Thinking Of Moving To Lanzarote - What Advice Can You Give Me Please

Scottish-Diva

Best advice I can share with you is for you to learn spanish.
Living abroad and being on holiday are 2 VERY different things.
For a start, you have to be prepared to work hard and fit in with the spanish work ethos. I think it's a great move, but be prepared for a lot of work and then you will begin to see the rewards....
Playa blanca is a good area to go to, PDC is busier and I dont think it is child friendly, but thats my own opinion.

Make sure you take with you a good safety nest, we used our money very quickly and I was lucky that my folks could help us out.......
We were young when we tried living abroad, you are older, so possible you will be more adapting than what we were
Best of luck

seven-day-weekend

I agree with Scottish-diva about the money. We have a small pension to live on, but we know several people who have sold up in the UK, bought a cheaper house here, lived on capital.....and run out. This is especially true if you can't get a job (not very easy).

We have a monthly pension, which albeit small, does come regularly once a month so we have to budget. We can live on it OK. People who live on capital, IMHO, don't budget very strictly, because it seems like a bottomless pit when you fiorst have it. But it soon runs out if you are not careful.

Also, we have kept our house in the UK and paid for our Spanish house from the sale of an investment property. I understand not everyone can do this, but again IMHO, it's best to keep a foothold iin the UK, if you can, at least for the first couple of years.

Hope this helps.

babiebeany

Totally agree about not burning your bridges in the UK straight away. Try to keep even a small property so you do not feel completely cut off if things dont go so well.

We have friends who moved out to Tenerife recently - they thought they could live on the capital they had but very soon found that they needed to work. They had gone out for the good life, sun, sea, relaxation, freedom from the ratrace etc but soon found themselves working in menial jobs 12 hours per day for a pittance. Six months later, they now want to return home as they are not living the holiday lifestyle they hoped for, but have to sell their place in Tenerife first.

Their mistake was to move to a tourist area which is expensive for day to day living, to move to a place where the locals employ locals and the foreigners ie Brits employ Brits on extremely low wages (as there are so many looking for any kind of work) in menial jobs. They have made few friends due to transient population and lack of time because always working etc.

Their kids however, attend a Spanish school, have many friends, are speaking more and more spanish every day - and generally are having a great time. The big problem for the parents now is, do they take them away from the life they now enjoy back to uncertainty for everyone in the UK because they themselves are unhappy.

Think very carefully - this does sound very pessimistic but is what is happening right now to my friends.

stressedoutmum

beaniebaby. Thanks for the advice. Would like to keep somewhere here but dont now if financially we could afford to do that after reading the prices in lemontrees post. Whatever we done we would both need to work - f that there is no question. Just feel ripped off living here with council tax, water rates gas and elec increases and the way this country seems to be falling to the dogs a little and abroad seems to be a better option for the children. Thats why we're not thinking of moving for about 2 years - so we can get all the info together and suss it out then. At the end of it we might not be able to do it so all advice is gratefully received.

seven-day-weekend

If you move to mainland Spain inland, the properties are a lot cheaper. (I have a three-storey, 3 bedroom house in a village in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it would probably go on the market now for around 100,000 euros). The cost of living is also cheaper (80 euros a YEAR for the equivalent of Council tax). But jobs are even harder to come by unless you are fluent in Spanish.

seven-day-weekend

>>they now want to return home as they are not living the holiday lifestyle they hoped for,<<

Yes.... al ot of people make that mistake. Even if you don't need to work, living here is not the same as being on holiday.

Luckily, my husband and I never expected nor wanted it to be!

ManAtHome

seven-day-weekend wrote:

>>dos cervesa por vavour" <<

Dos cervezas, por favor!

Don't you mean: OY PEDRO, TWO BEERS!!

More seriously, the "having to work" can be the clincher - most of southern Europe has a lower cost of living than the UK, so not really a problem if you're retiring. However, if you're not on that position it can be a tough road (despite what the "no going back" telly progs tell you).

My younger brother has given it a go a couple of times in the past 5 or 6 years (without burning bridges) and has come back both times. I'll be retiring abroad sometime in the next couple of years, but in the "don't need to work" category (advantage of being an old(er) git!!).

seven-day-weekend

ManAtHome, so hopefully you'll be ManInTheSun in a few years!

It is MUCH easier to live abroad if you do not need to work. Getting jobs is almost always a problem. I know several people who have returned to the UK due to not being able to make a living.

To the OP, I would certainly have a job or self-employment lined up for at least one of you before you move to Lanzarote. Remember also, that in a seaside resort, the work is quite often seasonal.

lemontrees

As far as crime rates go, there is very little crime on the island - most tends to be concentrated in the tourist areas and is often, but not always, brits on brits. There is very little crime outside of the main resorts and Arrecife, the capital, so it is a great place for kids to grow up. Unemployment is difficult to guage, many people here have part time jobs, juggle two or three jobs at a time or work quite long hours, and as someone else has already pointed out, wages do not compare with UK wages. But on the other hand, the cost of living is much lower, there isn't a constant stream of bills coming through the door and you can live cheaply here. You've already said you're going to learn Spanish before you come over - do - it'll make so much difference, not only to your work opportunities but also to what you get out of living in Lanzarote. There are still quite a few expats here who haven't bothered to learn the language - that's their business, but it does mean they are at the mercy of bilingual British people and the other bilingual and trilingual residents here. You may find it difficult to line up work here before you arrive, but don't be put off by it. We've been here for five years and although it's been up and down, have survived financially pretty well - it can be done.