An ex colleague of mine had a Thai wife and she literally dumped him just months after she arrived in England. She well and truly fleeced him.
I know a woman who moved to Berlin a few years ago and she raves about how brilliant it is but she comes home regularly every few months and many of us think she does so to get free NHS treatment.
I know several people who have moved to France but that wouldnt appeal to me. I also know a couple who have moved to Mainland Spain. They also come home at regular intervals and I cant quite work that out either because all they talk about is how wonderful their new life is.
my brother once lived in Spain - he now lives in heaven I believe but his wife still lives in Spain. I think there is a genuine desire to catch up with friends and family who for whatever reason won’t visit abroad and I would hazard another guess that they all still miss ‘home’
Don’t just think of the sun and parties 
there are quite a few negatives such as:-
1)Things that are tax free in UK will be taxed abroad e.g. any wins on Premium Bonds or the Lottery and at 30% or more
2) The NHS is not perfect but don’t assume the medical facilities abroad are better, you’ll be at a severe disadvantage if you don’t speak the language even in places like Spain
3) Any money you transfer abroad will be treated as income and could be taxed unless you go through a twice yearly interview with the tax authorities and prove you’ve paid tax already in England, and if we leave the EU even then they may tax it.:shock:
4) Don’t assume the exchange rate will stay the same, it dropped by 40% during our overseas ‘jolly’ and that made quite a difference to our housekeeping
5) Some things (e.g. food and drink) maybe a lot cheaper than UK but other things e.g. car insurance will be much more.
6) On your trips back to Blighty you may buy stuff, think about how you get it to your foreign home, there’s a lot of time and hassle packing up stuff, taking it to the airport, arranging freight etc etc.
7) Don’t know what crime is like where you live now but chances are you’ll be a ‘target’ for the local underworld who will automatically assume you are wealthy.
And there’s more, just remember anyone living abroad will only tell you the good things 
you sound like the doom and gloom merchant ?? - My brother and wife moved to Spain 10 yrs ago and everything was smooth sailing - [well they didn’t actually take a boat ] but lived in the same village that some very notable english poet once lived and their poetry improved tremendously - what was HIS name gerard something??
In our mid 40s my husband and I burned our bridges, sold our bungalow here in the UK and buggered off to Spain. We bought an apartment out there in a predominantly Spanish town. We were totally ripped off by the ENGLISH estate agent who sold us a property for 30,000 euros more than what the Spanish had it on for. We paid 74,000 euros for it and we found out afterwards that it was up for sale with a Spanish agent too at only just over 40,000 euros!!
We of course didn’t have an old age pension but my husband did have a couple of pensions from a disability that resulted in the loss of a limb whilst working for a fabric/fibre company. This is how we afforded to live out there. It was extremely cheap to live there, although electric was on a par with England and we managed fine provided we stuck to a reasonable budget.
For the first two years our healthcare was covered by the NHS but because were were not of retirement age we had to apply for private healthcare once our two years was up. Once applying my husband got private medical care no problem but I was refused because they said my blood pressure medication strength was too high, had it been 50mg as opposed to the 100mg it was they turned me down saying I was too much of a risk! I could have got medical insurance but it was going to cost WAY too much and we couldn’t have afforded it so we had to sell up and come back to the UK. How can we live in a country where we are not covered medically? We can’t because no one ever knows what is around the corner and should any of us been taken ill in hospital or needed a life saving op we wouldn’t have had the money to pay for it. We were devastated about having to come back. We had so enjoyed our life out there, we didn’t even work out there, had a life of riley me being a lady of leisure.
We lost a hell of a lot of money due the the English ripping the English off, in hindsight I wish we had bought through a Spanish estate agent but we didn’t, we were naive and too trusting, more fool us.
We had to sell our property for much less than it was worth (we had put money in the property doing it up) as we needed to get a quick sale.
We came back to the UK and had to start all over again with a mortgage at 45 years old which we will be tied into for the next 10 years or more as we didn’t have enough to buy another property outright.
We thought we had done our research, obviously we hadn’t done it well enough, no one told us that we would be ripped off by our own people. It was disgusting. I remember the estate agent getting his car blown up, there was a rumour going round that it was a disgruntled property buyer but we aren’t sure if the rumour was true.
So here we are in the UK dreaming always of one day going back. We would NEVER buy a property out there again, we would opt to rent if and when our dream every becomes a reality again.
They say God works in mysterious ways, it is a good job I am living back here otherwise there would be no one to take care of my Dad.
Incidentally I will never go again whilst my Dad is alive, he needs me now Mum and my Sister are no longer here. For now we will make do with our yearly holidays to Spain.
Spain is a beautiful country to live in.
I know several people who have moved to France but that wouldnt appeal to me. I also know a couple who have moved to Mainland Spain. They also come home at regular intervals and I cant quite work that out either because all they talk about is how wonderful their new life is.
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Maybe they come back to see family and friends.
We spend half the year in the UK and half in Spain. Love it over there but wouldn’t want to be there through the summer months.
well all tales are different but my deceased brother and wife sold up in UK - moved to a small village in spain [15-18 yrs ago] -purchased a house from local agents and lived there happily until his demise 4 yrs ago - he finished up in hospital in the nearest large city [Malaga] all expenses paid because they were in the EU and Uk citizens still. they swore that the medical services there were superior to UK? They enjoyed their lifestyle for sure but I’m not sure about medical services - he may have survived in UK? or is that just my wishful thinking?
his wife still lives there and has many friends some Uk who support her in her now single lifestyle.
I don’t know about the financial implications but I have loved this tropical summer we are having …I would love to live in this climate forever 
We have opted for spending 6 months in UK in summer and 6 months in Spain over the winter. It works for us especially with the fantastic summer so far this year.
I’ve spent five winters in Portugal and OK the winters only last a couple of months, but can be a bit miserable at times. Everything there is designed to keep you cool, marble floors etc. so come christmastime you miss the open fires and general cosiness of blighty.
can’t you cosy it up yaself??
We drive to Spain in our Motorhome which is our home from home:-)
Could living abroad be achieved financially?
It was for us, in a sense, but when we moved back after five years in Portugal, to buy a property in London we were about £100k worse off than we would have been had we stayed put. But we have no regrets, in fact we are glad we got it out of our system and did it in our 50s instead of in our 60s/70s.
We had a small place in London, sold it, moved to Lisbon and bought two homes, lived in one and rented out the other. When we moved back, due to ill-health, property prices in Lisbon had increased by a little, prices in London had increased by a lot!
I would recommend people who own property here in the UK hang on to it, rent it out and rent a place to live in your chosen hot spot.
Is that a fun place to live (parked up in Spain) during the winter months?
can’t you cosy it up yaself??
The homes - villa or apartment - are concrete shells, cool all year round. And I was thinking about pubs with open fires, not that we go to them now, is what I missed during the PT winter.
I must be the odd one out. No way do I want to live abroad where they can’t speak English properly, a country full of rabies,driving on the wrong side of the road, eating snails and frogs legs, poor sanitation to name but a few drawbacks to living abroad. worst of all watching TV with a language you don’t understand, horrible. Then there are the medical treatment issues- No national health service only private medical insurance.
What really puts me off is getting in a car to drive with the steering wheel on the wrong side, how uneducated can they get
AS for pasta dishes the make me sick, spagetti through a straw how uncouth can you get.
When we were in Brittany staying right out in the country with friends, the local farmer came along with his tractor and sewage bowser. He proceeded to extract human sewage for house cesspits and then go spread it straight onto the fields. No way would I want to eat ant French produce after that
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Is that a fun place to live (parked up in Spain) during the winter months?
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We love our life, admit it wouldn’t suit everyone. Winters in Spain then there’s the rest of Europe on the doorstep, what’s not to like.
We fully intend living life to the full while we can.
You know what? I could have said all that myself!
Bloody foreigners.
Of course, whether they’ll admit it or not, they CAN speak English. You just have to speak slowly and shout.
Go further afield and you can get sheeps eye and dogs blx.
worst of all watching TV with a language you don’t understand
It’s mostly English & American with foreign titles. BBC World News ought to available FOC on their version of Freeview.
my dear deceased brother made a life changing decision to move to spain with his wife and purchased a lovely house in a small mountain village - they both made a intense effort to learn and speak spanish BEFORE going there and had a fantastic time - when my brother became very ill he received according to them the best medical treatment they could - apparently touted better than UK [that’s easy to believe these days!] unfortunately as he had a late stage of leukaemia he didn’t make it ; his wife still lives there and occasionally commutes to UK but they could not speak more highly of the Spanish and their hospitality.
On another site I use posts a guy who has lived in spain for 30 yrs runs his own restaurant and wouldn’t have it any other way - it’s called ‘state of mind’ flexibility’ not being a rigid brit??