What income would I need?

[clairus]

Hi, my partner and I are planning to move to France, we're not sure how much income in France is a reasonable income to comfortably live off. We need help deciding whether we get a smaller house and live off the money we have left and try to find work - I usually work with animals and have no idea how easy jobs like that are to come by in France, or I could do a TEFL course as I have teaching experience. Otherwise, we could spend more money and get a larger property with at least 3/4 gites to earn from, as well as my other half popping back to the UK for work....not sure what to do....we also have a few animals and would someday like to start a family. Any thoughts on what would be the best investment/earner appreciated?

[Bugsy]

With those sort of questions are you sure you are ready to move to France ?

A few points from our experience.

Living off capital will result in it disappearing at a frightening rate.

Finding a job is not as easy as the UK and you will need a good inkling of french.

Gites as an income can be very difficult and shouldn't even be considered without a lot of research.

How much do you need to live is a bit like a piece of string but I think 1200-1500 euros a month is a minimum, assuming no mortgage, debts.

[andyh4]

To expand on some of Bugsy's points:

 

Unemployment in France is 10% - they all speak much better French than you are likely to and therefore have a much better chance of getting any job that might be going.

 

Gites will be difficult unless you buy an existing and successful business (at a cost).  There is great oversupply and the House in the sun comment of" you can make 500 euro a week in the high season" fails to mention that the season is 6 weeks long - unless you are in the Alps.

[Chezstevens]

Asking this question now will save you a lot of pain later. My experience, with my family living here permanently but myself working elsewhere, is that unless you have a strong income stream then forget it. Most areas of France are oversubcribed with Gites & your chances of work within the French community is nil (unless your grasp of French is exceptional).

Artisans struggle to earn a living here. Anybody that tells you that Gites will provide the necessary income stream are, either selling a complex or started with a large sum of money and watched it disappear.

The only group that can survive here comfortably are pensioners that have planned their retirement.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Chezstevens"] The only group that can survive here comfortably are pensioners that have planned their retirement.[/quote]

Probably not the age that the OP would choose to start her family [;-)]

[Patf]

How much to live on? 2000€ per month for 2 people is "comfortable" if you're living in the countryside where the house taxes are low.

Once you have children, a lot more than that. 

And you don't get child benefit for the first one.

And what about health cover? It's not free here.

[Val_2]

French unemployment up again at the moment.The OP would get absolutely no help whatsoever from the government here should they fall on their uppers until they have put a few years payments into the systems first, everything is means tested here. Many people only take home about €1200/month after paying their charges if employed and have to manage on that amount. Don't get the idea the grass is greener here because it is no different to the UK and the cost of living has skyrocketed this past few years so in reality the cost of living in either country is on par now.

As said, you cannot exist on living on gîte rentals, too many already and too short a season in most regions. A hotel or B&B in a town might fare better than the sticks where there is nothing much anyway. Your best bet would be to rent somewhere for a year and see how you fare setting yourselves a fixed budget etc and they you can easily go back should it not suit.

[idun]

Every single time I call an old friend who has been in France for approx 33 years they say how expensive it is at the moment. And they have had 'hard' times as many young couples do, mortgage and all the things associated with starting out....... also had their children there. Children now grown and one living in London and they find London cheap in comparison. And they are well off now. Both with good jobs and very good salaries.

 

Isn't the trouble with the gite market is that IF it is done for the right market, it could do very well, but it could be for a rather short season every year. If it isn't, then what?

 

And people need the money to have these english lessons, and in the current climate where money is tight, there are perhaps many who would like, but simply cannot afford.

 

Also if you are working in France, then I would suggest that you marry. Many years ago a woman I knew very well used to say that she would be in the ca ca if anything happened to her 'mec', as they were not married. The full implications of that have recently become very clear to me. She will be worse than in the ca ca if he goes first.

[Val_2]

Yes, we have had a spate of weddings around here over the past couple of years of couples who have been together forever and raised children,most of whom have grown up but it does not pay to be a concubine in France. You can get PACs'ed like a few people I know have during the recent past months because end of the day,the woman usually has no leg to stand on here as its still a male dominated culture in most things.

[NormanH]

I feel that the TV programmes that are really only adverts for Estate agents have a lot to answer for.

What the OP is thinking about was perhaps feasible a few years ago when you could get a property for around £10,000-£20,000, and have a healthy capital left over even after restoration, but those days are long gone, and even then jobs were extremely hard to get..

In 18 years I have only met 2 English people in my town who have a post equivalent to that which they could have hoped for in the UK.  One is a bilingual chap who works as a nurse at the hospital, and the other works for an International training firm (not French)

Many people live on around 1200€ a month, but in many cases there are perhaps additional benefits such as APL which would not necessarily be available to the OP.

As others have said such things as health care can easily be overlooked for someone used to the UK system, as can be social charges if you work for yourself which add to the tax bill

[cooperlola]

The trouble is that it's difficult to say anything on this subject without sounding horribly negative.  However, imho, apart from the cost of property (buying it, not maintaining or renovating it), imho NOTHING else over here is cheaper than the UK with the limited possible exception of wine.  But you cannot live on that.  Well, not for long, anyway.

I know a few British people with good jobs here but all got them before they moved, none came here on spec' and competed successfully against a French person for a job once here.  I have an English neighbour who works as an English teacher but she lives very frugally and works very hard.  Others run holiday businesses but they have a regular pension income on top.  I also have a couple of farmer friends but they farmed before they came here and their parents helped them to buy initially.  Plus it's a really big business with a lot of beef cattle and they work 14 hour days 365 days a year.

It can be done but don't expect it to be a picnic.  At least you don't have any kids yet so if you take the plunge, only you two will be hurt if it goes wrong and you are still young enough to bounce back.  Proceed with caution, at the very least and as Val suggests, try renting first. And be sure you have your healthcare covered, as Norman says.

[YCCMB]

[quote user="clairus"]or I could do a TEFL course as I have teaching experience. [/quote]

Well, unless you want to live in a big town:

A TEFL qualification is all well and good, but unless you work for a language school or similar, you'll effectively be looking at (at best) part time or casual work. If you want to start up on your own, then your competition will be from people working off the books who will happily undercut not only you, but probably the minimum wage, too. If you want to be "legal" or "in the system" (which are both semi-euphemistic terms for NOT working on the black) then you'll be unlikely to earn a living wage from teaching English.

Jobs....any jobs...are getting harder and harder to come by in France. As you're still evidently in the UK, try and get hold of today's Sunday Times Magazine, and read an article telling you why (they say) 400,000 French are (sic) colonising the Capital. That capital being London, not Paris.

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

We lived off about €800 a month in a small village.

I think that equates to about £1.50 in English money.

[idun]

£1.50, as I have said before, very good english friends cannot believe how much cheaper London is than where they live in France.

 

I'm not saying I couldn't, and would have had to, if that was the only income coming in, but what with our taxes, fonc and loc, insurance, heating and electricty and water, plus the tv and phone and most of that would have gone, leaving next to nothing to buy food never mind petrol.

[clairus]

Hi and thanks to everyone that replied - I am aware that the question was very much how long is a piece of string, but was curious as to the response I would get.

I am concerned that everything I have posted on here seems to get replies which are mostly rather pessimistic - my partner and I want to move to France to start a family in the future (I'm 28 and he's 38) as we're both sick of the binge drinking low moral tone, benefits culture that is now becoming the norm in the UK, as we no longer see it as a place we want to bring up children.

I have dual French / British nationality as my mother is French and I acutally have more family over there than I do in the UK as well as having visited France several times a year since I was in the womb. I would be moving to Vendee/Loire area where most of my family are situated and hopefully my parents will also retire here too in the next couple of year.

Although I am not completely fluent, I am able to communicate very well, and have been able to talk to the estate agents over the phone and in person etc in French, as well as having done a couple of weeks work experience here. My written French is not up to an awful lot, but my mum will be able to give me some lessons to bring me back up to speed. My brother works in France half the week and his French was the same level as mine, and has now become practically fluent, as we had the building blocks installed at an early age as it were...

Job wise, I am qualified in animal science, but am happy to be a poo shoveler in a stables or something similar, for which I would be unlikely to need a great amount of written French? This would be on top of running gites. I realise that it is not easy.

Is is all that bad living and earning a living in France?

[YCCMB]

I must admit that I'm a little stunned by your reply. I would have thought that your extended family in France could and would be able to answer your questions as fully as anyone on here!!

If you're out in  the sticks in France, you might see a bit less of the "culture" you are sick of in the UK...but in most of the major conurbations, don't bank on it being much different.

[LEO]

Hi Clairus, your initial post asked lots of questions which forum members answered giving it their best shot.

Now you have opened up

( possibly because you did not like the genuine replies )

and elaborated on you strong French connections which ,I am sure has surprised a lot of  the contributors to this thread

Surely your French relatives/connections are better placed to answer your questions?

Kind regards,

Leo

[clairus]

My family over there have been retired for some time and the only member of the family that is still working has a husband recovering from cancer, three young children and a full-time job, so I do not feel it would be right to disturb her at the moment, nor have any of them ever been self-employed or worked in my industry or moved country, or seen things from a Brits point of view....I thought that is what this forum was for......

I would be in the countryside as we'd need somewhere with enough land for our two horses as we're used to living on a farm, and we've neither of us got any real desire to go to any large towns/cities, so that should suit us.  

 

[clairus]

Hi Leo, thank for your reply, I did ask a lot of questions, as I have so many things I want to know.

It wasn't that I didn't like the replies I had as such, but that nobody seemed to give the impression that they enjoyed living in France, which is obviously a bit scary when you're about to do that yourself. I do have strong French connections as you say, but at the end of the day, living in a country and visiting it are two different things.

As I've just posted, unfortunately my relatives aren't in a good position to answer my financial/employment questions and I would rather get answers to questions from people who have actually made the change from the UK to France, as the systems and processes over there are apparently very different to the UK, which will be a lot to take in, and hope that I don't mess up when I move and am able to plan things as much as possible.  

[idun]

 

 IF you had asked about living in France on here about 6 to 12 years ago you would have had lots of lovely positive answers...... come on in, the water's lovely etc etc......... and then me saying that France is just a country with problems like every where else.

Quite a lot of posters retired to France. We moved to France when I was your age and have now retired back to the UK.

 

Binge drinking...... yes, in the big french cities, it is a problem. In the villages there are plenty of soulards, who still drive. There are drugs everywhere, including en plein campagne perdu. And kids could, if they are so inclined get them in colleges and lycees anywhere.

 

There is not the teenage pregnancy rate in France that there is in the UK........ does that imply better morals? I certainly know personally of more marriages that have split up in France because of affairs than I do in the UK, there again, I spent most of my adult life in France, so I would know that. But if there are less teenage pregnancies, then there are more young people who commit suicide.

 

We were fine in France, we had pleasant lives and now I have moved back I do too. I was never blinkered to the real France and hardships of others, like I am not in the UK either. They are quite different countries in the way the people of each look upon life. I really had not realised how much it has changed me, but I am very changed....... and yet, I will never be french either. I just see things from the french side of the fence more often than I could ever ever had imagined.

Re work, the job market has been difficult for years and we lived in an area where there was work, in theory at least. My son's girlfriend spoke to me a couple of night's ago and said that she had been offered 10-20 hours work a week and had to take anything that was going, especially these days.

 

And you may be lucky and find work, but wouldn't you want to find a job before such a big move? And the gites, there are lots of gites, you'll need to have yours where people want to go and at a price people want to pay.

And another thing, no way on earth would I be a concubine in France. PACS'ing may cover some things, but certainly not all.

 

 

[clairus]

Thank you, that does certainly clear things up a bit. Think my partner and I will have to have a serious talk about what to do, we hate the way the world is going, but I suppose that unless we go to a mountainside in the middle of nowhere, which would be no fun for kids, we won't be able to avoid the bad sides of humanity.

[NormanH]

"we're both sick of the binge drinking low moral tone, benefits culture that is now becoming the norm in the UK"

 Stop reading the Daily Wail and start reading Midilibre. You will find that the 'benefits culture' is endemic in France, that 'binge drinking' is rampant, and that 'moral tone' as evinced by people in public life such as DSK or George Tron is not exactly Matthew Arnold.

http://www.rtl.fr/actualites/culture-loisirs/article/feria-sans-beuverie-dans-le-gers-30-000-visiteurs-en-moins-774868897

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXiM2Yf5QUI

http://www.newsofmarseille.com/decryptage-la-france-une-terre-d%E2%80%99assistanat/

I am perfectly content living in France, but I  have retired and have (for the moment) a small income from pensions. Getting a job was hard 15 years ago, and now it is harder.

Your initial question was about income, and it is perfectly reasonable for people here to be pessimistic.

As for the rest France is the same old sh1t, but in French...

[Russethouse]

Clairus when you and your partner have this chat, remember its your input which has a large bearing on your child, your family life and the standards you set.

Yes, even kids from so called good homes go off the rails, but the chances are less where ever you live if they have a solid, loving background behind them......

Then there's the question of healthcare........

[YCCMB]

Let's look at this another way, briefly.

Just over 30 years ago, I went to live in France for the first time. At the same time, my best friend from school also went to live in France. I came back, she's still there, long married, 3 kids, a grandma.

Where did her eldest daughter go after leaving education, when she wanted to find work? London

Where did her second daughter go ditto ditto ditto? Canada

They weren't raised in the country, they live in Vincennes.

Until 8 years ago, I worked for a large French company close to London. So, of course, we had lots of French employees. Some, identified as potential high flyers, were offered positions at the company's Head Office in Paris (although generally they'd been hired in the UK). ALL those affected turned down the opportunities of career advancement with this company in favour of remaining in the UK, because they didn't fancy the terms, conditions and working practices they'd be subjected to in France.

Last week, in my small corner of rural France, my next door neighbour was (again) bending my ear about her nephew, who is STILL unemployed and squandering his benefits on drugs. I went out for a meal with a friend to a resto in another village where we know the owners quite well. Apart from us being the only customers (Saturday night!) we had chats about this and that, and the Pizza takeaway they also own had been broken into the previous evening. Captured on CCTV (yes, although some may say it hasn't yet made inroads in France, many are seeing the benefits) the thieves (kids on scooters) arrived at 1 a.m. and tried to force the door. Unable to get in, they went off and returned at 3 a.m. with suitable tools. Broke in and stole food and booze and emptied the till.

Petty crime, low moral standards, blah, blah.....it's not any different in any developed country. People who don't speak much French may not read or hear about it, but it's there. And the less employment there is available, the more petty crime there is.

Moving countries to get away from something is not really the best reason to do it. Move for positive reasons: adventure, new opportunities, whatever.

[Val_2]

I am a little annoyed that the OP never divulged her french connections at all until yesterday by which time most of us had replied from experience of living in France. Surely this info should have been given originally so we could answer with that info in mind and steered the replies in that direction and of course, why would you not ask your french family for advice is another mystery too!

The underbelly of living in France away from the glamour and holidays is no different than that of any other developed nation, crime is rife here - just go online and read any of the regional local newspapers at all the thieving,drug crime,murders,road traffic deaths and so on, its no different to Bradford,Brighton or Brixton at all. Even in the deepest parts of the countryside there are incest,rape and murder cases frequently reported and even on the CCAS we know of five domestic violence cases where the women are under protection in this small commune alone, drink is the devil incarnate here and suicide very common. Still you probably know all this from contact with your family in France but please, do not be put off by comments and advice, we are only replying with the truth however hard it maybe to swallow from the UK side of the water.