Life Choices

[northernlass1]

Has anyone made any life changing decisions which have really worked out eg emigrating, taking on a small holding, giving up work etc.

dh can retire next year at 38 (if he wants)with 1/3 salary as a yearly pension (14k) and a lump sum of a years salary. We've recently inherited some money and have about 400k in house equity (I know we are very lucky in this respect!!).

dh is away a lot with the job which puts a big strain on our marriage and the children are hard work on your own. We're also living in the south where house prices are enormous.

Beginning to think a lot about completely changing our life, ds is nearly 4 and dd is 1.5. School in the village is brilliant though but we have few friends here and no family (only recently moved). I love it in the north.

What would fellow mumsnetters do in our position??

There's an article online today about downshifting, with some of the author's dos and don'ts. He's stayed in the UK, but I imagine some of his thoughts are still relevant. Downshifting

mumwith2 - Yes we did move from a big ex-pat area - partly because of the seediness bunny2 mentioned (there are nice people too, just fewer than you'd expect), but also because we were fed up with being the only young people in the area in winter! (everyone else retired). In this village we are staring to become accepted. Not by everyone, but by most people and I do prefer it, but I am also glad that we moved to the coast first - to ease our transition!

I have just published a website on this - Othercountries - Spain contact me via that site if you have any questions. Bunny2 lived in perhaps the worst UK-dodgy-ex-pat area there is and there are places that combine a more Spanish way of life with a few British people to talk to.

(tech - is it alright to plug my own website here? It was inspired by people asking me about Spain all the time on Mumsnet and recommends mumsnet as a good site for ex-pats! Pleas delete the link if not OK)

Bunny2 - generally I feel better now. Like I say, its just that I miss my family and I'm planning a month's trip in the summer, whoppee!. In fact I'll be in Brighton at some point - will you be around in July?

Dont think ex pats in France aren't running away from things either. We spend 1/3rd of year in France, rest in UK. The ex pats we know are all on second marriages, (nothing wrong with that) and all retired, all driving old bangers and living in ok houses, all speaking English to each other!!! We keep apart, considering we are about 40 years younger than them all, and have young children. When you have young children, new friendships tend to be made on that common basis.

I wouldnt want to spend all my time in France, I would go mad at the middle of the day closing. It isnt much warmer than down in the south anyhow, but it is more peaceful and quite idyllic! No M25 everyday is appealing.

The Brits there are all running away from what ever didnt work for them in the UK, and I think they resent us, or are indeed slightly envious that we seem to be able to afford the best of both worlds. For example, we have several Michelin star restaurants nearby that we go to regularly and take our UK friends to, when we first went there I said "arent the restuarants just brilliant" and they looked at me, they dont go to them, cannot afford to, and wouldnt be able to understand the menu. But then maybe they are happy just making do?

To make a move out of the UK is a big decision to make, but not an enormous one. I suppose if you have any hankering to do it, then do it. So what if it doesnt work out. You can always come home. If you dont go away you can never come back!

lucy123 I agree with you about language, my mum and dad go to France every year and they meet so many people who upped and left the UK and moved to rural france and put their English speaking 13 year old into the local school and are now wondering why the 13 year old is having problems.
I agree with gosh2 as well, loads of the people where my parents go in France are just scapping a living, there really isn't any decent work around, and they mix all the time with other English speakers.
My experience is with more remote areas, Indonesia and Central Asia, and there you find that just as you make a good friend they leave because they are on 2-3 year work contracts. So it is really important to make local friends, which brings us back to language again! We are lucky, our ds is only 5 months, so he will grow up learning the local lingo.
But I still think it is such a great thing to go and experience something different for a while. It gives you a whole new perspective.

that was "scraping a living" by the way!

Mumwith2, just remembered something else while chopping onions .. dont know if you are planning to rent a house in Spain but if you do, get the local paper if you can. When we moved, I bought a holiday accomodation magazine and we rented a place from there for 6 months. We were totally ripped off on the price despite what we thought was hard bargaining. When we moved to Spain we found out the local free paper for expats, called Sur, has pages and pages of accommodation at roughly half the price we were paying. Sur covers the Costa del Sol plus some inland places, it also has a website Suronline.es I think (Lucy123?). I wish I had known this before we relocated, we would have saved thousands of pounds. I hope I didnt put you off with my earlier post. As Lucy123 points ou, we did live in the dodgiest of places! There are some lovely parts and some lovely expats too.

Lucy123, let me know when you are coming over. We cant get to Spain now till the end of the season as our villa is booked solid.

My MIL moved to Spain about 4 years ago, when she was 68. She was with a partner who really wanted to move to the sun.They moved to an area with a few expats, but was still quite rural at the time.
Unfortunately, her partner died 3 months after they arrived, but she chose to stay on alone, even though she has loads of family, who would have loved her to come back.
She has blended in very well, as she is Italian she had a head start with the language, (very simular), but she also attends free Spanish classes,(not many of the expats do).
She has gone back to her mediteranian way of life, her best friend is a spanish lady, who speaks no english, but she also has many friends among the expat community, and strangely gets on very well with the Germans,(no offence to anyone, I'm half German myself),who seem to like to take charge of local community matters.
I don't think she will ever consider comeing back to Britain permanently, and seems to be having a great time, her money goes much further and all her aches and pains seem to have gone.

Thanks bunny2, if we do go, we would def. rent to start with. I'm just really scared to uproot the kids, but find out it was the wrong decision, I really, really need a crystal ball. Some days I think It's definately a good idea, other days I'm not so sure. My husband would have to work (graphic/web designer), and I know finding work is really hard, and wages low, I don't really want to get to a new country and be financially struggling, but would the better quality of life make up for it?? Are there any areas you could recommend that I could look more into, that would be good for 2 young kids, not with the dodgy ex-pats!!, maybe 30mins or so from the coast??? thanks so much for your advice, it's really helpful.

mumwith2 - the website bunny2 is talking about is surinenglish.com

It has lots of rented properties in the Malaga area. Does your DH speak Spanish? If not then I suggest moving to/near a slightly touristy area and he will have to be able to drive (there are IT jobs about, but you will have to have a bit of money behind you as he may not find one quickly). Alternatively, could he do what we do, which is to work as freelance IT bods for clients we met while still in the UK?

If he needs a job in Spain where Spanish is not required, then you could look at Coin (about 20% British - still has a Spanish atmosphere, 20 mins from the coast, cheap, but a bit ugly), or the Eastern Costa del Sol. We live in a village near Granada, which I would thoroughly recommend, but where you do have to speak a bit of Spanish (I can put you in contact with some local estate agents if you like - it's cheaper here than in Malaga)

I think its definately worth a try anyway, but do make sure you have some money to fall back on. How old are your kids?

one of my closest friend moved to spain in feb and like you she was umming and aaghing and one day really wanted to go the next in tears at the prospect but she did it and is enjoying it(we had previously met when we both lived out in spain 7 years ago)she has a dd who is 2 this month and a dh.they are on the costa del sol but not on the coast(about 35 mins)and have a mansion in comparison to what they had in the uk and of course less bills but more eating out at nice restaurants.....wish i had the chance to do it!!!

Just re-read your other post - 5 and 3.

Just remember that it will be much much easier for them to adjust if you go sooner rather than later (and readjust to the UK if it doesn't work out). There are more potential problems with older children - school curriculums, harder to learn Spanish etc. I think you should go for it!

Hi lucy123 or bunny2 - I've heard Oliva mentioned a few times, might be ok for families, good school etc - do you know of this place????? My husband is currently learning spanish so that should help him with the hard part of finding a job out there.

There's a town called Oliva in Valencia province (between Gandia and Denia on the Costa Blanca). I don't know it, but you may be able to find out more at costablanca-news.com - it isn't as good as the surinenglish site, but you should eventually find the property to let section in the property ads (looks to me like holiday rentals though).

Sounds nice, but like I say i don't know it. There will be a sizeable expat population but there's certainly a bit of Spanish culture too.

I've been to Oliva on holiday. Its a nice place - we were there at the end of September and it was warm and very pretty. But we were one of only about 10 people on a HUUUUUGE campsite which was full in the summer - could be a bit ghastly with all the tourists then I would think - apparantly it is (or was then, a few yrs back) very popular with German families.

chatee - if you read this again, I would be really interested to know the name of the village you're friend is in. Is it a mix of spaninsh and brits?? I really need some help with where to look at and we were thinking somewhere maybe 30 mins from coast.

mumwith2 i come from a village called benicassim in castellon,valencia theres about 5 english families that i know of and they love it,they usually work for the big tiles and ceramic firms in the province,its right on the coast but mainly spanish tourism

I'm so envious. I'd be there (anywhere bright and warmer than here!) if I weren't concerned about DS's schooling. He is nearly 11 and just sitting his year 6 SATS. Has anyone else made the transition with a child this age?

PS He 'studies' French at school so has a very basic grasp of the language already.