living in france

[richard]

next year we hope to move to normandy.we are both sixty.after buying a house for cash,we will have a reserve fund of £30,000 plus £200 p.w. pension.is this enough to live on without dipping into the reserve to much.we hope to be self suffiecient in fruit and veg and eggs after a short while.also is it possible to do a little seasonal work,without to much hassle   richard

[Miki]

Well let's put it another way, that is far more than some young French

families have to live on and they still have to pay a mortgage or rent

money and a lot more than many French pensioners have to live on, so

yes is the answer and very well too I would imagine.

As far as seasonal work, yes, you can do some grape picking in the

south, doesn't add up too much in payments but hey every little bit

helps [;-)]

[Val_2]

Don't forget that if your pension comes direct from the UK to your french bank account to take the currency fluctuations into account. Most long timers here remember 1996/97 when the franc dived to 6/£1 from 10+ overnight and many had to return to the UK because they could not afford to live here in the way they were accustomed to and in those days a couple had to have a fixed minimum of £500/5000Ff coming in monthly to qualify for residency status here as well as health cover. Unexpected things can crop up here without the safety net of a british bank or family behind you to bail you out financially so you do need a fund that you won't touch. As Miki says, what you have as a pension is worlds away from many french retirees who have worked as labourers,farmers etc all their lives so you should manage to survive although finding work at your age will be very difficult to do I'm afraid with all the unemployed youngsters there are here.

[Lizzy]

So how much would it cost approx for a retired couple to live an average lifesyle.......food bills,utility bills,can't remember the word for council tax, and the cost of running a car? have I left any thing out?

 

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Lizzy"]

So how much would it cost approx for a retired couple to live an average lifesyle.......food bills,utility bills,can't remember the word for council tax, and the cost of running a car? have I left any thing out?

 

[/quote]

About the same as it does in the UK. Which bit if the UK? I dunno, somewhere in the UK. Or Holland.

 

[Val_2]

[quote user="Lizzy"]

So how much would it cost approx for a retired couple to live an average lifesyle.......food bills,utility bills,can't remember the word for council tax, and the cost of running a car? have I left any thing out?

 

Depends a lot on where you live here, the size of your property,electricity & water consommation and what you eat. The car is an expensive item to run in any country now and again, size is important as fuel is forever increasing to run it on. Another thing to remember is that inFrance, the utility bills tend to arrive every two months with usually only just over a week in which to pay them, so you have to budget if you are on a pension. Our elderly friends buy their firewood throughout the year when they have a month without bills so that it dosn't all come in the winter months and they keep two freezers stocked with cheaper month's produce like meat promos and garden veggies. On the whole if you take the UK and France together the cost of living is on par because here you will have to pay for your health top up which would cancel out your UK council tax for a couple.

 

[/quote]

[Cassis]

Would they have to pay into a health insurance top-up scheme as well?  I don't know how that works for over-60's coming here from the UK. 

EDIT - sorry, I see that's mentioned at the end of Val's post - I thought it was all a quote and no comment!

[Val_2]

It came out a bit strange when I posted the last reply, looks like a quote. A top us is a must for everybody coming to live here because hospital bills,doctors prescriptions,physio,optholomologists,dentists and all the rest soon add up and that 50% the CPAM don't cover can be very expensive especially if you have an accident which requires a hospital stay. Some folks inthe past have had to hand over their passports and get a bank loan lined up to pay for treatment before being allowed into hospital for surgical operations. Unfortunately once you get past 40, the premiums go up and up yearly but on average best to budget about 100€ monthly for a couple on this insurance.

[Billybongles]

You'll be fine as long as you don't go mad! Better off than on the same money in UK. But prices have gone up in supermarkets etc since the introduction of the euro. Good Luck

[Llwyncelyn]

Yesterday we were talking to the local furniture store and he reckons that prices have gone up some 6% since the euro and this is apart from year on year increases.  Did we not have such a problem when we became a decimal currency?

[Cassis]

I'm sure I recall similar stories at the time of decimalisation in the UK, though at that time inflation was so high that it was difficult to tell if the currency change was being used as a smokescreen for retail and manufacturer price increases.