To think that moving overseas to escape your problems is daft

[Pavementworrier]

Because overseas will just have new problems (compounded by people thinking you're an annoying foreigner)

IMO...You're correct in that this country is going to the dogs...lord knows what it'll be like in another 10/20 years if all one government can do is live their time in term blaming the last.

As for taxes having a set amount of what I've earned taken from me before I even get to see it inorder to contribute to the pot is fine, to a certain extent, but when I'm having more and more taken year on year taking home less and less to me it then becomes a piss take.

It worked very well for my friend. She hated her job, hard where she lived and loathed the British weather. So she moved to Spain, lives off the money she gets from renting her house in the UK and enjoys year round sunshine. I’m sure she must still have some problems, but overall her quality of life is much better and she’s very happy.

Countries are very different from one another so it matters why you’d be leaving. We won’t stay here past DH being 55 because of the state of the NHS. It’s truly dire and whoever thinks the UK is the cutting edge of anything is truly misinformed. I’ve worked in medical research for my entire career and in the past 10 years not a single participating centre for any of our trials has been in the Uk.

Oh, THAT?
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Every country has problems. And you don't always realize it just by doing some research, you'll realize it after you move there and gone through all the expense and trouble, then you realize, taxes and violence and healthcare not as good as you'd like it to be and crummy neighbors and lousy transportation systems and cost of living isn't much different from one place to the next.

But, if you think you know a solution that will work for you, go for it!
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@StruggleFlourish actually Switzerland is pretty perfect lol. Never expected it to be, and actually I reluctantly moved as a trailing spouse but built a life of my own here and made it work..
And here - low tax, no crime, amazing healthcare, amazing public transport, beautiful scenery, fantastic quality of life, earn 3x vs uk, brilliant schools, swimming in the lakes in the summer, skiing in the winter, well connected to rest of Europe. Actually sometimes the grass is greener.

As the late, great Harry Chapin said: "You can travel on 10,000 miles and still stay where you are."

My SIL tried it but it does not really seem to have made her and her DH any happier so far as I can see.

And yet many move to other countries and seem to be perfectly happy there, with no intentions of ever returning. As with anything one of the main contributors as to whether it will work out or not is the attitude of the people concerned. People with negative outlooks will never be happy anywhere.

@Greyrock2828 how about the exorbitant cost of health insurance? We have friends in Switzerland who pay 4000 chf a month for a family of 5. We live just over the border in France and have many of the great things such as stunning mountains and lakes, good schools, and much lower cost of healthcare but higher taxes of course.

@Morecoffeethanks that sounds excessive - assume they have the top tier of insurance for each family member rather than basic? We are 2 adults with basic health insurance and 1 child with top tier insurance and we pay 1300chf per month.

I do think it's all relative though and depends on your perspective - salaries being higher here - we collectively clear around 17000/18000chf per month so 1300chf doesn't feel like a big deal. Having lived in the UK where more often than not we ended up shelling out for private health care because NHS was so bad we don't mind paying for something which works and we are grateful for the exceptional heathcare we have received despite the cost - life or death situations - I am extremely thankful to be here. We don't have the option of living in France right now thanks to Brexit but would consider it in the future once we get our passports (hopefully)- cheaper housing market.

I have a relative who moved to Switzerland with his family and he and his wife have settled in eventually - took ages to settle and make friends with locals. I agree it looks beautiful and a well run country and if you like peace and quiet (which I do) it's a charmed life. However both his kids, now grown up, have left to return to the UK. They don't like it and were envious of our kids.

I'm going to visit for a holiday to see for myself, but they have warned me eating out, travelling around and visiting places is very expensive so I am putting more money into my savings!

I would not move abroad as I also have a charmed life and the NHS has worked fine for me so I can't knock it.

But I wish you well in your life in Switzerland, sounds like you've found your heaven.

Stupid to thing moving means you stop paying taxes. If you are earning you pay taxes, and many countries it’s more than here. As for moving being ‘best thing I ever did’ - why is that sad? Surely if someone has found fulfilment in a new place it is?
I moved to England, met my husband and had a family - does that qualify? I mean I wasn’t moving away from any issues I just decided to try something new. I might spend a year in Spain soon - just to have a new adventure before I get too old.

It sounds like you are talking about people moving to Dubai, in which case I tend to agree with you. I’m sure however on the surface Dubai as a monied white foreigner is pretty nice. It’s not somewhere I would move to.

I sort of wish I’d moved to Spain when we had the chance. I have friends who did and they have no regrets. I’m sure they pay plenty of tax though but seem happy out there. My brother also lived abroad for a number of years and never regretted it.

Dubai is not the only place to go to. I moved abroad in 2021 but I wouldn't touch Dubai.

Moving "abroad" isn't one thing (or to be more obvious - "abroad" is a lot of very different countries).

Some people move to be self defined "ex pats" and live in an English speaking bubble, generally either considerably wealthier than those who don't define themselves as "ex pats" OR not necessarily much wealthier but with a passive income (pension or home country rental property or having sold a business or expensive property).

Those people have very different experiences to people who actually emigrate as working age people and join the local workforce.

People who emigrate to English speaking countries or return to countries they grew up in/ countries they grew up speaking the language of with at least one parent also have a radically different experience to monolingual English speakers who emigrate to the EU without wealth, passive income or an expat contract.

I'm surprised to hear universal praise for Switzerland as foreign children often have quite a brutal experience in the Swiss education system - especially if they arrive as pre teens or older without fluent language skills in the language of their canton and good competence in the other language (French or Swiss German) - and also if neither parent has fluent language skills for interacting with school and administrative stuff.

Living in a language you didn't grow up speaking always has you on the back foot and can erode your identity. Qualifications aren't necessarily recognised as equivalent, even throwing yourself into learning a language it can be many years before achieving genuine fluency and even then you feel just a bit stupider than in your native language ...

People have talked about Sweden - it's great if you are Swedish, not so great for foreigners.

Obviously anywhere is fun if you're just there a couple of years and know you're not staying, but actually emigrating permanently with a language barrier and no passive income, intending to work in the local economy and put children into local schools, is very, very hard work indeed.

@Reification Yes the language can be tricky in Switzerland - also the fact that there's the French side and German side and to get a local job you're expected to be fluent in one if not two. That said where we are there is a large expat community with lots of international organisations so it's not a big deal. And then there are plenty of international schools. It can be a transitory place but it's important to try and integrate to some extent and learning the language is part of that- we have been able to do so as adults so I don't see it being an obstacle as teenagers. I do have friends who moved here as teenagers and went to the local school and there is alot of support to help non native speakers get up to speed with the language, some kids end up repeating the year.
Our DS has some mild additional needs and we chose the local international school which has been brilliant. But I hear it's not uncommon for young adults who've grown up here to leave to live elsewhere and I'd encourage it, it's exactly what I think they ought to do. Most of them return when they are settling down and appreciate a more steady, safe way of life.

@Reification

Your post is very Eurocentric.

There are lots of English speaking countries outside of Europe with excellent quality of life.

Yes it is - but British people move to most of those countries (with the exception of Australia, New Zealand and the USA) to live in ex-pat bubbles in the "richer" countries or to use the wealth discrepancy to their advantage in the poorer countries (say by using the money from an inheritance or sale of their own "average" house in the UK to live on indefinitely somewhere with a much lower cost of living).

It's possible to have a good quality of life doing that, although it's a strange sort of perching on top of the host country, until something goes wrong or the individual becomes unwell or very elderly.

YABU.

Sometimes a change of scenary is exactly what people need.

The costs of running a property here are incredibly costly compared with, say, Spain. Council Tax being the main culprit. We do pay far too much tax here.

I’ve moved around a fair bit and it has always benefited me in at least some way. If I never moved my lifestyle, friendships and pretty much everything would be way inferior.

Your bias is blinding @Reification

There are lots of British ex colony countries (Africa, Asia) where England is the main language or official language.

We move from the UK and we integrate - we work self fund and put back into the local society. Our children are multi lingual, we have a better quality of life.

We do not move to these places because of an inheritance or “to live in expat bubbles”.

The issue you and your posts have is that you are blatantly narrowing your world to the behaviours of white people.

The world is a big place - widen your views - there is a much bigger scope of experience out there.

I have moved country twice in my adult life, both times primarily for political reasons, with some lifestyle elements, and the first move also was a good career decision. It was the best decision I could have made both times. (I don't live in the UK any more but I do pay taxes there as I have a business there).

Every country has pros and cons.

We left the UK a few years ago, in the UK we were told the severity of our daughters CP meant she would never walk so the NHS refused any help, she was referred as soon as we moved here and now walks, runs, skips and jumps. My husband has a physical disability, when we were in the UK he had to fly back here for treatment as treatment isn’t really offered on the NHS for his condition.

For us the move is positive, we pay a similar amount of tax, a tiny bit less but public services are good, our fulltime childcare bill is around £84 per month. Schools so far have been good, with good options for those who don’t want to sit A-level equivalents and go to uni. We also enjoy that children have more independence, it would be unusual here for an eleven year old to be treated like a toddler who can’t walk to school etc.

Country A can be great for one person, and be a bit crappy for another.

As a foreigner in Sweden, Sweden is definitely great for me.

Yep, we did 2 years almost in Copenhagen, came back and are now trying for Sweden again but work for ourselves - may be possible via employer of record- but it’s not easy -pure self employed takes forever and quite large amounts of cash in bank - regardless of what you earn - it has issues, everywhere does but overall if you earn well quality of life is good and I like the ethos