jimbob66

Hello,
Sorry for being vague but my wife and I are being forced to make a move sooner than we wanted to due to UK immigration rules.

I'm a UK cit, aged 64, a retired teacher. My wife is 49, an Argentine national. we were thinking of moving to Bari or Calabria next September when I get my State Pension to add to my private one but now we may need to move in February. I will only have about £700 per month plus a bit of savings. Realistically, could we live off that? The main concern is the rent. we want a small furnished place but would live quite frugally until the extra income kicks in.
I had read that my income level even now, would meet the self-sufficiency criteria but what about compulsory health care?
I could teach English as a second language privately and my wife, an English teacher in Argentina, could offer the same to private students as well as Spanish lessons. We both know a bit of Italian but are determined to learn more. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Geordieborn

Very hard question to answer, but £700/mth taking into account rent is not a lot to get up and running in any country. What research have you done and what do you see as frugal? Starting off here on a small amount would be difficult in September, but February where you could well need heating and have no produce (not that you would to start off) will be a bit harder. Have no idea what the areas are like you are looking at, but would guess most things are the same as here. Go over what it costs you in the UK and try to find out what you would need here e.g. food cost, fuel, transport etc. Rent should be easy to find out, just search on-line for the areas you are interested in…Come back with any other questions...

jimbob66

Geordieborn, you're right to an extent when you say do some research, but nothing beats local knowledge to point you in the right direction. Yes, easy to google rented apartments anywhere in Italy but far better, imo, to ask for local advice. We are looking at Bari because we researched there before, it seemed within our budget of around £1250 from next September but we know nothing about a) health insurance requirements and b) whether Italy uses as level of income that is necessary to prove self-sufficiency. We aren't too bothered about Calabrai, that looked very pretty and I'd heard it was cheap too but Bari will suffice rather than complicating things. I was in Tuscany about 7 or 8 years ago, trying out my Italian with varied success but I think the east coast is going to be best for us.
Our main concern is the low budget until September. We are ok for 3 months as there are no issues over health or length of stay. We have looked further east to Bulgaria, and we could live ok on £700 pm there by all accounts but it has its language problems and is arguably less developed, I could be wrong.
Anyway, no worries, it looks like I'm being too vague or maybe not many look at Italy!

dmu

Hi from your stalker!
You're doing a good job researching and the forums are giving advice, but the thought occurred to me that you could enquire at the Consulates of all the countries that you're interested in. They should have up-to-date pre-Brexit info on what residency/healthcare rights your non-EU spouse would have in their respective countries.
Alll the best!

clint

You will need to get private health insure to get residency, the post office does a reasonable one from what has been said in the past. Although if you are of retiring age you should be able to qualify for health system here for now, post brexit nobody knows

You will need a minimum income of around 6k euros per person per annum to qualify for residency.

Bari as the main city in Puglia is probably more expensive than other cities. Although in Puglia the cost of living is low £700 won't go far if you have to pay rent out that too with current exchange rate. On the plus side Bari has a few universities so probably you could teach English privately if needed

Having lived in Bulgaria that amount will give you a really good life (unless you have very expensive taste) you mentioned Varna in other posts, we looked at Varna but didn't really like it so we went further down the coast to Burgas milder weather in winter than Varna and in my opinion a prettier city than Varna


Calabria I would cross that off completely