To leave UK due to weather and cost of living

I would do it op.
What have you got to lose?

When it's here and like this, it's hard to imagine anywhere better than the UK. An English spring and summer takes a lot of beating. I don't hate autumn either, but January to April is when I dream of being elsewhere. And that is quite doable, even after Brexit.

@SlothsNeverGetIll nice isn’t it not too hot either, I have been hiking twice and am off to learn how to play croquet this afternoon after a picnic in the park. Im retired so my time is my own. We all ate dinner in the garden last night and managed to fit in an hours walk round the park early evening after DH was home from work. It was really busy and lovely seeing all the little ones running about.

Anyone else feeling brighter now this nice weather has arrived? I know I am!

Plus in Spain and I think Portugal (but they may have stopped) they still have festivals with bullfighting, chasing frightened bulls through the streets and cruel ones where they set fire to the bulls horns causing so much distress to the animal. Breaks my heart. Would hate to see that in person and can't understand why they celebrate it so much.

Moving to your apartment in Benidorm, you might not see this but the fact it goes on puts me off the country.

Probably true

Not personal to you, at all, but I’m not sure some pp fully appreciate the deprivation in southern Europe.

Thanks, I will.

Okay, well look at the dreadful sky high unemployment levels in the med for young people - their mental health is shot to pieces, it’s a big problem and a few sunny days will not fix it.

I know these types of people in my own life. The grass is always greener everywhere else. They tend to move to x,y and z and complain bitterly about that place too not living up to expectations.
It’s a characteristic rather than a place I feel. Many happy, contented and successful people live wonderful lives in the U.K., and will be the same wherever they go.

The glass half empty posts on here are unlikely to find nirvana anywhere. CBT can change it, but most are too negative to consider what a change of mindset could do for them.

Nowhere is perfect. It’s our unique perception that is subjective - I wish they taught this in schools!

TBH I didn't know. I grew up in London but rarely visit.

I like @PrincessOlga 's idea above and that's what I'm going to do over the next few years. Have a few short European city breaks, one week in the sun and then a few long weekends in Norfolk (UK) as that is my favourite bolt hole 😍

If I were you, I would use your savings to try and have a cheap holiday abroad every month. Basically a city break over a long weekend, making the most of every minute. Sometimes shorter holidays are more memorable, as you just get bored/tired/jaded on fortnight holidays. Anywhere that has a bit of sun. If your money does not stretch to every month, then just the winter months or October to April (mind you, it feels like winter all year round at the moment!).

I know two people who are moving to Portugal - both in their 50s.

One is DSis's friend who has come into a moderate inheritance- he plans to open a bar. The other is a neighbour who has kept her home in the UK (adult child lives there) and bought a travel van with friends.

My understanding is that if you have enough to invest in setting up a business you can move there and possibly apply for residency. Something to look into?

Portuguese is more difficult, but it helped when a hotel recepionist explained to me that s is almost always pronounced as sh in Portuguese. So Guimaraes (the old capital in the 11th century) is Guimaresh. Esposinho, nice resort just south of Porto, is Eshposhin-yo. Dos, for two, becomes doish, more like German. Spanish is very phonetic and straightforward but Portuguese isn't. Not much help here, because I am at the beginning of learning both languages.

@quizzys everyone in the food industry goes on holiday in January, because the public don't spend then, unless you are unlucky enough to have a mid-January birthday like DH. Most of our chums are mid-way through their annual abstinence and on diets.

@Papyrophile To back up my feeling about Winter in Europe not always being nirvana, I was lucky enough to be in Estepona for nearly 4 weeks over Christmas with the OH. We got great weather that's for sure and of course you don't count the cost much when on hols (apartment). A member of my family owns the apartment so we can go off season as much as we want as they use it during school hols Happy Days!

Anyway, it's a lovely, spotless very laid back, NON Brits abroad type town. Never saw an English breakfast just churros con chololate etc. and I will go every Christmas period as long as I am able to. BUT..... everything closed down the minute New Year was done. The restauranteurs took their annual hols along with many of the locals for the feast of Los Reyes Magos (three wise kings) which is a huge (kids mostly) celebration in Spain. Honestly the last two weeks of our stay kind of dragged a bit because I had to cook lol, so we took ourselves off on the bus to Malaga, and from there (after an overnight) caught the train to Cordoba for two days. It was so easy, cheap and a change of scene.

Neither of us want to drive over there as the Autovia del Sol is not for the fainthearted, so I realise how important it is to have good transport links nearby. The supermarket is two mins away, the doc is above the 24 hour pharmacy across the road and so on. Very important to me anyway. The huge general hospital (public) is half an hour away but there are medical centres for insured all over the place, but they can't fix a heart attack or stroke etc.!

I'm in awe of your language skills. I do speak French and a bit of Spanish, but honestly Portuguese is like double Dutch to me! Doesn't seem to match the Latin languages like Spanish Italian and French, all of which I can read at least.

I hope we all find what we are looking for anyway, which indeed might be by our own fireside in the end.

The EU's youth unemployment statistics are appalling across southern Europe. The UK looks better. If I was 20 and Spanish or Italian, and spoke some English, I'd be moving too. Not saying that there are wonderful high-flying professional roles awaiting, but there's lots of NMW work in catering and care work while you perfect your English. And the highest NMW rates in Europe. I know MN thinks collectively that the UK is shit, because there's insufficient help for them, but it's enough to have people coming from across the planet to prosper.

EU/Europe is not providing work opportunities for their younger people. And certainly not good entry points into the middle level jobs that keep small towns ticking over harmoniously. Not many people have the intellect and the drive to flourish as investment bankers, and lots of the people who might be able will step away because they want to see their children grow up, daily instead of selling their life. But lots of young enthusiastic people want to try (and most will be willing to move countries for a shot at the pot). The UK's loose labour market does create many more starting points than the EU. Otherwise the EU would have better youth employment numbers.

It’s 23c here every day for the next ten days, so it’s not crappy at all.
I can always tell the people that have never lived in Spain. It’s freezing and damp in the winter, most houses don’t have central heating. It’s unbearably hot in the summer. It’s not a holiday living there, it’s hard work!

My plan was to retire to Spain because I have a tiny pension pot, it’s cheaper to live there, and it’s sunny. Brexit has stopped that from happening, so I need suck up the crappy British weather.

@quizzys You are asking all my questions. I like France and speak the language decently but France is extremely expensive as a place to live, and not just luxury treats. A friend, who has just sold a property in Brittany, reckoned that a bog standard white cabbage cost over 3 euros, instead of £1.35, in Lidl. But I am also learning Spanish (I don't expect ever to speak it really well because I am starting at age 67) and once I have mastered that then I'd expect to get the gist of important stuff in Portuguese too. Romance languages are cousins. With my reading of Italian cookbooks, over 40 years, I'd know what I was eating at the very least.

London is packed full of Spanish and Italians and Portuguese young people that are unemployed in their own countries. The young are moving en masse how can you not know this??

Go for it OP! I have a plan to move to Germany as soon as my daughter finishes school (maybe after GCSEs if we can find a school that does A-levels in our city in Germany). But we have German citizenship and my parents are there, so it's easier (although still hard to find work with my profession).

It has its issues, as everyone else. But very few are now talking about leaving the EU- as they have seen what it has done to the UK.