To think life in England must be much easier

[Heatethelastwaffle]

I’m British but live abroad.
We are struggling a lot financially at the moment, life is hard, although the sun shines.
Where we are, if you fall into a hole, you’re pretty much screwed. Benefits exist, but you have to be very much on the breadline and even then it’s not enough to survive. There is a national health service, but it’s not great, so I’m having to pay out of my own money for private consultations. I have a chronic illness but no benefits whatsoever exist, my Dd is potentially suffering from Pans/pandas, they haven’t heard of it where we are, I’ve been to three separate Drs who had no idea what I’m talking about, There’s no help with rent, with housing, with bills and so on if you fall on hard times.

I want to go home, it may be depressing in some ways in England but you’re secure.

Oh the ignorance! Would it be news to some that you can still pay NI contributions while abroad?. It's completely legal to do so too....who'da thought it!

@Heatethelastwaffle you might not be entitled to any benefits, you have been away "a long time" and not made any contributions. A friend of mine returned from Australia and couldn't get any housing benefit or any other for that matter. Her son couldn't take a college place, he'd been offered. They ended up going back to Australia. I'm not sure the grass is all that green here.

For 2 weeks at a time and they were well paid to do so.

No there are not jobs everywhere. If there was she'd have one by now. She's been looking and there are no jobs in what she's trained in and very few other jobs. So although she's applied for anything that comes up she can't even get an interview and like I said she's lucky to find a job a fortnight to apply for.

Simply being born in UK doesn't give you citizenship and hasn't since1983@

Enough people in UK paid in sweetFA. and take what they can

Which is what I was referring to when I mentioned exceptions...

Well there will be a hell of a lot of " exceptions"

It was done for the exact reason to stop people having British citizenship merely through being born here.

Must be area dependent. My DS has had 3 different jobs over last few years and each one been a " step up" as such and he is still at uni.

Sounds exactly like the U.K except add sh-t weather into the mix. I’d move abroad like a shot if I could.

The OP wants health care . I've known people come back from living in America for many years to retire in the UK for the NHS care.

Not according to the goverments own data

lordslibrary.parliament.uk/child-poverty-statistics-causes-and-the-uks-policy-response/#:~:text=It%20added%20that%20this%20meant,from%2036%25%20in%202011%2F12

That data you have supplied says relative poverty?

It's still not great to have so many children living in such a state of disadvantage.

My younger sister has lived in the US for over 40 years but could come back and live in the U.K. tomorrow if she wanted to. Despite taking US citizenship after her American dh died (it was beneficial for tax reasons) she retained her British passport and in fact the person officiating at the ceremony said he knew that a good many people (Brits or others) would do the same. Even though officially it’s not allowed.

She certainly was never required to formally renounce her U.K. citizenship. I’m not sure how you would even do that so that it’d stop you from re-applying for a Uk passport later - if you wanted to.

If someone retires and returns to the UK they will be paying tax on their pensions so will be contributing - maybe for twenty years or more. I see nothing wrong with that.

@LBFseBrom

Did I say there was anything wrong about doing that ? In fact I don't blame them.

To be fair, how often are you buying shoes, toiletries, clothes? Who does that on a weekly basis? What household goods do you need in a hostel/hotel room that you need immediately on arrival?

Surely, if you’ve been entitled to a British passport, you will always be entitled to one, no matter what other nationality you might have gained previously. You could have publicly thrown your British passport on to an official bonfire, with the other country’s officials standing by - it’d make no difference.

If they have private pensions
Not if they don’t