Fiona

Hi folks, we are moving to Ariege in April.  We planned to continue our Sky account registered to our UK address and we were going to take our box etc with us to have Sky in France.  We have just agreed a let on our place in the UK but I think they want Sky there.  So can we have a Sky account in our UK address and can our tenants have a Sky account registered to the same address?  Has anyone else done this or can anyone advise? Many thanks Fi

Thanks Ernie....that's really helpful Fi

Sorry, it does seem like I have made my question quite confusing.....apologies. Thank you Mrs H for clarifying that point.  Yes - I am technically employed and will be paid a paye salary.  Therefore in a nutshell.  I have been told so far that I have enough qualifying years to get me an E106 un to Jan 2010.  In this current tax year (ending in April), I will be paid a minimum wage salary.  I have been told by Newcastle I need to have earned a minimum of £4500 this tax year to get the additional year on E106 which would take us up to Jan 2011.  My question was really would I have to have paid NI contributons this year to qualify, if so how much?  They talked about having to make a minum "50 class 1 contributions" but I wasn't sure what this meant!? thanks

Apologies if this has been covered before... I have called Newcastle who tell me that, based on my 2007/8 earnings I am covered up to Jan 2010.  However, as I was contracting this year I set up my own Ltd company and am paid a minimum salary and the rest I deduct as dividends.  My accountant was going to pay the basic salary of £5435 - however on that salary I would not pay any NI contributions this year.  What Newcastle say is that I will have to earned at least £4,500 this year to qualify for the extra year on my E106.  But I was sure that you had to have made an NI contribution this year??  Is it because I have made full NI contributions in previous years?  So if my accountant does run a basic minimum wage for this tax year will I be covered or should I run a higher salary and make some contribution?  (will I need to make some contribution for my state pension??) Thank you for you help  

Hi Bunty, What about this one... http://midipyrenees.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=5536 Also there is a website called ariegelife.com.  Try there as I have seen property to rent offered on this site.  Being nosey now - where are you heading for and who is "we"?  We (family of 4 - kids age 6 and 4) are heading over to Ariege in March.  We have found a place to rent initially so can't help much there but if you are looking for another new family to meet up with then let me know. Good luck Fi

Brilliant!  That's really helpful, thank you so much.  And thanks Big Mac for that link - interesting stuff, and from what I can see no-one is offering storage as far south as we will be.  I can understand that it may be a bit too far south for UK caravanners - but some may wish to head south and would want to get cheap flights to Toulouse to start their holiday that way.  And yes, the German and Dutch market for caravanning/camper vans is huge - and they love Spain so hopefully there could well be a market out there.  I think it would be more popular with caravans than camper vans.  I can see it wouldn't be a gold mine but the whole point of it is that would be putting a an empty hangar on land/property that we own to good use.  So it is not as if there would be a huge outlay - other than marketing the site.  Thanks again folks - I feel much more inspired now.  I posted this on a UK based motorhome forum and it basically got a unanimous thumbs down.  But that was because they were all UK based motorhomers who said they use their vans a lot during the year at weekends etc.  I am getting much more of a French based opinion here which is good.  

Hi, Not sure if this is the right place to post this but will give it a go anway.  We (family of 4) are shortly relocating to Ariege.  Initially renting until we see how the land lies in terms of earning a living etc.  One thing that we are considering doing is buying a property that has a hanger/open barn which could be used for long term parking for camper vans and caravans. We personally have used ours the last couple of summers - heading off from the UK after the schools break up for about 4/5 weeks.  However as we prefer the sunnier climes of "down south" we head on down that way.  We just thought there may be a market out there for offering a service whereby you leave your camper/caravan in our undercover parking area for as long as you want (and we charge a reasonably monthly storage fee).  We could also offer services like a pre-pick up clean and valet and we could collect and drop off owners at the nearest airport.  That way - if you only had 2 weeks holidays and wanted to head down in to Spain - this service would save you the time and expense of having to drive the first 700 miles.  Would be very interested to hear what anyone thinks of this idea.. many thanks Fi

Thanks Will and Glyn, I appreciate the advice.  And 4 consecutive quarters is better than I thought it would be - am sure I would manage to sell SOMETHING in a year lol!  Thanks again

Hi, apologies if this has been covered before but with a full time job at the moment and two youngsters my research time is a bit limited!  Anyway my family and I are planning to move to France in March.  We are renting a place, initially for 6-8 months - possibly a bit longer (it's a long story - folk we know, open ended agreement).  In the meantime our house here will be rented out.  We need to test the waters re work etc to see if we can make a long term commitment to life there.  My OH is a builder so I understand that pretty much rules him out of the AE scheme - so he will have to register as a Micro-enterprise....correct?  However, initially I planned to try my hand at selling Usborne books and Pheonix cards - I would have a fairly low turnover, will be selling to hopefully schools, ex-pat get togethers etc.  I was hoping that I could register under AE so that we could be affiliated to the Healthcare system etc.  First of all would this affiliation cover my family (partner and two kids), and also what happens if in a certain period I make no sales.  What is the accounting period so to speak?  Is it monthly, quarterly?  When are you classed as inactive and if you are inactive (I think ErnieY raised this earlier on in this thread), would you know longer be covered under healthcare etc - in effect is there a minimum cottisation/tax payment that needs to be made to be "in the system" etc?  Another option that we talked about is that I may look to get a 3 month IT contract back in the UK and commute/work from home.  I contract in IT at the moment and have my own Limited company - could I register under AE as an IT Consultant, but work for a UK company under this scheme? I am assuming that in the most case I would be paid in sterling in the UK for this work so I am guessing it would not work?? Thanks so much in advance for any help you can offer Fi

With all due respect Jura, I don't think your post is in the slightest bit helpful.  As so many other posters have said, here and on other threads, some kids struggle and some flourish.  To make sweeping generalisations on the basis of your own bad experiences is wrong and very unhelpful to others who are looking for practical advice. We are due to move in March with our 6 and 4 year old.  We have decided to give it a year to 18 months before we commit to buy here and will rent out our house in the UK.  If it works out and they are happy great, if they are unhappy then we will go home.  I know families who have children doing perfectly well in the French education system.  So yes France has its problems like anywhere else but it also has some very positive points. Anyway good luck to you Angus and Barbara, hope it works out well..  

Yes I have to agree Cowoman and Frederick...  Reading through this thread I see a lot of posters took issue with Jura's original question.  I have to say,  having read a fair few of Jura's posts since I have been lurking around this board, that I don't always see eye to eye with her opinions but on this occasion I think she asked a fair question and didn't shirk from the fact that Australia has its own problems... I don't doubt for a second that France has its fair share of problems as well but I think there has been a notable and definite decline in social standards in the UK, the whole "human rights" issue has brought with it more problems than it has solved - consequently there is a lack of respect for authority and the healthy fear that breeds.  I see it in my own neice and nephew who are in their early teenage years.  I would never have dreamed of talking to my teachers the way that they talk to their's - and there is very little they can do about it (and my niece and nephew are not particularly badly behaved either). 

Er, excuse me!!?!!..... discussion seems to have wandered slightly off topic here.  thanks to everyone for their (relevant!) responses, much appreciated

Fair points everyone.... I guess I did ask for comments re good versus bad of France and Uk in my original post, so apologies if I appear to have changed track!!  It amazes me how much opinions vary - some clearly love their lives here and others don't.  I think the key difference is that - yes France obviously does have the same social problems (to a certain extent anyway - I can't really say if that is true in the main) as the UK but one of the fundamental differences is in the sheer size of the country.  Yes there are inner city pockets of trouble and depravation - like the UK, but the problem with the UK is there is just a sheer lack of space!  You can't really travel anywhere without getting stuck in a traffic jam.  The rural idylls of the UK are never that far away from a big town or city - which has it advantages but also its disadvantages.  The point I was trying to make in my last post about leaving the earning a living question out (and I must admit I posted that in a hurry so didn't really read it through), is that I am faced with the question - would we move to a more rural area of Britain or a France - assuming we could find work in either location.  What would be our actual choice of a place to live?  Or should so I say what is our actual choice.  And for us France offers something the UK simply can't - geography!  We are heading to Ariege where we will be within an hour of ski slopes, a couple of hours of the Med, an hour so from Spain.  With the best will in the world we could never hope to spend weekends in the winter skiing and then in the summer have a day out by the Med.  When we try and head down to Brighton (a mere 58 miles away) we usually end up giving up in disgust or having a row as the stress of trying to negotiate traffic jams takes its toll - and then there's the parking!!  Call us dreamers if you want but that is what I am ing to give my kids - a free-er life, space to run around, clean air to breathe and the chance to learn to ski, horse ride etc...  That is what we want to move to (as opposed to what we want to move away from).  All we can do is try it, yes I am seriously concerned about whether the French education system will serve my kids well - only time will tell.  Yes I have serious concerns about earing a living - but we can only do our best to find work or set up our business...  We can but try eh!   As for the other choices of places to live - they have crossed our minds but in all honesty I don't want to move that far away.  I like Europe!  

I have always failed to understand why there are some people who like to turn it into a sort of "competition" where every aspect of life in the UK is minutely dissected and vilified in an attempt to demonstrate (or justify?) a preference for life in France. Well I sincerely hope that was not directed at me as that was most certainly not my intention.  Our decision has been made and has been for some time now.  I was simply trying to engage in discussion with people about whether or not they would choose to stay in France or move.  There is so much emphasis on work and earning a living etc - and someone made the point that a comparison of a rural lifestyle in France with an urban lifestyle in the Uk is irrelevant.  Well to a certain extent I disagree and I think a point is being missed here.  For me it is important to leave the earning a living debate out of it - lets pretend for a moment that jobs are easy to come by in either country.  What I am trying to establish are people's thoughts on where they would actually choose to move to to raise a young family.  For us we could never afford the sort of property that we could in France so that does factor into the equation.   

Absolutely Bugbear........we have made the decision, and have done so for a while and, as you say, all advice is welcome and suitably processed.  I was just really curious to see who among you were remaining in France through choice or not as the case may be....  

I appreciate your concerns Sprogster but I feel you are being a little negative towards me, almost trying to persuade us not to move!  I don't know what else I can do - yes there are a huge number of pitfalls and I realise that a lot of people end up moving back for financial reasons but to say that the comparisons of lifestyles is irrelevant is simply not true..........it is completely relevant to me.  My current lifestyle is mundane, tiring and full of stress - I have gone hell for leather over the last 2 years work wise so that we have a financial cushion to move with.  If we are careful we could live without earning for about 18 months on what we have saved (I have no intention of doing so though), we have a mortgage free house which we will rent to provide us with some investment income, we intend to rent initially before we buy so that if it doesn't work out we don't have the added stress of trying to sell.  I don't know what else we could do to prepare and plan for this!!!  I am not prepared to wait any longer - otherwise I will miss the time window for my children settling in ok.  Ultimately they are who we are doing this for - and if they don't settle then we would move.  I want to give them a safe, happy childhood, and I want to be able to afford the sort of property that I could never afford here.  The only flaw in our plan is we don't have employment to move to - but does that mean we should be condemmed to remain somewhere where we are not happy, living a life that we are not happy with, just because we don't have all the boxes ticked?  I really just wanted to get people's view on lifestyle and if they would choose to return to the UK........ thank you nonetheless though...

Hi Sprogster, thanks for your comments and I understand what you are saying but I should point out that I am not actually in a secure job, I am an IT contractor.  I took vol redundancy from my employer of 7 years nearly 3 years ago now after I went back to work after having my second.  The journey into London was a nightmare and I just couldn't juggle it all - I was not able to reduce my hours so I chose to go.  Ever since then I have contracted - I choose to work as close to home as I can which helps - and it has given us the chance to save more.  The contract I am working on was initially only 3 months but 9 months later I'm still here but will definitely have my contract ended when the project finishes in Feb.  So it's not really an issue for me.  The earning a living is obviously a major concern - we can only do our best and see how well we do.  I have a contact based in France who potentially may have some home based IT work for me as a freelancer.  However, my OH needs to find something.  He has become totally demoralised with the work situation in the building trade in the UK so he desperately needs the chance to start afresh - a new challenge! Bob - I love that expression, a time millionaire!  It is the one thing money cannot buy and the one thing we need more than anything (along with oxygen, food and love!!) Rif-raf - I could totally relate to your reasons... thanks everyone

Thank you Chas!  What a lovely refreshing attitude - and you are right, it is better to have walked the walk than just talked the talk! ;-) Will, what I actually meant was I am in a state of boredom in my job - I am well aware of the risk of feeling isolated in rural France.  We spent 2 months in the Gers during my 2nd maternity leave spell, so I know exactly what the Gers can be like on a cold and wet Sunday in February!  I feel there are assumptions being made here about us that are not quite true - we have no intention of living miles from nowhere.  That was my original idea (back in my rose tinted days), but I realise that will not be practical for us.  Therefore we are renting initially.  We are first of all renting a gite from an English family with 4 children who live on site.  They are giving up their gite to accomodate family and therefore are happy for us to stay there during the summer for 6-8 months - after that we will look for another rental property.  I intend to rent for at least 18 months before committing to buy - and all the while holding on to our (mortgage free) house in UK which will be rented out as one source of income. And wherever we live will be rural-ish but with close proximity to a reasonable size village/town (where we are moving to is 10 mins from Mirepoix).  Yes Plod we are going there to a certain extent "hoping for the best" - but what exactly is wrong with that when faced with the alternatives??!  Our house is nice but not that big and with a fairly small garden - to upsize would mean taking on another mortgage.  My OH is finding work in the UK, in his trade, harder and harder to come by these days and he has had virtually no work in the last year (has been renovating our place but still looking all the same).  Yes I am bored - but that's because I am stuck in an office hardly talking to a soul all day bashing away on my keyboard, desperately missing being a bigger part of my kids' lives.  When I look around at the local teenagers and think about the safety aspects of life where we are I really don't want to raise my children in that environment.  I want to give them the chance to learn to ski and play safely outside and have a better quality of life.  Yes there are a lot of unknowns and I wish we were in that hugely fortunate position of having jobs to go to - but just because we haven't doesn't mean we can't make it work - or at least give it our very best shot.  The stress of our current lifestyle is taking its toll on us immensely - it may work out in France, it may not.  At the very least - if we decide not to stay put (and we have earmarked Dorset as place of choice to move to if France does not work out) - then we would have had a very nice long sabbatical and quality time together as a family.

Thanks for those links Clair....... some good threads there to work my way through!  Apologies if I am covering a topic that's been done to death already - I just like hearing what people have to say.  Danny, I'm guessing the exchange rate will be a factor in how cheap it is to go from France to Uk at the moment. WoolyB - sorry, perhaps presumptious of me to put the back in the title - but I am sure you know what I mean Thanks fi x :)  

As I wile away the days and weeks in a state of desperate boredom before we move to the Midi Pyrenees early next year, I just wanted to find out who among you would either move back here in a shot if you could or never in a million years?!  We have been talking and planning to move for the last 5 years - ever since our eldest was a baby - however, we are just getting to the point where we can do it now.  I have read a million (at least!) forum posts in the last couple of years about all aspects of French life - some very good, some very bad. So thankfully the rose tinted glasses I had on a while back (when I dreamt of an idyllic rural lifestyle, filled with long lazy sunny days, with my two children living a sort of Enid Blyton-esqe existence full of adventures etc etc) have long since been removed.  However, that said - even with a firm reality check in place - I am still optimistic and hopeful that the life we will move to will be of a far better quality than the rat race existence we are plodding through now!!  We are in a fortunate and less fortunate position (if that makes sense!).  Fortunate in so much that we don't have a mortgage and intend to always keep our house in UK so that we have a rental income to offset against outgoings.  Less fortunate in that we don't have jobs to move to.  My OH is in the building trade so hopefully that will yield some work.  I am willing to turn my hand to whatever - as long as I am not working permanently full time in IT as I am here and missing my kids all the time.  We have saved hard so we have living expenses to cover a year if no worst came to worst.  My French is basic but am starting to learn again.  My kids are 6 and 4 so good age for integration.  So any thoughts/comments/opinions on life in France versus life in the UK (good or bad) would be most welcome.... Thank you for reading Fiona (there are two of us with the screenname Fi on this board! So have reverted to my "formal" name!!  [:)]

...and meant to say thanks BusyBee, we are very much looking forward to it - hope it all works out!

Thanks folks,  must admit though I am slightly concerned by what you said, BusyBee, I really hope it doesn't go the same way as the medical cover.  I am surprised that it seems our situation is considered unusual.  I thought it was fairly common for families to move but not necessarily have work lined up right from the start - I must be wrong though.  And it is infuriating as it's not the case that we can afford not to work - it's just that I have worked bloomin hard this last two years contracting in IT to save up a nest egg so we don't have to worry about working straight away.  I always read that you should move with enough savings to tide you over for up to a year potentially without working - so that's what we are aiming to do.  Have never touched my child benefit - it goes into savings and am trying to keep it so they have a little "college fund" when they grow up, would hope to be able to carry this on.  Anyway looks like my other half will have to get registered straight away so that we can start contributing! Fi xx

Hi there, would be great if anyone could help. Still not clear on whether child benefit can be claimed in France if we are not working ??  Thank you

Would savings in the bank be considered sufficient income?  i.e. if we could show that we had x euros in our account to live off - would that be enough?  As for the E106, I did check a while back and was told I had made sufficient NI contributions to quality for one - my partner on the other hand hadn't as he has not worked much this current tax year.  However, think we will overcome that as we plan to get married before we move (how romantic a proposal eh! "my darling, will you do me the great honour of being my wife so that I can be entitled to medical care in France"!) Only kidding - we have been planning to get hitched for a while now, but in all seriousness I think it will be the only way he will be covered.  As for the child benefit query - will we be entitled to claim in France if not working for a while? thanks

Hi - sorry if this subject has been covered so much but I can't find a thread which covers our specific scenario.  We are planning to move to France in early 2009.  However, we are planning to rent for a year (renting out our house in UK), to see how we settle etc before we buy.  The children (6 and 4) obviously will go to school in France.  However we have no immediate plans to work - we want to take a bit of sabbatical and get settled before setting up a business.  I contract in IT and we have been saving like mad so we can afford to live for a year without working if needs be.  My OH is self employed in the building trade but hasn't worked in the UK since last summer as he has been renovating our house ready to rent out and looking after the kids.  So my question is this; if we are residing in France for a year is that considered a permanent move, and would we be entitled to child benefit even if we are not working?  I always thought it was the one benefit that was paid regardless of work status and NI contributions but a lot of the posts here seem to cast doubt on that.  Or would be better to just say nothing to the benefits agency in UK and continue claiming in the UK for the year we are renting, bearing in mind we will still have a UK address.  thanks for your help folks Fi