Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

EMPTY_PURSE_5

Hi any ex pats in Australia out there ... would love to hear your views, especially if in Perth area

krisskross

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.
,
Diane

Hi Diane

Are the children already able to speak Spanish? Where we lived in Spain this was a big problem for ex-pats. Very little extra tuition is available for non Spanish speaking children. Admittedly the children will be fairly quick at learning especially if there are no other English children. It also appeared that a lot of English children also needed to be given English language lessons as they forgot grammar and spelling very quickly. School books will be quite a large item on your budget, and they need new every year.

Hope all goes well for you.

kenshaz

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

We have a deposit on an off plan apartment ready July 2007 in Vera with Keymare.

droopsnout

Great example of people not thinking clearly when wanting to move abroad ...

The other day on one of the lunchtime programmes on TV, a couple were clearing their house of unwanted stuff to raise a few pounds to move permanently to Spain. Permanently.

So what were they putting their money towards? A great big car to transport their pets and so on. Fine. But they bought a right-hand drive car in the UK ...

Janeywaney_2

This is a great thread. Very interesting. Thanks everyone!

seven-day-weekend

droopsnout wrote:

Great example of people not thinking clearly when wanting to move abroad ...

The other day on one of the lunchtime programmes on TV, a couple were clearing their house of unwanted stuff to raise a few pounds to move permanently to Spain. Permanently.

So what were they putting their money towards? A great big car to transport their pets and so on. Fine. But they bought a right-hand drive car in the UK ...

I'm afraid we did that too!:o

But we would not have been able to afford a Seat Alhambra in Spain. Second-hand cars for some reason, are much more expensive than in the UK. It was worth the 1000 euros to import it!

Some friends of ours were looking at a three-year-old Renault Kangoo in Spain - it was only about 1000 euros cheaper than a brand new one. So, they had a brand new one! But a five-year-old Alhambra would have cost us about 15,000 euros, whereas the one we bought in the UK was only £6000.

droopsnout

Coo! Well, thanks for the info, seven. Evidently, they're not as daft as I thought!

Meantime, we troll along with our UK-registered right-hand-drive car, now 11 years old ... Perhaps it's us who are daft!

fatnan

Hi all!
We were told that we would have no trouble selling our English car (nearly new Renault Scenic) to expats returning home. As we wanted to drive to Spain and bring some gear from the UK it seemed like a good idea. Yes, you´ve guessed it, OH didn´t feel comfortable driving round in a UK registered car It was pointless getting a Spanish registration because at the end of the day it was still a RHD car. We eventually paid over 500 euros for someone to drive it back to the UK for us and deliver it to our daughter´s house. It is quite right what the other posters say about the cost of cars here, plus there is no bartering - everything is book price from the garage. We all learn by experience!

droopsnout

I will be very happy to drive anyone's car back to the UK for 500 euros plus travel expenses!

Thanks for the info. So what happened to the Scenic and what car do you have now?

krisskross

We saw many people driving the wrong way round roundabouts. They were always in a RHD car.