Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

Mrs_pbradley936

EdInvestor wrote:

Now that's an interesting thought, what sort of price for one of these transAtlantic crossings? ( I assume it's a one -way?)

Well I have a UK bank account and a US one so depending on the exchange rate I pick and choose which card to use. But I have had a Celebrity 14 day cruise for £1200 or $1800. It is one way. I have taken a few but the best has been from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale. The ships leave in October or November from Europe and from the USA in March or April. Lots of cruise lines do them but I prefer Celebrity.

lesandflynny

Hello Everybody

It was really helpful reading this thread. We have a holiday home in Southern Spain and are planning, carefully, to move there next year with our children 6 & 8. We will live inland and keep the holiday home to cash in at a later date.

We are 42 & 48 respectively and will rent for about 6 months initially, I am currently looking at long term lets inland.... any tips would be appreciated. During this period we will sell out UK home and buy a smaller property to rent out, but also as a safety net in case we need to return to the UK.

We do not intend to work because we are hoping to find a nice home to rennovate and this will no doubt take us a couple of years.

We have budgeted for about 8k per year to live on until our pensions and other investments kick in. We also have an emergency contigency pop....

As such i am relieved to read that seven day weekend can live off 7k, yes we will have addittional expence because of children but with no morgage and an excellent money saver that I am, i am sure we can do it.

I just wnated to say hello to you all, tell you our plans, and share our journey with you. We hope to be planted in southern Spain by September 07... we have two or three visits planned before that to find a home to rent.

Hola, Hello,
Diane

Beamish

A very interesting thread.

We bought a flat in Gandia Port (Valenicia) 3 years ago and have updated the kitchen, bathroom and some windows. we bought at £30,000 and now that the Americas Cup is on the horizon it has trebled in value, although it is a old flat and no lift it was a great buy and a def good investment.

We have also just bought a flat on the coast in the UK, about 10 miles from where we live now with the idea of renting it out for 3 or 4 years until we are ready to retire and split our time between UK & Spain.

To us this made sense as hubby still working so can afford to take on larger mortgage at the moment, knowing that by the time we look for a flat in 3 or 4 years the prices would of risen, we intend to sell the house we are in at the moment and put any profit we make into a more modern flat (with a lift) into Spain.

Life is more relaxed in Spain especially in a local Spanish area, where else can a person walk on her own at 1pm in the morning and not worry about feeling safe! also see that the elderly ladies are still playing cards on their card table & sun chairs on the pavement at 2pm in the morning!

The best thing we ever did was invest in Spain

Beem

seven-day-weekend

lesandflynny wrote:

Hello Everybody

It was really helpful reading this thread. We have a holiday home in Southern Spain and are planning, carefully, to move there next year with our children 6 & 8. We will live inland and keep the holiday home to cash in at a later date.

We are 42 & 48 respectively and will rent for about 6 months initially, I am currently looking at long term lets inland.... any tips would be appreciated. During this period we will sell out UK home and buy a smaller property to rent out, but also as a safety net in case we need to return to the UK.

We do not intend to work because we are hoping to find a nice home to rennovate and this will no doubt take us a couple of years.

We have budgeted for about 8k per year to live on until our pensions and other investments kick in. We also have an emergency contigency pop....

As such i am relieved to read that seven day weekend can live off 7k, yes we will have addittional expence because of children but with no morgage and an excellent money saver that I am, i am sure we can do it.

I just wnated to say hello to you all, tell you our plans, and share our journey with you. We hope to be planted in southern Spain by September 07... we have two or three visits planned before that to find a home to rent.

Hola, Hello,
Diane

Hi there, yes, we CAN live on 7k a year, but I must point out that we have no rent or mortgage and no children to pay for!

Whereabouts are you coming to live? - we too are inland in southern Spain.....

wearside_2

It seems that there is only myself and pbradley with a second home in Florida:j Is there anyone else out there with one:question:

droopsnout

Beamish wrote:

where else can a person walk on her own at 1pm in the morning

In many countries - but sadly not in the UK, except in some more remote areas.

I do believe, though, that the "manaña" spirit may have got at your understanding of time!

Mrs_pbradley936

One other thing about buying in the USA is that only property sold for over $300K is subject to a withholding tax when sold by non nationals. Had I known that I would have stayed in cheaper property but we have owned there for many years and just bought and sold as and when we saw something we liked. Also they do their property tax (like our council tax – it pays for local services) based on the value of the place. It is 1.5%.

You can find really lovely properties for under 60K Stirling and when we had some American friends over to stay they were horrified at the house prices we have! She was looking in the estate Agents window and some run of the mill 4 bed detached (OK it is the South) which were up for £450K - £500K and exclaimed “BUT that’s getting on for a million dollars for a regular house!”. Then the petrol prices – still as she said we get free healthcare. I refrain from saying about quite how much we pay in tax and National Insurance because it sounds incredulous to Americans!

fatnan

Just reading Lesandflynny´s post. For the 2 of us (no kids or pets) I usually reckon on spending about 30-35 euros per week on food and drink and approx. 30 euros per fortnight on diesel for the car. For this I can afford to stock up the cupboard and buy some vino al mesa, and occasionally even a bottle of whisky for OH. Of course this is not set in stone, but it usually seems to work out. Because we go back and forth to the UK every couple of months, we manage to stock up on things we can´t get here, such as bread flour, marmalade (although I´ll be making my own when our trees begin to fruit), which also means we don´t spend as much in Spain as we maybe would have to otherwise. I refuse to buy English stuff here as it is so expensive...not that there is anywhere close that I could buy it from, but just going on when we lived on the coast. Though I say it myself, I am a whizz-kid at making something from nothing, which helps. I bought a piece of pork for just over 2 euros, had a roast dinner yesterday, making a big slow cooker full of soup using the bone for today (with dumplings) and there's enough meat left to make another dinner. Living so far from the shops has honed my skills at making things last. That and the fact that it's in the genes...at the risk of upsetting someone I'm half Aberdeen Scot and half Yorkshire!!! What a combination!!!! Just joking, honestly.

lesandflynny

Hello seven-day-weekend (fab name!)

we are looking in almeria. We already have an apartment in Mojacar but we do not wnat to and cannot afford to, live near the coast. We are considering Hercal Overa, Chirivel, Berja and going out to see some places soon.

I note it will be more expensive with children. We too are planning no mortgage, loans etc. But we will have all the other daily expences.

Any tips on nice areas with good old spanish property would be most welcome, reasonably priced of course.

Cheers

seven-day-weekend

lesandflynny wrote:

Hello seven-day-weekend (fab name!)

we are looking in almeria. We already have an apartment in Mojacar but we do not wnat to and cannot afford to, live near the coast. We are considering Hercal Overa, Chirivel, Berja and going out to see some places soon.

I note it will be more expensive with children. We too are planning no mortgage, loans etc. But we will have all the other daily expences.

Any tips on nice areas with good old spanish property would be most welcome, reasonably priced of course.

Cheers

I personally would recommend the Almeria Alpujarras. Starting at north from Almeria city at Gador and then travelling northwest. Very traditional villages.

I don't personally know any of the places you've mentioned apart from Berja which is where where we do our shopping (We are in the Granada Alpujarras). I personally would not like to live there as it is surrounded by plastic greenhouses.Start at Gador and go towards towards Alcolea and Luajar de Andarax. There are two quite nice places called Canjayar and Almocita which are very pretty villages. There are other villages too which you might like and shouldn't be too expensive.

Of course the Granada Alpujarras are beautiful as well!