There, I said it! I want to move abroad! I am a 40-something with a husband, dog and two grown up children, who have moved out. I have started to really hate the rain and cold in this country. There are so many days that are cold and damp, even in the so called summer.
We are seriously considering a move abroad at some point. Programmes like A Place in the Sun are my fave! I love to watch them and see what sort of properties are out there. Its great to see real families and see how they have adapted to living abroad.
I am generally thinking that we would move to Spain. The plan would be that we retire early, at around 55. This way we can take our (small!) pensions early and have a very little income. The ideal thing would be that we could spend a lot less on a property in Spain than we would in this country, and then the extra money we have left could top us up. I would actually prefer to keep blogging – after ten years its likely that at least one of my blogs will be making enough money to provide us with living costs in Spain. At the moment, a lot of the expat FB groups are saying that a couple could live reasonably on £1500 a month. However, now that we have left the EU (cheers Boris!) its a whole lot harder to move. For Spain, you need to get a non lucrative visa, which has quite high income requirements for the first 5 years. We would meet them because we would have plenty of savings. However, you aren’t allowed to work in Spain on this visa. There is such a thing as a self employed visa, but its really hard to get – and “blogger” isn’t exactly going to bring Spain lots of money!
Another consideration is Portugal. They DO have a visa that I could work on if I was self employed, without it being too problematic to get. However, the houses are a lot more expensive over there, and therefore we wouldn’t have as much savings. However, the Algarve temperatures seem to be a lot more steady than Murcia temperatures, which is the area we are considering in Spain. We went to Greece recently and said that however lovely the house was, the area around Rhodes where we were, is just not somewhere we would want to live.
We have lots to consider. We wouldn’t move while our little dog was still around, as she just couldn’t cope with the heat. She struggles here when its 20 degrees and sunny! Lots of dogs do cope with it, I know – but I know she wouldn’t.
More musings to come!