To sell up and move to Spain ?

[MijasMaddie]

Hi MN’s!

I’ve nc! So in a nutshell.. I’ve got two DC (sons) 8yrs and 10yrs. DH is 13 years older than me. (I’m mid thirties he’s late 40s)

He works in financial sales and I’m a small business owner (pet care/boarding).

We have a home in a lovely place on the outskirts of London. BUT we are struggling to live!

My DH has unfortunately been out of work/made redundant SO many times! We’ve been together 13 years and it seems every 2/3 years he is out of work.

A couple of years ago he had to ‘leave’ instead of being pushed and was out of work nearly a whole year! This has put us in such a bad financial situation.

We now pay the mortgage and the bills but we have hardly anything to live on. The mortgage and outgoings are huge.

Credit cards maxed out. I’m in touch with debt companies etc only so much can be done!

Life is a hamster wheel and borrowing from Peter to pay Paul etc..

AIBU to sell up and move to Spain? We attended Spanish lessons (myself, DH, DC) but stopped a couple of years ago! So we are no way fluent!

I have no money nor does DH but we have money in our home. After selling our home we could have enough to buy a three bed apartment in Southern Spain (ideally Calahonda area).

DH is saying he’ll have to stay here and rent a room outskirts of London to work his job in the city etc.

I could get rid of my debts and this misarable life but I will also have burnt all bridges to ever be able to come back.

My youngest is 8 and a young sweet 8. He’d be happy and make friends anywhere. But my eldest is 10 going on Kevin the Teenager! I’d have to put them through Spanish state school (also thinking of doing Cambridge p/t home school modules) if he hated it then he’ll hate me!!

Pros - I’d have the debts and financial burdens weighing me down gone. I’d be living in a sunny climate.
I am qualified in beauty industry, massage, animal pet training care..

Cons- what if it all goes wrong?

I’ve wanted to move to Southern Spain since 2013. I love it there. I fully appreciate living there is different to a holiday.

Only other option is to sell this house and rent there for a year (?)

Are kids that are about to turn 9 and 11 too old to be put in a Spanish state school?

I cannot go on like this 😑 too over drawn too broke. Don’t know how I’ll afford food for this week!

The thought of selling up and being able to buy a spacious penthouse in Spain has never been so tempting.

Ps. I have experience in beauty, make up, massage in case you wondered what I’d do over there. Also a very experienced animal carer.

• also Brexit is a factor but as it stands I know I can still go there ...

Please give me some advice (shake some sense into me!) thank you! X

Why not sell and buy somewhere I say Wales.....rent the house out in Wales.....rent in Spain. If it all goes well save up and buy in Spain....but KEEP the house in Wales just in case you decide to come back .....good luck we are just about to buy a house in Crete......Will rent our UK house out though x

Cois- id too love to know how Golondrina made it work! She is apparently from my neck of the woods (London outskirts) and it’s wonderful it worked for her!

Would also be very interesting to know if lots of people told her it was a ‘mad’ idea , a ‘fantasy’ etc etc...

We live in the north and husband commutes to London. Preston/Lancaster area. DH generally does 2 days a week from home and is away mid week/ sometimes more but depends on what’s going on in the office. It’s quite a popular set up - we have a number of friends who do this.

I've already told you. I applied for a job as a TEFL teacher, so when I arrived I had a contract and so could get residency and a NIE and then using my NIE, pretty much everything else: healthcare, rent a flat, get a phone line, etc etc.

If I hadn't had that contract, I'd have needed private health insurance and enough money in the bank to support me, which I didn't as a 20 something year old. In recent years I've changed careers but I'd never have been able to come here at all if it hadn't been for the TEFL job.

There's no mystery to it. What I'm trying to say is that the OP doesn't have a job to go to in Spain and says she wouldn't have enough money to support herself as per residency requirements, so all this "just go for it" is ridiculous because she can't "just go for it". If she really wants to do it, she needs to apply for jobs in Spain or find a way to have enough money behind her to support herself for a good while.

Given that she doesn't speak Spanish or know a great deal about Spain, and has 2 children who need to go to school but don't speak Spanish, I'd suggest she thinks about relocating within the UK instead. That's not "doom and gloom", it's not saying Spain is an impossible place to go, just that that's reality. All the anecdata about people who have "just gone for it" are ointless when we don't know what their circumstances were. The OP's circumstances make selling up and moving to Spain a non starter.

I'm coping very well thanks you, been here 20 years. It worked for me because I complied with residency requirements by getting a TEFL job before I arrived. If I hadn't done that I'd have needed enough money to support myself and health insurance.

I just find it bizarre that moving to Spain is the plan A in this situation.
Has OP even considered moving to a cheaper area in UK? Even if her DH can only work in London there are tons of cheap areas within commuting range.

Nobody told me it was "mad" because it wasn't. I had a job there to go to. I know it's hard when people explain why your dream as it stands won't work, but being snarky with me doesn't change the basic facts.

I’m living here with DD. I’m lucky that my DP is Spanish, I’d imagine if I’d moved over here with a British DP we would have moved back. It’s not as cheap as you think, food especially is pricey. In the summer it’s great as you can go to the beach, but in the colder months there’s not a lot of free/cheap stuff to do, like in England; parks, cheap kids activities museums etc, so entertaining your kids costs. Work is hard to come by, the economy here is bad and the wages are piss poor. Electricity bills are very expensive too.

It’s a better life for kids and they pick up the language very quickly. My DD is on Spanish state school and only has Spanish friends. There are very few British people where we live. I struggle with the language and even though I can speak at an ok level, I still feel a bit isolated as I can’t fully participate in conversations and things like going to the doctors can be tricky and stressful.

I have residency, but they are tightening up the rules on that and people are finding it hard to get appts to apply.

It’s not the sun, sea and sangria life of holidays and I’ve struggled tbh and that’s with a Spanish DP, extended family and a job as soon as I arrived.

@mijasmaddie, I obviously see a thread on mumsnet differently from how other people see it. I see it like a chat, let me run an idea past ye. :-p Others seem to think you're actually putting the huge decision in to their hands! :D

@golondrina, you sound so joyless.

OK, it's just a chat: I think the OP is bonkers, it's not gonna work. How's that?

Golon- I have nc! I was lovely to you a few months back! You are from London and grew up here yet you’d never heard of an Oyster card, didn’t know how to get through the barriers on the tubes and didn’t really know much about anything really!! Yet everyone was SO polite to you!

What a shame that now you’re so (smugly) happily settled in Spain that you can’t be helpful and gracious back to fellow MN’s.

@golondrina, there's something more going on here. You're really heavily invested into making sure that the OP realises that she CANNOT do this!?

She'll weigh it all up no doubt. Does it make you feel that you've achieved something very unusual, to have emigrated to Spain with a job and the language (I presume). Do you take some of your identity from that bravery? Does it de-value the bravery and de-value your perceived achievement to think that some random person could if they prepared well first also achieve this?

Thanks! I'm not actually. But it does really annoy me when people keep on and on making out that facts can just be ignored and anyone who doesn't just "go for it" is a killjoy.

Sandwichgirl

I don’t see a problem with her residency requirements. It is not as if op won’t have a big lump sum and getting a very basic job to start off with to get any paperwork she needs.

My own Dp has been out of work for a year a few times in the past.

A lot of the times there is nothing you as an individual can do about a company going bankrupt because of external forces. Or if your department has been earmarked for redundancy.
Nothing is going to stop him being made redundant if a company is taken over.

People suggesting moving up North are forgetting that salaries drop accordingly out of London and op would be no better off or even worse off.

If dh is staying he doesn’t have to spend a huge amount on a room there are cheaper alternatives in zones 3-6.

And a lot of marriages have periods where you spend long times apart it doesn’t mean you want a divorce. Dp used to work away 2 weeks in every 6 weeks.
Army wives and husbands don’t see their spouses for months.

CoisNaFarraige

@golondrina, you sound so joyless.

She really does! Very joyless.

Oh for goodness sake, I've been rude to nobody. If you want to sell up and come here, that's up to you. I was trying to explain that from what you have said, it's not a viable plan.
Thanks for advance searching me, yes I knew nothing about London transport as I hadn't been back for years, not since before oyster cards. Seeing as I haven't been rude on this thread, what does that have to do with anything?

Can you point out where I have been rude to you? Is it rude to explain why your plan won't work (unless there is more information you haven't explained?) You refusing to accept that there are basic residency requirements doesn't make me explaining them to you rude.

I'm not claiming to be superior to anyone, the reason I "made it work" is just that I came here with a job. That's my whole point, it's the main way people "made it work", if that's what you want to call it. I wasn't sure I'd stay even, in the end.

yupp, I get that she's achieved it and she doesn't want anybody to underestimate the extent of the administration and the bureaucracy involved in her great achievement moving to Spain. I think being an expat is a major part of her identity and that this one brave move for which she was uniquely qualified is her source of validation. Sorry if that seems a little harsh Golondrina but this is how you have been determined to present yourself on this thread.

I think you should do it!

( Not really, but you are not listening to any alternative opinions)
You could buy all of Lincolnshire for your budget.

I think calling me joyless is ruder than anything I've said on here. I'll bow out for now as I think I've had enough now. Good luck with your plans OP.

you knew nothing about London you came on here and got tons of advice. That’s the point I was making.

Four pages of assuming somebody ELSE is incapable of thinking things through is very patronising and joyless. I waited four pages before calling you joyless. I thought you were joyless three pages back but I held my tongue.

yupp, I get that she's achieved it and she doesn't want anybody to underestimate the extent of the administration and the bureaucracy involved in her great achievement moving to Spain. I think being an expat is a major part of her identity and that this one brave move for which she was uniquely qualified is her source of validation. Sorry if that seems a little harsh Golondrina but this is how you have been determined to present yourself on this thread.

You know sweet FA about me. It was no great acheivement, I was twenty something and I wanted to live abroad. My POINT IS that the job was the main reason I could do it. But you are determined to be swept away by this exciting sell up and move abroad plan when it's got more holes than a sieve, so knock yourselves out. There is little point talking to someone who doesn't want to listen so I'll hide this thread now.

Best of luck with it all.

FWIW I am from the North and if the choice was between Spain or back up North I would choose Spain every time.

I think op wants to add some fun into her life rather than being stuck indoors working to pay off debts for years to come and looking at grey skies for 8 months of the year.
Spain takes less time to get to than commuting up north and it probably is cheaper.

At least at weekends with her dh they can have time outside with the children than stuck indoors because it has gone dark at 4pm

You know next to nothing about moving to Spain and you came here and got tons of advice

I'm off now. Hasta luego.