Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

donny-gal

Hi tsmiggy

We have a house in the expat belt in Spain south of Alicante. There are some very good bargains to be had at the moment. It is good out here if you do not need to work, those needing to work are going back to the UK. I agree with the rent first option, and if at all possible, keep your UK home too. Many are wanting to go back due to missing their Grandkids, after 10 years happily out here, many are missing home. Cheap air fares are a thing if the past, so visiting of family can be expensive.
We thoroughly enjoy coming out here in the winter, spring, autumn, while we still have our UK home. Summers are far too hot. I.e. today has been shorts and sun top sitting on the terrace and finding it too hot, but with a strong breeze, which we are sheltered from. Chose your place with care, ensure you are south facing, it is cold in the shade in winter. While we are sat like that on one side of the street, the houses opposite are in thick trousers and fleeces, as they get no sun until 4pm.

If you would like any more info, then feel free to PM me.

Savvy_Sue

tsmiggy wrote: »

Thankyou for your reply,i think i would prefer Spain or Portugal,mainly because of the distance from the uk by plane.Needless to say my granddchildren,and come to think of it my children,would never forgive me if i was four hours away.

I'd say it's all relative! I used to think the four hour flight time was too long, but it now works OK for us: at least we can leave home at crack of dawn and be there by tea time! As for your children, it would take us that long to drive to one of my siblings here in England, for example!

What you have to remember with Spain and Portugal is that they have more of a continental climate than the UK. My geography is practically prehistoric, but from memory, the UK has a temperate climate: not TOO hot in summer and (honestly!) not THAT cold in winter - although it depends where in the UK you live, of course!

Whereas parts of Spain (and I'm guessing Portugal too, maybe less so) get boiling hot in summer and freezing cold (generally colder than the UK) in winter, because they're part of a large landmass without the benefit of the Gulf Stream.

tsmiggy wrote: »

I have to admit to being a total novice on this subject,and i do not know the pitfalls of living abroad,of which i would imagine there are many.

Indeed there are, and it's very easy to fall into many of them if you don't do your homework first. donnygal's advice is a good example of the kind of detail you have to think of!

Another good source of info would be to search for expat forums with the country or region you're interested in. Look at the country's Embassy website, that will give you basic info about visiting and moving out there.

and please, learn a bit of the language! Apart from anything else, you'll learn more about the culture, so you'll get a bit of an idea about whether or not that country will suit you. Even if you live in a heavily ex-pat area with easy access to English speaking health services, you never know when a few words of the native language will be useful!

droopsnout

tsmiggy wrote: »

Any pointers would be most welcome.I do assume there are answers within the thread,but its a long thread

cheers

Hi, tsmiggy.

As we know, the property market in Spain is very depressed; and, living in France, I can tell you that outside the extremely expensive areas of Paris and the Riviera, prices are rock bottom here, too. So now is a great time to buy, so long as you are sure you won't need to sell again for some years!

The question of weather, and therefore climate, is a vexed one, because every year it seems to be different. Here in SW France, this has been perhaps the mildest and certainly the wettest winter we can remember in the ten years we've been here. However, if you wish to experience seasons, then don't go somewhere too hot. If you want winter sun, be careful that you can cope with the heat during the summer - especially at night.

All that said, none of us here can really advise you as may wish. You need your own experiences to guide you. How much of a change of culture do you want? How do you cope with the varying degrees of "foreignness" of food? Do you want a house in town, in a village, or isolated in the countryside? If you're not wanting to live in town, are you sure you'll be able to drive safely for several years? (And check the expiry date of your licence!) Would you intend to move back to the UK in the event (say) of the decease of a partner, or an unfortunate change of circumstances affecting a close relative? Or just to spend your last few years? How do you envisage care for yourself and/or partner if such a thing becomes necessary, and how would you pay for it? Are you happy to complete tax forms in your newly adopted country?

There are so many questions you need to think about - far more than in my last paragraph.

So first of all, travel widely yourself (you may have already done this, of course) and decide which countries, which cultures and which nationalities you like best.

Secondly, read the books that will help you deal with officialdom, and check out the forums of expats who have already made the move (there are lots, mostly much more comprehensive than this thread), but take care not to believe everything you read in them! People on forums are just as well and as badly informed as those you might chat to in the pub! There are quite a few magazines published in the UK about buying property abroad, so read them (I had to do this for ten years before being able to fulfil my dream) and use them to make your plans.

Thirdly, as others have said already, reserve part of your budget for renting somewhere in the area/town/village/wilderness that takes your initial fancy, and experience for a few months (especially over winter) what it is like to live there.

At this point, I am going to raise a concern. You say that this thread is long. My worry is that if you find a long thread off-putting, when really I would expect someone contemplating this huge undertaking to be enthused enough to read it thoroughly, then you may well find that the red tape that will inevitably confront you will be very trying indeed.

So another thing you must be sure of is the strength of your desire to leave the UK. You WILL miss your family. Can you handle it? Can THEY handle it? Most flights from UK airports to SW France are nominally two hours in duration. If you are at the southern end of Iberia then the flight times may be nearer three hours. As donny-gal says, cheap flights are virtually non-existent today. (I was looking this evening for flights from Toulouse/Bergerac/Bordeaux/Lourdes/Carcassonne to Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/East Midlands, and was horrified at the prices for July. And your grandchildren are probably limited to trips during the school holidays).

I'm assuming you won't be needing paid employment. If so, that is a major positive! Unemployment in Spain is a very sad fact of life. I think it is similar in Portugal.

So why am I raising all these negatives, these problems? Isn't life over here all Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts and gin-and-tonics? Well, it can be like that for a lot of the time, if you want it. But life abroad can also be hair-tearingly frustrating! And Savvy-Sue is absolutely right: you do need some knowledge of the local language, not just to be polite to your new hosts, but also to deal with all the problems that will come to afflict you! How DO you explain that there doesn't seem to be an earth on a kitchen socket? How DO you re-register a UK car in your chosen country? Just how tricky is it to get into the new country's health service to ensure that you get your usual medication?

Don't get me wrong: it can all be done, and with a smile, too! But the effort to express at least part of it in the local language is always appreciated.

In some ways, leaving your UK home, family and social circle, and moving to a new home where you know perhaps no-one at all, will be a real roller-coaster of exciting highs and worrying lows.

Some find it too much, and return to Blighty slightly wounded and much poorer. But the majority do succeed, and in many cases (like me!) wouldn't dream of returning to the UK unless forced to by circumstance.

The secret is in the planning, the thought and the preparation. And no, I didn't get it all right! And new problems continue to come up all the time.

Whatever you choose to do, I wish you every success and an easy transfer. And, by the way, you aren't hijacking the thread! Do come back to us with news of your progress and to ask more questions.

Good luck!

tsmiggy

Thankyou all very much for your extremely helpful advice,and some of the great points you have raised.I have to admit this is in its early stages,and i can now address some of the points you have raised.

I have travelled to a few places,and i must admit my choice of Spain or Portugal was soley based on location to England.In may now be the case that this is not a sole reason to consider it.Once again i thank you for some great pointers.

Savvy_Sue

BTW, one very obvious thing to say is that currency fluctuations can cause massive problems for expats - if you're dependent on a UK£ pension or savings and the conversion rates go the wrong way, what you thought was really affordable suddenly becomes quite pricey.

droopsnout

That is a truly excellent point, Sue, that we should have made in the first place- especially given the recent and continuing chute of the pound.

I am in exactly the situation you describe.

When we bought our house in 2002, we were lucky and the rate at the time was £1 = €1.625. There was then a period where the rate was in the €1.40s. At the height of the crisis in 2008, that rate plummeted to near parity, and we were looking at €1.02. That meant my pension effectively lost 37% of its value. The consequences were deep-reaching, and many Brits were left with no choice but to try to sell up and return to the UK.

Even now, the pound is only at €1.16, and the very best we have seen since the collapse is €1.28.

I can tell you that back in 2008, for lunch we were on bread and (home-made) jam for several months.

There is nothing to say that this couldn't happen again, and if you study the long-term history of the pound against the French franc and then the euro, it is one of continuous depreciation.

The euro, so reviled in the UK, is proving to be the less vulnerable currency so far.

droopsnout

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Glad to say, after nearly dying twice, my friend is now in remission.

It's lovely to read a happy ending, s-d-w! (Well, it may not be the actual ending, but let's hope that progress continues).

seven-day-weekend

Thanks, he is a tough old bird, despite having chain-smoked for fifty years and getting fungus on his lungs and another lung infection and having to be on oxygen, he is now in remission and expected to be back home in a few weeks after another bout of chemo just to make sure.

(At least that was the case a few days ago, hope it's still OK.)

And I also hope that his enforced cold turkey means he will keep off the fags and that his wife will give up too, she has a chest like a set of bellows and can't climb the hills in the village

tsmiggy

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

BTW, one very obvious thing to say is that currency fluctuations can cause massive problems for expats - if you're dependent on a UK£ pension or savings and the conversion rates go the wrong way, what you thought was really affordable suddenly becomes quite pricey.

Thankyou.
I am dependant on savings,i am presently self employed,and workwise its pretty slack.My Mum died and left a house which i have now sold.I will be 60 next year,and i now have access to some money.Hence my dilema,it does seem a shame not to use some of the money,and improve my life.I do not like the Country neither am i keen on the climate.My OH also is self employed as a Mobile Hairdresser,but idont think she would take kindly to me leaving her here lol

gfplux

It's a shame that some posters have not put their location in the profile. This would make it so much easier to understand someone's post. If it comes from someone in the UK it (the post) can mean so much different from someone who lives in the middle of France.