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

I get what you mean about the quality of life. I remember my shock at booking a table for dinner at 9 with a family's 5 and 11 year old. The way I get around it in the Uk is to take the bits that I love about Spain and recreate it here. So we eat later, stay out later, spend more time outside. There are 20,000 Spanish people in Bristol apparently so in the summer it feels like a mini Malaga! I take my children out to eat later, no one is stopping you from doing that.
There is a better quality of life but that life isn't free. I'm was living with a wealthy family in the suburbs of Madrid where they paid for private schools and lived in a gated community with designer clothes and month long summer holidays in Marbella. Of course it seemed great compared to my life! The poor people I knew in Spain had exactly the same worries as those in the U.K. There were also loads of buildings which were newly built but completely empty due to the crisis. A big performing arts college in my area of Madrid was built but never opened due to cuts. It's a bit depressing.

Not everybody works indoors, even in urban areas. Many can’t afford air conditioning in homes or workplaces. As others have said, it’s expensive.

Born - that’s true and good point!

I however work outdoors in all weathers .. and it’s not good physically not to mention mood effects ...

Family life and eating together is the norm

How are you going to make that work when your husband is still living back in the UK?

WFH
Much much much less common in Spain.

Very rare in fact

Jessie - someone asked me what I loved about Spain and I answered. You’re clutching at straws. And eventually DH would come anyway.

Oh come on, the question “what do you like about Spain was obviously “what things do you like about the lifestyle that you could have there”. Otherwise you may as well have said “the Prado, the Alhambra and Las Ramblas”.
And your DH coming over “eventually” when he gets this mythical specialist job which can be done in London and Gibraltar only? You’ve already admitted you don’t understand what he does so not sure how you can be so sure that he’ll be able to do it in Gibraltar?

Jessie - why do you like to nit pick? Are you ok?

Yes, quite fine thank you. The statements about which I am “nit picking” show that the gulf between what you imagine and the reality of what your actual circumstances will allow is getting wider and wider and you are supposedly looking for advice.

Jessie- I was asked what I liked about Spain and I answered. They were my answers and yes I love family aspect of it! Unless I win the lottery I know full well I’m not going to just rock up, sit around on my terrace with DH, DC, our pet dogs and sip on cava watching the sunset!
Obviously there’s a transition! Might not be plain sailing and lots of hurdles etc but once or if you can get through that period then overall Spanish life V life here is much better IMO.

OP are you blinded by any chance by the stories of your friends who claim to be able to afford living in Spain supporting themselves with the help of pyramid selling? I am yet to meet anyone who actually does earn even a minimum wage with any of them.

My friends who live and work remotely are highly skilled IT specialists, they would have worked 7-10 years before being able to do that, I mean living in Portugal or Thailand and earn UK wages.
Why don't you retrain as a computer programmer?

Fere- I think that’s a good point about my friends!

Also funnily enough a good friend of mind has an IT job and she can work anywhere in the world from her laptop. Her whole family actually live in southern Spain and she could have easily emigrated but she loves our seasons here and English pubs and the rugby club too much to go. Thank you for that advice though

And if course to everyone else. So helpful x

Learning to code is like learning foreign language it takes time but eventually it leads to a job, you may start as a computer programmer but end up in a different part of IT altogether. I am mentioning it because you want a year or so to prepare and there are various online resources you can start and just carry on until you possess skill which employers are willing to pay for. More and more jobs are remote and more companies are interested in people working remotely, for various reasons.

OP I'm very impressed on how you have firmly stuck to your dream on this thread in the face of a lot of warnings and negativity. It shows you are pretty strong minded.

I've changed my mind now and I think you should just go for it, and film/vlog your experience as you do it because that may end up being a money earner for you. Good luck.

I am interested in why people think that taking primary aged children to live in Spain is such a terrible idea.

What age do you think would be the best age in the future. (Obviously op cannot turn back time and her children are already primary school age)

It depends how old they are. Personally, I'd rather take them really little, like under 5, long before they need to master reading and writing. Spanish state schools do a lot of copying and learning by rote and there isn't the funding for much help, so they'd just be left to get on with not understanding anything for months on end. I wouldn't want to take them just when they were beginning to learn to read in English and then not cope in either language at an important stage, but equally, I'd not want them to basically waste a year or so of not understanding anything at the end of primary, just before high school, as that's a stage when the expectations ramp up again.

Of course, if they were going to an international school, that's completely different.

We went to Spain when DS was 10, the very latest I would recommend. This gave him more than a year left in primary to learn the language. He was getting by in about 3 months and pretty much fluent by the time he went to secondary. He attended a state school which only had a couple of British pupils. We knew of several families who came with older children/teens and in almost all cases it didn't go well. DS thrived in Spain and passed his Bachillerato with flying colours but the more old fashioned system in Spanish state schools won't suit everybody.

In terms of the children imo the OP should go now or leave it until both are at university/working etc. Taking a teen to Spain and expecting them to cope at a state school with totally different teaching methods, being taught in a language they dont understand is unlikely to end well.

OP remember your on mumsnet here and the reality is no matter what the situation is most mumsnetters will tell you not to move, your crazy and ask irrelevant questions regarding your life or relationship that has nothing to do with the question in hand; oh and the famous ‘your story doesn’t add up’...rolls eyes

Do whatever feels right. And if you are sure your family will enjoy the move and change of pace and your sure you will be better off there than here then I wish you luck.

You know your situation and life better than a bunch of random busy bodies online why have nothing better to do than rain on others parade.

Good luck x

It seems op that going now and not thinking about it for the next 5 years is the time to go.

fussychica
Both my friend who did a tour of Europe before deciding to stay in Spain because it felt right and the one who went back to Spain because that was the plan which her now exh didn’t stick to, both had only teenagers.

All the children have settled great and have had no problems with language or making friends (none want to return to the UK permanently) so I would have to disagree that teens wouldn’t fare well abroad

Waiting till the child is at university or working I would have thought would make it impossible.

My DH and I live part time in Spain, we both have NIE's. Please do your research on what is required to get a NIE, you were given incorrect advice by a certain poster, you do not need private health insurance to get a NIE, nor do you need a certain amount of money, we 100% didn't need to give this information, like you we are EU citizens so the same would apply to you. You need an address (a lot of people use a friend's as they don't check the address) and about a week of total perseverance to get your NIE. The Spanish authorities won't speak to you in English, you are best to have a Spanish speaker with you, it's a cumbersome process at best.

I'm afraid I echo the sentiments of the majority of posters, I don't think this is a good idea. Your back up is not stable at all, I think you need to sort your marriage because you may need to come back to the UK. I don't like to judge any relationship as we all have our quirks but not knowing what your DH does for a living is very odd. If you are relying on him for money and he clearly doesn't have a good track record, that is wreckless.

Spain isn't as cheap as it used to be (we are in the Costa Del Sol). From my experience, holidaying there versus living there is very different and we are lucky we have some money behind us, for a lot of people it is a struggle. It gets cool in the winter and the heating costs aren't small, same with air con in the summer. Lying on a beach in the height of summer is one thing, skepling the kids too and fro and running to work, doing errands is quite another.

I agree with the poster that said the Costa is full of people running away from things, we have met loads over the years and they all ultimately run out of money and go home. A lot have tried to teach English but it doesn't pay very well and the market is swamped with these teachers.

Regarding your kids, I feel they are too old to be immersed into a Spanish state school, at a minimum you should make sure they meet Spanish children outside school to learn the language, a lot of Spanish parents like their kids to learn English from English speaking kids.

I wish you well whatever you decide to do and perhaps you just need to do this and get it out of your system but you aren't a single woman and therein lies the reason a lot of posters are trying to tell you the realities.

The Spanish authorities won't speak to you in English
Shocking! These Spaniards insisting on speaking their own language. Thank goodness we’re leaving the EU, who wants to be associated with selfish bastards like that? After all, British authorities are well known for their multilingual staff.

You are best to have a Spanish speaker with you - or perhaps, you know, just learn Spanish?

It is possible to have a NIE but not be resident, it is basically a fiscal identity number. A member of my family had a temporary NIE to buy a property in Spain but has never been resident in Spain. The two things are different but you can't get one without the other. You can't stay longer than 3 months if not resident and you have to be able to support yourself to get residency.

You need to apply for a NIE and then if you are staying longer than 3 months you need to apply for residency. You must show evidence of income to support yourself in your residency application: Under new residency requirements, you must also prove that you have a sufficient income level of above €800 per person per month in order to sustain your new life here. This could be in the form of an employment contract or pension (s1 form). You may need to provide your last 3 months bank statements as proof. If you are under pensionable age you will need to show proof of a private health insurance policy (without excesses), which we at Health Plan Spain can provide you with. The most popular plan for these purposes is the Sanitas Mas Salud.

www.healthplanspain.com/blog/expat-tips/115-residencia-applying-for-residency-in-spain.html

This is why I rarely post, you get smart arse answers back from angry people who completely miss the point.

We are fluent in Spanish because I don't expect the Spanish to speak English, in fact where we are is completely Andaluce so we either learned it or we wouldn't have been able to do anything down here, which suited us fine, we love Spain, we weren't looking for our home country abroad.

My point is that the OP is not anywhere near fluent hence the points I made. You can think you speak Spanish until you are faced with an Andalusian bureaucrat who has zero interest in foreigners getting a NIE. There is also a difference in Spanish as we think we know it and local dialects such as Andaluce Spanish.

The tone of your comment suggested that you were irritated by the Spanish authorities’ refusal to deal with formalities in English. I am glad to hear that is not the case. It should be patently obvious to OP that she can’t expect them to do so.