expat does it meet the dream

The black art of moving from A to B on foreign soil
Mike101
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by Mike101 »

Ken Shabby wrote:Of course if the UK leaves the EU - which is far from unlikely - then any right a UK citizen has to permanently settle in an EU country without having to apply for a residency visa will disappear...
I don't think it will. Spain for instance would not stop all the British form living there bringing all their money into the country....its all about bringing cash into the country.

Mike
And the beast shall be huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there'll be a great rubbing of parts
videoman
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by videoman »

Wife and I moved out to Tenerife nearly ten years ago as we already had a place out there and had been going for quite a few years but moved back to UK two and a half years later.

Enjoyed life out there but you do miss family and friends and it's not all it is cracked up to be.

My advice to anyone thinking of moving abroad would be to rent somewhere first and never trust anyone with your money!
Peirre
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by Peirre »

videoman wrote:Wife and I moved out to Tenerife nearly ten years ago as we already had a place out there and had been going for quite a few years but moved back to UK two and a half years later.

Enjoyed life out there but you do miss family and friends and it's not all it is cracked up to be.

My advice to anyone thinking of moving abroad would be to rent somewhere first and never trust anyone with your money!
As a couple abroad your very reliant on each other, it's not as if you can just pop round to your mates to get away from her indoors, when your mates are 100's of miles away. Likewise relying on friends and family to visit is all well & good. But when the budget airlines are out of season and the friends stop coming it can be a different scenario. Having a long distance relationship with you in the UK and SWMBO working / living in Spain etc may put a strain on any relationship.
AndyB
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by AndyB »

My situation was different because I was sent on glorified work experience (management fast track was what they called it) to South Africa as a commissioning engineer in 1980 when I was 20 and absolutely hated it. The country and the climate were ace but apartheid didn't suit my attitude to life and being flown into occupied countries like Angola on an SADF helicopter to work on power stations wasn't my idea of a good day out at the races :pinch:

I've also had extended periods of time working in Kazakstan & Pakistan and though the money was good the life of an expat in both was far from ideal because all I did was go to work and hang around with other expats in the evening with drinking being the major form of entertainment in Kazakstan and playing golf or drinking being the Pakistan options.

Maybe it's different if it's not work orientated but all I ever wanted to do was get the f**k out of Dodge and that wasn't very often in my case. My wife worked in Switzerland for a while and all she ever wanted to do was fly home for the occasional weekend so I'm not the only one.

We both agree that if we were going to pack up and go it'd be to northern Italy but we'd miss the grandkids so it's not going to happen because the bottom line is we both prefer the UK (thumbs)
SteveW
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by SteveW »

I've got a sale going through on an industrial building I don't use anymore. As soon as we've completed we'll buy a place in Southern Spain. Ayamonte....we've got friends with holiday place there who live near us in England.
We'll not move out there, it will be a holiday home.
I'd prefer Florida really, but you can't fly out on Easyjet for a weekend to Florida, plus I can take the van and dog/Bikes out to Spain if we go for a couple of weeks or longer.
Winter Sun, or at least better winter weather than Lancashire.
ChasF
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by ChasF »

We moved to sw France 24 years ago. Whilst we don't get too involved in the 'little Britain' thing we have relied to a large extent on Brits retiring here and renovating their properties for work.

We also let out holiday properties mainly to Brits.

We notice that many of the retired people who come here are well set up financially but often have children in the UK who have just started producing grand children. Many people are disappointed with the winter weather and the fact that a lot closes down in the winter, also everything is much further away (supermarket, restaurants, friends etc.), the cost of living is high and not everyone (ie no-one) speaks English. I think a lot of people are on the whole less than impressed with the benefits of moving here.

We enjoy the relatively slow pace of life, we enjoy our own company and we are very resourceful, both our children were born here and are therefore more French than English but if we had our time again it would have been much easier to make a decent living in the UK. We are looking forward to our retirement here in a few years time
Biker_Mike
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by Biker_Mike »

Well the other side to the story. Im from South Africa and cant wait to get out of this hellhole. The UK is extremely hard to get into and we have given up equivalent to 20 years of working monies including our pensions. By the time we get to the UK we will have literally nothing left to our names. You guys all talk about how bad the UK and EU is yet there some of us who are literally fleeing to get to the UK and giving up their whole lives to do so.

The only thing anyone every talks about it SA is sun. I dont care about the sun... I care about living past the age of 39 without getting shot, stabbed, strangled, raped, beaten, multiple armed robberies, gun point, break-ins, theft, race hate crimes against white people, corruption, black empowerment, 40% unemployment, beggars, poverty, extreme capitalism, 16foot walls, electrified fencing, rape capital of the world, 57th worst passport access country, TB, HIV AIDS, baby rape, witchcraftary, lawlessness, unregistered vehicles, taxi violence, government theft, low education levels, arson.... The list is just too long to mention. 80% of these things I have already experienced within my my immediate circle of family and friends.

Its so great that theres sun to make it all feel better...

large pockets of Africans think that raping a virgin baby will cure you of AIDS. This past year there has been countless articles of 3-6 year old girls found dead after being raped and hung/killed. There are witchdoctors that use little girl parts for their spells etc...

So while you complain about the little things in life remember there are some of us that are willing, want to or are in the process of giving our left nutsack to have those little problems that are experienced in the UK.

From my side, the UK is the best place on earth to be in this day and age.
scubabiker
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by scubabiker »

come to norway biker_mike, its less people, better pay, bigger houses, cleaner water, the list goes on.... the uk does suck, especially big cities....
my ex was from SA, she told me a lot of storeis about growing up there, is it true that there are mailbox things for people to put unwanted babies in?
i think if i HAD to move back to the uk i would have to live out in the sticks in rural wales, i liked living in wales, but i didnt like the cities... the uk just has too many damn people all crammed into small spaces, thats why council estates are so bad, its just such a shame that they cant open up the uk a bit and spead people around a bit more....
statistics time, there are more people in central london than the whole of norway, and i dont think that even includes tourists!
is there anyone here who also lives in a non EU country? (norway is EEA, not EU)
AndyB
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by AndyB »

Biker_Mike, it's easy to get sucked in by the idea of sun and the wide open spaces but you've still got to live there and my argument when I was there is that you can't live a normal life in an abnormal society no matter where in the World it is.

South Africa has a lot going for it and going there on holiday is great but when we were there about 5 years ago it was still a divided country with the only visible difference being that money rather than colour was the division and that's never going to change.

I hope things work out for you and you find what you're hoping for over here but the UK is also a divided country and it's not getting any better which is probably more of a reason to go than living in the sun. I still think we've got a great country here and having been to a lot of different places over the years I've yet to find one I'd sooner live in.
almar
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Re: expat does it meet the dream

Post by almar »

Moved to France little over a year ago we were able to buy outright so no mortgage, both myself and my wife found employment paid hols medical insurance paid.Yes it met our dream and more , loving life
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