-glass windows, a turret our friends nicknamed 'the Scooby-Doo tower' - and a boiler that was forever breaking down, wonky floors and a leaky roof.

Like many people our age, we had grown up believing that home ownership was the ultimate marker of success. I bought my first flat before I was 25, and then spent 30 years climbing the ladder, convinced that the next rung would bring security and satisfaction. But somewhere between the second leaking roof and the eye-watering council-tax bill, that dream began to feel more like a trap.

Erik, 54, put it perfectly one night over a bottle of wine. 'What if we just... didn't buy another house?'

At first, I was horrified. Rent again? At our age? But the more we talked about it, the more sense it made. Freedom instead of fixtures. Experiences instead of extensions.