Why go back to the Uk? Is Spain not cheap enough?

Hi ReidPJ,

I see your point but surely there are 2 sides to the coin, my opinion is the other side.

I luckily benefit from opinions from many holiday clients  who claim things are cheaper than the UK:

I myself worked in London for 7 years, had more money but didnt have much a life.

Maybe the point i was trying to make is money is not as important to(me) compared to lifestyle.

Cheers

Graeme

Yes graeme lifestyle wins everytime for me.  So far the lifestyle in Surrey works wonderfully.  Fabulous area, great gastro pubs that are as cheao as Spain, supermarkets that keep competing and so cheap and such variety, which is what I miss when I go away, I can get ingredients for any cuisine i chose to cook.  And the people here are really friendly.  I take the point about getting older and speaking ones own language.  The quality of care here is excellent in our local hospitals, no complaints whatsoever.  We do toy with the idea of living somewhere where politicians don't assume we all have altzheimers, or are stupid.  But slowly realising such a place doesn't exist!  Meanwhile no complaints with Surrey where we have lived on and off for many years.

Much has already been said, and many good points raised.

IMHO there are 2 categories of people moving back to the UK.

1) Families with younger children.
Yes - cost of schooling here even in the state schools can be horrific. My neighbour has just spent over €300 on books for her 16 year old daughter - and that was buying second hand. OK there isn't an expensive school uniform to buy to compensate but I suspect most schools in the UK now just accept smart trousers and tops that can be bought in Tesco or Asda cheaply. So books and schooling for kids are far more expensive here.

Also, there is little or no support for children with learning difficulties here. They just have to struggle along in the mainstream class with no help. Our friends daughter has returned to the UK for just that reason. Her two sons (aged 9 and 11) were born here, speak fluent Spanish (actually it's better than their English) but one was really struggling in school. Now back in the UK he is getting extra help and is improving with each passing week with the care and support he needs. In fact she was born here and speaks fluent Spanish but was being paid a little over €500 pm and often could not afford to put food on the table. Mum supported her big time.

So yes - many younger families are struggling with work and income reductions. It must be so hard for them to make ends meet.

2) Older OAPs who need medical care
This is the biggest category I know of. As has been said, although health care is good in Spain it can be extremely frightening if you don't speak Spanish fluently and have to visit the doctor or have a stay in hospital. I had to visit the doctor a while ago for a nasty eye infection and whilst my Spanish isn't fluent it is ok - but it does not extend to having in depth medical conversations.

Pensions don't go as far as they did and as far as I know you cannot claim any of the extras like pension credit, attendance allowance etc that you can in the UK. So again people are worse off. My mum's state pension including attendance allowance is a whopping £260 per week but would reduce to a little over £110 if she came to live here.

ME? I'm an early retiree as is my hubby (we're both just short of 60 now). We get a massive €1000 per month from our private pensions and live comfortably. We run a car, we indulge in the odd glass of wine (or three or four ) and we still smoke (tut tut). We eat well but at home (we both love cooking) so we don't eat out regularly - we didn't do it that much in the UK so why do we need to do it here? Although we do go for a MDD about once a fortnight, and a nice meal every year for our birthdays.

We weren't rich in the UK or had a massive house but our council tax was way over £2000 in a rural community - here in our "casa pueblo" in a Spanish village it is €300 (they revalued our house at the height of the market!). Our oil bill for our central heating in the UK was big - about £1200 7 years ago and now it would be double that and certainly well over £2000 pa with the huge rise in the price of oil. Our gas bottle bill here for the whole of last winter was €150 plus another €100 extra electricity for the heater in the bedroom. No comparison really is there?

Like most, lifestyle was what brought us here. We were fed up with frantic 12 hour a day jobs and no time to be "us".

Would I return to the UK in the future? Possibly if my health deteriorated as not being able to communicate with a doctor directly is the one thing that really frightens me.

3 bed penthouse in Spain total cost to maintain (we visit every month) 2500 Euro

4 bed house in Surrey, rates alone £2500-00 gan't wait to live in Spain full time.

Another pont people seem to miss is that IVA or VAT is on absolutely everything out here. Education, books, food the list goes on. The UK does not rob people of this. Since when did feeding yourself, educating and clothing your children become a luxury? Spain does not look after it's future and would rather rob people blind and give back far less for it than other euro countries in the long term.

I could make a massive list of how much more I pay here than i did in england. So you payed a large council tax bill in the UK, well it all amounts to the same in the end when you take  into consideration all the things are more expensive here that you pay for everyday.

Hi all !!  we live here in Spain in a cavehouse and wished we had bought one first time round ! its amazing been in Spain 8 years lived in a new build first in Almeria but to many undesirable Brits . My Husbands been having treatment for cancer over the past  3 years in our very basic hospital but i can say they have really looked after him very well, although even with my knowledge of medical issues my Spanish is not good enough for medical had a problem with the consultant who was Jordanian.  His Spanish i could not understand  nor could my interpreter either and he was not very nice , and when you are ill you are very vulnerable and very fragile ! Luckily  we had good people to help me ,but its been a worrying time for me and my husband really wants to go back to England now and my family want us back too. So unfortunately i have to leave my beautiful cavehouse with all its space and eco friendly living  and great walks by the river with our pooch !! who loves the wide open spaces  and  my wonderful friendly village with no crime here i feel so safe . Going back to England  well with what i see on the TV i know  i will not be going out after dark  and will we affrord to live maybe not like here , So all enjoy living in this great country with its friendly people when i sell and maybe a while because nothing is selling and i cannot afford to just give it away because its all we have !  I will greatly miss my life style here .

3 bed penthouse in Spain total cost to maintain (we visit every month) 2500 Euro

4 bed house in Surrey, rates alone £2500-00 gan't wait to live in Spain full time.

Just remind me.  What's the average salary in Surrey?  And what's the average salary in Spain?

Don't know about average salary.  I guess it depends on what you do, my son earns £45,000 per annum in IT and walks to work.  4 bed detached £1,800 pa.

But as has been stated it;s about quality of life for us, more than how cheap something is,

This s a good discussion. So much positive reaction, just a shame some of the UK newspapers can not read and print this sort of thing from those who know, have tried and have stayed, not writing what they are told by some disgruntled expat who failed to give it a real try and then blames the crisis for not being able to admit that they got it wrong or did not try.

One good note is that I am seeing more properties being taken OFF the market because the owners are now staying in Spain.

I did read an FX report the other day saying that they expect the pound to be close to 1.30 by the end of the year.

MORE good news please newspapers

Quote,

This s a good discussion. So much positive reaction, just a shame some of the UK newspapers can not read and print this sort of thing from those who know, have tried and have stayed, not writing what they are told by some disgruntled expat who failed to give it a real try and then blames the crisis for not being able to admit that they got it wrong or did not try.

One good note is that I am seeing more properties being taken OFF the market because the owners are now staying in Spain.

I did read an FX report the other day saying that they expect the pound to be close to 1.30 by the end of the year.

MORE good news please newspapers

I'd wouldn't say it is that positive about even.I am not a  disgruntled expat just a realist on what I find everyday. I cannot be accused of not having given it a good go. I have been here 3 years now. My wife is Catalan so we are well mixed in so no excuses there please! Catalans will tell how terrible it is here at the moment in fact everyone I speak to. I don't come into contact with brits. So I tell it how it is in my posts. My wife would go back to england tomorrow if we could. She mourns the very "easy" life we had in the UK compared here and this with her family up the road.

Just watch 'Crimewatch' every week, thats enough to put off any expat from going back to GREY BRITAIN haha.

damatt/ k 5ive, so are you saying that if anyone lives in Spain and then leaves to go back to the UK, that they have failed in some way?  That makes living in Spain sound like an endurance test.  I lived there for 5 years and decided it was no longer for me; that's a personal choice.  It doesn't mean I am wrong to have come back to the UK or wrong to have gone to Spain in the first place.  How do people really know what life in a different country will be like?  None of us knows what will happen to us during the next five years, whatever country we live in.  And people don't need to blame the economic crisis if they return to the UK; they can return for all manner of legitimate reasons and don't need to justify it.

Who said anything about an endurance test? Your words and thoughts not mine. I really feel that Spain does not offer enough things in the ways of financial stability to warrant saying here for much longer. Most of the happies on here live on a pension on some campo somwhere and not in the everyday real world, where mouths have to be fed children clothed etc on a minimal or no wage!

As for the argument of oooh I wouldn't want to go outside at night in the UK. Well there are pretty scary places here at nightime what with the influx of South Americans and Eastern europeans making little ghettos of crime etc. It's just not as well reported or highlighted as in the UK press. I lived in a quiet little Norfolk village with a complete lack of crime. Of course not all of the UK is like that but it all depends where you want to return to.

If we're talking crime rates, well I come up trumps again and live in one of the lowest crime rate areas in the UK, no complaints from me lol

Never mind getting robbed at night , its the daylight robbery you need to watch out for now in the U.K. I was actually considering moving back to a quiet and crimeless part of little britain in the near future but they seem to be the spots that gangs are targetting now as the locals dont expect it and their guards are down.

Have you heard the latest tricks on country lanes like eggs being thrown at your windscreen whilst driving which forces you to turn on your windscreen wipers which makes it worse when you mix water with egg,so you have to stop ,get out  and then get beaten up and robbed.

And the one where a child seat is left on the side of the road containinga  fake baby with their face covered with a sheet? This forces concerned drivers to stop , get out , get robbed and sometimes raped.

Harsh but true and unfortunatley could be coming to a sleepy village near you.

I live in the costa brava an hour from france and i am not saying there is no crime here but there is not alot, if  i had to change jobs i might have to move but i wouldnt like to go past Barcelona, its a bit rough down there.

Quote,

Have you heard the latest tricks on country lanes like eggs being thrown at your windscreen whilst driving which forces you to turn on your windscreen wipers which makes it worse when you mix water with egg,so you have to stop ,get out  and then get beaten up and robbed.

Hang on a minute that one originated from here with eastern european gangs. Oh yes because there are loads of them in the UK now!

hahahahaha I think you have been watching too many Wes Craven movies. 

  Excuse me on my first post but I have been looking at this site (and others) for several years.  In fact, we actually bought our property in Spain from the excellen property for sale on here so thank you for that.  Although I am not a social networking type of person, I did think it was time to put my tuppence worth in.  This topic has been a bit like the curate's egg, good in parts.  I do think that it is has now got a bit silly.  Roaming East European gangs starting in Spain and moving to UK? Oh, come on now.

Anyway, we have just returned to UK after almost 5 months.  Firstly, we had read on here that if you are in Spain for more than 3 months you have to sign on the foreigners register.  We went to the town hall near us and asked about this, after explaining we were going to be here for 5 months, and they said that we only had to seek residencia if we were going to be in Spain permanently after the 3 months had been completed.  As he put it "If you want to live in Spain, you are to complete the residencia when you have been here for 3 months.  If you are not going to live in Spain then you can stay for 6 months but not necessary to sign residencia".  I'm glad we got that from the horses mouth, so to speak. 

Now, back to the topic being discussed.  We have come back to England (Staines upon Thames as it is now known, formerly Middlesex which we still call it but now Surrey so I think I can comment on a couple of posters) because we have a business here.  We are now in our mid-50s and would love to move to Spain permanently but need to wind up our business first.  

Anyway, preamble over.  I agree wholeheartedly with what bobaol has posted and would like to thank him for the excellent advice he gave some years ago regarding healthcare in Spain.  His posts have been, generally, very helpful and informative so thank you for that.  There was also a poster called Morerosado but, unfortunately, she has been hounded off the site and I found she also gave good information.  A shame some people would rather be argumetative than apprciative.

 One of the reasons I haven't posted before is that this particular web page has become a bit confrontational.  I realise people have reasons to move back to UK and others to move to Spain. Some posters actually argue for the sake of arguing and have strong reasons (which I appreciate and can understand) for saying what they do.  On the other hand, I think some of the posters haven't been back to the UK for a long time or are making things up to show Spain in a bad light.  We thoroughly enjoyed our last 5 months there and had a great time.  Yes, it got very hot but it sure beats the miserable, drizzly and downright depressive weather we had been having in UK.  They also don't seem to realise how expensive it actually is in UK at the moment.  Prices have rocketed.  Someone made an allusion to eggs?  I have just been to Tesco and a dozen free range eggs were £2.75.  Carrefour in Elche was €2 for 15 free range eggs.  In Spain, we really got to like those big, beef tomatoes.  €1.25 a kilo.  Went to pick one up in Tesco and they were a pound each, yes, a pound each!  I think the same person said that Tesco had a better range of fruit and veg than you can get in Spain.  Have you never been to Carrefour?  Apart from potatoes I can't think of anything that is more abundant than there.  A cauliflower at the local market was a euro and was so big it lasted us for 6 meals.  A 50p cauliflower in Tesco is slightly larger than a Brussel Sprout and lucky to do one meal.  

Someone else said that some things are cheaper but other things are so expensive that it evens out.  What other things?  White goods are generally more expensive but every place we looked at had those included.  Furniture is a bit more expensive but the quality outshines the rubbish in DFS and so on.  Electrical goods like TVs and so on are now on a par with Currys in UK (although that wasn't the case a few of years ago).  So saying other things are expensive without mentioning what they are is simply a case of sour grapes to my mind.  And you don't buy those big things every week.  

Someone else mentioned the "high" cost of water.  I must either live in the cheapest part of Spain or the most expensive part of UK.  Our water rates in UK have just gone up to £375 a year.  In Spain, it was around 60 euros a quarter or 240 euros a year and that was watering the garden twice a day.  

 And then we got into the putting kids in school, school uniforms etc.  I am sorry but did none of you do your homework before moving to Spain? The posts seemed to be about hard done by the British are but, surely, the Spanish have to pay this as well?  If you thought moving kids to Spain would be a cheap option then more fool you for not checking it out before you moved and it's no good blaming the Spanish for their system because it's not the same as yours was in Britain.  More a case of trying to move Britain with you when you move abroad rather than actually trying to sample a different way of life.

I can see that some people here have had one or two setbacks but I just wish they wouldn't blame all their problems on Spain.  Someone also said that if you move to Spain with all your problems then they won't disappear just because you have changed countries and I  totally agree.  Your problems will probably only increase once you are far away and don't have your families to fall back on.

 Regarding the "crime free" area of Surrey.  Wow! I wish I lived in that particular utopia!  Our area is not exactly crime ridden but Surrey has one of the country's highest level of anit-social behaviour so there's nothing there to really boast about.  When we moved to Surrey about 15 years ago from Lincolnshire our car insurance almost doubled due to the high incidence of vandalism so, enjoy yourself in your "crime free" idyll.

Anyway, enough of my views.  I love Spain.  I love Britain.  I hate self-opiniated and boring people who force their views on you all the time.  We are all different, as someone has already said.  What's good for the goose may not be good for the gander but, please, don't embellish the posts with things you have made up because it's what you think others should feel.  You just make yourself look stupid.  Which brings me back to the roaming Romanies. what a load of rubbish!

One of the reasons I 

sorry realise we've just been toppled off no 1 spot, alas we're only second in the list now lol

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078259/Low-crime-high-pay-sun--Hampshire-district-best-place-live-Britain.html

we are now second in the crime free stakes, therefore your penultimate para is eroneous.

Excellent post, Marie! 

I'm not aware of any roaming bands of robbers either! 

We are all entitled to our own opinions, and I can't see why people find it necessary to slag each other off if they don't agree.  Too much Rioja, perhaps?

Yes, I am happy here.  I have friends who have returned tot he UK on a limited pension, and having heard about the problems they're now having, I know for sure that I can't afford to go back - even if I wanted to.

Kathy