Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

seven-day-weekend

Hi Savvy Sue, I think it is Sloane who is in Cyprus, maybe the poster could pm her if she does not answer on the board.

angelil

Hello everyone

Even though I am not part of the over-50s club I do hope I can join in I have lived in northern France for 3 years now and have combed this whole thread over the past couple of days for anything about France I have so loved reading all of your tips and stories.

My life in France, it seems, is quite different to most of yours, so I hope my experiences will also be of help to others. I live just outside of Paris with my French husband, and have done since the start of my career, so hope I will never have to grapple with the UK pensions as some of you have had to. I work in an international school as a teacher of students aged 12-18. I also do a bit of journalism and translation on the side (which is ultimately my dream career) but I sadly don't make enough to do this full-time. On the bright side, my income is probably much more stable this way and I probably get a better deal in terms of benefits such as the mutuelle as well.

Some hints and tips for ALL moneysavers in France (silver surfer ou non!):

1) As mentioned earlier in the thread, stock up on basic meds (paracetamol etc) when in the UK - prices for them here are astronomical.

2) Try not to get ill for at least a year once you've arrived in France (hence why tip 1 is also important) - it can take months for your Carte Vitale to arrive (11 for me!) and for your mutuelle to be completely sorted, so seeking reimbursement can be fraught with difficulty. I became quite ill quite soon after arriving (not sure quite what it was - think very bad cold/flu type symptoms combined with bronchitis type thing as well - but it was baaad) and thanks to a combination of my Carte Vitale & mutuelle not being very well set up, and nobody telling me that you have to stick the little barcode sticker from each prescription box onto your feuille de soins to qualify for reimbursement, I lost STACKS of money (think at least €200).

3) Use ameli.fr to find medical professionals who are 'secteur 1' - 'secteur 2' doctors often don't advertise that they are 'secteur 2' and then you get schlacked by the fees when you get there.

4) Read the free metro magazines if you have a metro system in your town, and listen to the local radio - all free ways of getting on with your French (I was lucky enough to have been learning the language since I was 11, and to have met my husband and his non-English-speaking family when I was 18, before coming to live here at 22, but still need to practise my French every day).

5) Try to Eurotunnel, Eurostar or ferry it back to the UK if you possibly can; the planes are such terrible value for money now and let you take so little on board with you for free. The Eurostar people don't care what's in your bag as long as you can carry it yourself and don't have anything on board that might kill anyone (cue lots of Cheddar and paracetamol trafficking from me)

6) Google Shopping is your friend Like all of you I find food/clothes shopping here to be very expensive compared to the UK and so love shopping online for the better deals and greater array of choice. Even including shipping charges it is often cheaper to shop online.

7) Don't do as I do and shop at the Monoprix Depressingly, it's probably the 'best' supermarket in France and yet the customer service is awful, it's the most expensive (food from there is nice, but still...!), and I hate how every time you go there they seem to be unloading massive deliveries right in the middle of the day/evening. Try to go to your local market instead or grow your own (we can't because we don't have a garden and the markets are generally on when we are at work). Alternatively, if you do use the Monoprix, get their loyalty card - you can build up points quite quickly which can be exchanged for Monoprix credit from €3. I have a Carrefour loyalty card as well and it is useless by comparison.

8) Others on this thread have mentioned survey sites; Maximiles is OK but you can also try ZoomPanel and Toluna (I believe they are also available for residents of countries other than France).

9) Up in the north here there are plenty of anglophone bookshops where I am able to sell English books I don't want any more. You don't get *huge* amounts of money for them but it is better than nothing.

10) Naturally, make use of your local area! We don't quite have the landscapes that you do, but we can walk around the huge park in St-Germain-en-Laye and the Forêt de Marly for nothing any time.

I also wrote an article for Connexion France about wellbeing on a budget, which was published in June, but I can't seem to find it on the newspaper website so would need to upload it as an attachment, which you cannot apparently do here

Savvy_Sue

Welcome angelil, I promise no-one's ever asked to show their birth certificate on the Over 50s board!

tiddles

angelil - those are great tips - thank you very much!

We visit our holiday house in central France regularly, and hope to move there within the next few years, so these tips are relevant to us.

angelil

Hehe good *puts passport away*

Glad some of my tips are helpful

I'm looking to go for my dual nationality, too, and am hoping it won't be *too* expensive and bureaucratic as I've married French! I have heard from 'ordinary' foreigners who have tried to go for it that they have given up as it's too much bother. One of my colleagues (a Spanish lady who is married to a Frenchman) is going for it now so I'm hoping I'll be able to get all the moneysaving (and other) hints and tips on getting French nationality from her

seven-day-weekend

Update: Our house sale is still creeping along.. Our papers were incorrect, we are now having them put right. The plans have been re-drawn to reflect what is actually there and we have paid 540 euros for this. There may be other paperwork that needs doing to comply with regs. Our lawyer is attending to this for us. We will end up with correct papers eventually.

Meanwhile our buyer has still not been formally offered his mortgage because the papers are not yet up to date and with incorrect papers the house has only been valued at 70k euros. He needs to borrow 70k euros and they will not give him 100% mortgage. However, the valuer says with correct papers the house is valued at 134k euros, so once they are corrected there offcially should be no drawbacks to him having the money. We have agreed a price with the buyer of 103k euros.

However our solicitor says that in these dire financial times, it is nowhere near certain that they will lend him the money even with the correct papers. But at least once the papers are correct he can go elsewhere for a mortgage and have the papers correct at the start.

The flat we want to buy (with our son) in Wolverhampton is still available at £65k and the owner says she will inform us if anyone else makes an offer.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-23793520.html

Our son and his girlfriend have already started getting furniture,:) so I do hope we can do the deal and it doesn't all fall through.:(. They do accept that it might not happen, but can't help being excited at the thought of their new home.

This is the situation so far!

droopsnout

We wish you all the best, s-d-w.

At present I am back in the UK sorting out Mum's affairs after her death in June. We will be renting out her house, and I'm almost at the end of emptying it.

I wanted to do it myself, to treat her things with respect, and perhaps sell off one or two of the better things on eBay or local paper, etc.

My advice to anyone else who has to do this: get someone else to do it!

I have been here a month, nearly, and the extra expense that goes with that has more than negated anything made from a few sales.

I should have used a house clearance/auction rooms company locally, but I went there on auction day and didn't like what I saw. However, I am sure that the house would have been emptied in one day, and I would probably have made more from their auctions than doing it myself.

Anyway, it's back to France a week tomorrow!

seven-day-weekend

droopsnout wrote: »

We wish you all the best, s-d-w.

At present I am back in the UK sorting out Mum's affairs after her death in June. We will be renting out her house, and I'm almost at the end of emptying it.

I wanted to do it myself, to treat her things with respect, and perhaps sell off one or two of the better things on eBay or local paper, etc.

My advice to anyone else who has to do this: get someone else to do it!

I have been here a month, nearly, and the extra expense that goes with that has more than negated anything made from a few sales.

I should have used a house clearance/auction rooms company locally, but I went there on auction day and didn't like what I saw. However, I am sure that the house would have been emptied in one day, and I would probably have made more from their auctions than doing it myself.

Anyway, it's back to France a week tomorrow!

How upsetting for you droopsnout.

Thanks for your good wishes.

angelil

Hope things are moving along for you droopsnout! Back in France now I hope? I have just got back from a week in the Vaucluse and it was LOVELY Cold again now though back nr Paris

droopsnout

Yes, thanks. Got back Friday evening. Had enough of cleaning.

You can imagine my delight to receive a phone call from the Mayor this morning saying there will be a funeral tomorrow, and could we clean the church by 3 o'clock? Thought I'd stopped being Mrs Scrubbit for a while. We both spent three hours doing it.

Ah well, it looks clean and tidy now.

Weather here has been amazing for the past fortnight. Daughter has had two entirely perfect fortnights here, weather-wise, this year. I get back, and it is chilly!

It's really good to be back, though. I might even start to feel normal again. Whatever that is. Already eaten more than my fair share of home-grown tomatoes!

Plenty of paperwork still to do, but soon this will all be over ...