Whats it like in Spain?

[ninjabearhug]

This question is aimed mainly at Martinlaw since he lives there , but anyone else with any input feel free to chip in .

I'm considering taking the plunge and selling up and moving to Spain, i'm just fed up with paying excessive tax on everything and working 7am-6 or 7pm. I was over in Spain last week and i can afford to pretty much buy (i'll still need a small mortgage) a four bed detached villa with double garage and all the rest in the area i would like to move to, La Marina/ San Fulgencio. I've also been offered a job paying 475 EUR a week doing welding work, which should be more than enough to live on. I've already got quite a lot of family living in Spain but they're all retired so they don't know much about the tax/health systems.

Also how hard/easy is it to find retro games over there? As daft as it seems this is one of my main concerns.

Any info anyone has, good or bad would be much appreciated

[David J.]

Gee, I should move to Spain too. For someone saying, move to America... DON'T.

I live in the USA, and where I live, it's really damned expensive. We pay the highest taxes, the only jobs are service jobs (food and retail) the only apartments that really exist are public housing, which can varies from amazing to poor (think like council estates you have over yonder) but if you work in one of those service jobs, you make too much $$$ so you can't live there.

The US Army has a base like fifteen minutes from my house, and the soldiers gobble up the housing, so an one bedroom appt can cost as much as $1200 a month. Houses themselves aren't for sale very often, and the prices have tripled in the past ten years. A house that'd sell for $50,000 is now $150,000!

Argh.

[SaDistic]

Be happy you've got houses that cost $50 000.
The lowest price here for a house is 180 000 EURO's.

[playgeneration]

Thats good wages for welding work!, wouldn't mind that myself
I can see the attraction of moving, if for no other reason than the weather.

[David J.]

sadistic said:

Be happy you've got houses that cost $50 000.
The lowest price here for a house is 180 000 EURO's.

That was well over ten years ago. Well, in a year or so, houses will be that much in my area.

[ninjabearhug]

playgeneration said:

Thats good wages for welding work!, wouldn't mind that myself
I can see the attraction of moving, if for no other reason than the weather.

I'm LLoyds registered so i can do all the stainless/high pressure pipework. Surprisingly though i got offered a lower wage for doing that kind of work . The 475 EUR a week job is making security grilles for all the new houses popping up. I don't know if thats a good wage or not though, its less than i get now but i get taxed a shitload in the UK. I can't seem to find any info about how the Spanish tax system works or even what an average wage in Spain is. I know the living costs are a hell of a lot cheaper than the UK though so either way i would probably have enough to survive with that wage.

The main reason i want to move is because i've just fallen in love with La Marina beach, i can just imagine chilling out down there every day on my siesta.....................

[exlybris]

my experience tells me that kite problably is more esay to find retro games in england ... as for the country yep is fine...i spend vacations there every year...the only thing sad is the some fear presented in them...every noise ur explosion people go nuts thinkins its an "attentado". quality of live? well very good i think

[ninjabearhug]

I normally visit Spain 3 or 4 times a year, my Mother and Uncle live in a little village called la Matanza a few miles from Orihuela. I've always thought i'd end up moving over there eventually but until recently it was more of a retirement plan. I earn a decent wage but i still find myself working to live rather than the other way round. If i put the over time in at work, i've normally got more than enough money, but this in turn leads to me spending hardly any time at all with my missus and daughter. I know i'll still end up working a lot in Spain, i very rarely turn overtime down as i see it as throwing away money ( yes, i'm a grabbing a child conceived out of wedlock ), but the pace of life seems a lot calmer and who can complain at siestas .

I'm still not sure either way, both countries have their ups and downs, but i don't really see a future for myself in the UK anymore. My main worries are how my daughter will adapt to the Spanish lifestyle and how she will fit in with Spanish kids, i don't want to put her in a position where she is going to get picked on for being the English weirdo.

[krooper13]

I know this sounds a bit preachy but there are 2 things I would worry about:
1. If Global Warming does happen Spain is going to become waaaaaaaay to hot to live in.
2. It being cheap to live in will only last so long , once you are there permanantly things will become relative to your wage, this could create a few little problems, for one thing if the Spannish economey draws level with the rest of Western Europe you could find yourself in a similar position to one you are in now, if you then wanted to move back to the UK you would be a long way behind and could you could be in some sort of limbo where you can't move back to the UK because of money issues but your not happy in Spain.

But on the plus side if you moved to southern Spain its pretty much England + 10 degrees C, though if you yearn for a new culture you could be dissapointed.

[ninjabearhug]

If i wanted to i could afford to buy a house outright, but this would leave me with little/no savings. If i take out a small mortgage, i should be able to live comfortably on that kind of wage and i'll still have money in the bank earning interest. I don't really want to put all my money into a Spanish property for the simple fact that it's notorious to resell a house there. I want to be in a position where i can afford to sell the house cheap if i'm not happy and still have enough money to move back .

The area where i'm looking to buy isn't tainted too much yet, there's a big Urbanization about 3 miles from the coast thats starting to look a bit like Benidorm, but the houses i'm looking at are mainly surrounded by Spanish owners. The English seem to favour the bigger towns in the area, so its still nice and quiet around there.

Who knows, if it's not so easy to find Videogame shops maybe i'll open a little shop too ;D

[eday2010]

According to a site I read, the average wage in Sapin in 2004 was 17,964 Euros. HEre is another site about Spain: www.justlanded.com/english/spain/tools/just_landed_guide/jobs/working. I find their work hours weird, where you work from 9am til 1:30 or 2:00, then return 3 hours later and work til 7:30 or 8:00. Me, I like getting done work as early as possible.

Another site says that the overall taxation remains reasonably low and is still less than the EU average, the gap is closing fast. Also:

Salaried workers earning less that 22.000 Euro a year probably will not have to complete an income tax declaration as long as they have a single employer. The Tax Agency will send you a form 105 to authorise that you agree with the calculations and return. Additionally you do not need to fill in a declaration at all if your income is less than 8.000 Euro a year. Everyone else files a declaration between May 1st and June 30th and either pays the tax due or claims a "devolucion" which they will receive in a few months by bank transfer.

And on property tax:

IBI The IBI is the Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, which could be translated as "property tax". This is a municipally levied tax and varies widely from one municipality to another and from one type of property to another. You might for instance, pay as little as 50 euros per year for a simple property in a rural area. While a luxury home on a prime lot in an expensive urban neighbourhood might cost as much as 1,500 to 2,000 year.

And forget about Global Warming. It's a scam, and even if it's not, it won't get hot enough there to be unlivable. If I were you, I'd get the hell out of the UK. I still don't understand how people can afford to live there with the way everyone is taxed to death. I guess they have to somehow pay for all the video surviellance cameras on the street so the government can watch your every move.

[ninjabearhug]

I'll probably spend as much on extra postage costs as i do on tax . The UK is a joke at the minute though, i pay way too much National Insurance every month and i still can't get my child into an NHS dentist so i'm having to pay for her to see a private dentist . Just seems like i'm wasting my money living here.

[eday2010]

The joys of socialism. Taxes are sky high, everything is public, but almost no one can access it.

[Kenneth]

eday2010 said:

The joys of socialism. Taxes are sky high, everything is public, but almost no one can access it.

Taxes are high in the UK ?
Come to France to understand what "taxes are high" means.

Ninja, I can't really help.
Only thing I can tell is that there is WAY more french people living to the UK to make money than to spain (but there is still a lot)
However, If I had to move, I would definitely go to Spain beacause 1 everything is cheap as bad ass and 2 the weather is great (global warming would make it grow for only 1 or 2 degrees so I guess it's not that important ;D )

As for your kid, she should learn spanish rather fast as orthography has a highly consistent correspondence between letter and sound, which makes it a really easy language to learn.

[rupert]

Ninja it all sounds great and good luck to you. Your still young enough to do that and then if you don't like it in a few years you can come back and start over.

I'm still waiting to get on the ladder the way house prices are though at the moment it's still fairly impossibe, if they stabalise and my income increases then I should be OK. Fingures crossed for next year