chris

this hay fever is doing my head in

This is very worrying for me as according to chinese astrology I am a goat ! I will say au revoir maintenant just in case my 7 minutes is nearly up ! Chris

I hate MARMITE

Hi Bob, Agree with all that has been said, we sold up in the UK and came over to france last June, we already owned the house here the major renovation works done and paid for whilst we were still working. We have no debts, a lump sum invested at a fixed rate which will provide us with around £4,000 in June this year for holidays or larger items. My pension is £11,000 per annum having been greatly reduced due to taking early retirement at 52. We definately would not go back to the UK and to put things into context one year ago between us our salaries were in excess of 5 times our current pension. Budgeting is of prime importance and is a new concept to us ! However like others on this forum we now do not have a need for retail therapy again a new concept to us but one that we wanted to adopt. It is amazing what you don't need and when you pay by cash you are more aware of your needs. Our council tax and water bills are peanuts in comparison to what we paid in the UK and electricity runs at around the same level - we have electric heating and a marvellous wood/coal burning cooker which creates a great deal of heat. We brought both a small renault and a sports car over with us - two cars and no road tax - great. We have to pay for top up insurance for our health and will eventually have to pay into the french system but that is in our budget figures. And we have a jollies envelope that we put 160 euros in every 4 weeks to cover entertainment ! We manage perfectly OK on this amount. Hope this is of some help. Chris