IrishGuyAbroad

Hi all,

I was hoping someone may be able to give me some advice. Myself and my partner both in our twenties, (and with our one year old in tow) left Scotland some months ago for a move to Bulgaria. We did this primarily because we were both stuck in dead end jobs, and struggling to make ends meet. The job was a career step up for me, and the money was pretty good compared to the cost of living. I have quite a bit of experience of living abroad, so felt we could make a real go of it. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out. I found myself working for a bandit who refused to pay me. After three months of endless arguments and not getting paid, we packed it in and, tail between our legs, moved back to my family in Ireland.

Since then, I have been scouring the internet each day and applying for jobs. I have already been offered one in Central Europe, and we are going out at the end of August for a look around. The money is not too bad, but I am just not sure the area will be suitable; its a little bit remote and I am not quite sure if it would be suitable for a young English speaking family. At the same time, I have made the final 6 of a recruitment process for a job in the East Midlands of England. I have been invited to attend an interview there in 3 weeks time. So now, its decision time, and we need to weigh up our options on which position to pursue. From a family point of view, I think we could easily settle into life in the UK again, but at the moment I am competing with 5 others for that job, and certainly don't want to put my eggs in one basket. The job in Europe is mine if I am happy enough with the area after checking it out, and you know what they say about a bird in the hand etc

My main question is on cost of living. The job in UK is paying between 28 and 32k per year. I know that this would have been a good wage in Scotland and we could have lived quite comfortably on it (compared with the pittance we were struggling by on). However, I am told that things are more expensive 'down South', and from my initial research into property rentals this seems to be the case. Can anyone give me any opinion on whether this money could support a small family in this area of the UK? Any advice would be appreciated,

Thanks

NiHao

Accommodation would be your biggest expense (assuming you wouldn't have a long expensive commute?) so I think rightmove and primelocation will be your friends with regard to figuring that out.

From looking for myself I have seen that it really does very greatly in any big area like "East Midlands" on exactly which city/town/village you are wanting so maybe just put the address of the job location into the property websites search box and pull up all rentals within a commutable distance from there.

I think in general it is hard to advise people on how much $$ is enough as we all spend so differently. I would write yourself a list of all the other costs, utilities, groceries, public transport or car/petrol costs etc. and then make a guesstimate and see if the salary would cover it. Things like groceries can be figured out by doing a pretend shop on a supermarket website. Petrol you can check current prices and work out your likely useage or google for public transport costs and so on.

Good luck with everything and fingers crossed you get offered the other job too so you can pick which you prefer.