Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

With the influx of new members in the France Section of the Forum somewhere for the Newer members to say Hi and the Old ones as well.:lol:

So come on then?:blink:

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

Hello

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

Hi and big hugs to all members both new and old :wub::wub::wub:

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Hello everyone, i'd just like to say, er.. hello :thumbup:

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:rolleyes:

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Hello Everyone,
We are Jenny and Charlie Davies. We have lived permanantly in France since August 2008. We are in Auros, Gironde, not far from Bordeaux. We have bought a plot of land and are having a bungalow built as we speak. I am a retired Postwoman originating from East London and Charlie is a retired White Van delivery Man originating from Gloucester. Before we left England we were living in Harold Hill, Romford, Essex. I know we may be of the minority, but we are really enjoying our new life in France and know that we will not return to England to live. :D We brought our two retired, rescue Greyhounds with us as well.

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Hi there, where in Gloucester Charlie?

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Welcome to the Forum, We are a little Southwest of Toulouse in the Foothills of the Mountains we have been here for 6 Years. The Oh and I are both ex BT from the Network Management Center in Cambridge and Martlesham Heath development Center., I lived in East Sussex before that and Wales, And the USA and six years in Germany with the Army. What can I say I like traveling to foreign shores.

Theres a friendly bunch here, Always happy to help. Don't mind em to much as they like to cause a ruckus when they can:lol:

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Hi Ewood,

Charlie was born and bred in Matson near Upton St. Leonards. Whereabouts are you from ?

Jenny and Charlie.

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

I live in Hardwicke, I know Gloucester very well for work reasons, (was a District Nurse ) although not a native. Daughter lives in Tredworth.

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Hi Ewood,
Charlie's sister Ruth used to live in Hardwicke and his Mum lived in Tredworth before the war. Small world isn't it :D

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Bet it's changed since Ruth lived here. Hardwicke virtually merged with Quedgeley now! Hope France is good for you, would love to be there too, but can't manage it yet! :thumbup:

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I sometimes feel like we are of the minority, but I can honestly say myself and Charlie love living here and feel it is the best thing we ever did. For us there will never be any going back. It proberbly helps being retired early (I am 51 and Charlie is 54). There is no aspect of being here that we don't like. No regrets at all. :thumbsup: We brought our two Greyhounds, our Jeep and our two Harley Davidsons with us and we love it. :D

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A Harley each! Not a biker myself, but my brother in law is a Harley owner.
Retired early too, sounds great!

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Hello!
We moved to Paris a year ago. We agreed some time ago that one day we want to live in France as a few years ago we bought a ski apt in the Alps and we akways loved the country. I actually took a job with a large French company so that I could work on our grand plan of eventually securing a head office posting to France on expat terms (we previously had an expat posting to Sydney and have experienced the benefits!). After 2 years with the company I achieved that goal and we are now in France officially for 3 years. It looks like we could stay as one of the Directors of another business unit approached me last week as he wants an international team and he asked me to call him if we decide we want to stay in France. We are a yound family with a 21 month old daughter and our second, a boy, will be born in our local French hospital in May. We are still not completely decided whether we will ultimately stay in France, depends on the terms of any job I am offered and what the alternative might be in the UK. However, we do love France as much as ever, its diversity and culture, the attitudes to young children, the people we have met and the obsession with food and wine.

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Hi Herman,
We can only speak from our experience and as I said in our earlier post we love it here in France. If we had retired early back in UK, we would not have been able to live as comfortably as we can in France. We have three vehicles and the road tax takes a big chunk each year as does the council tax. When we left UK things were just starting to hit the "crunch" and food/electric/gas/diesel etc. was going through the roof. We watch the UK news and see companies going under each week, if our house sale had fallen through we wouldn't have been able to think of retiring or moving over here for maybe five years. Believe me, we do feel very humble and extremely lucky to have been able to "live our dream". There is never a moment that we regret doing this and we know that we are here for good.
Jenny and Charlie. :thumbsup:

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Hi everyone, just joined, just like to say hello from Sweden, hope the winter is not too hard on you down there in la douce France!
Cheers
BL

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Hi, I'm Brenda, living in the Dordogne between Périgueux and Limoges. I worked for a short while in Limoges in, er, 1968, on a teaching exchange but never dreamt I'd retire here. I've lived in Surrey (born there), Brighton, Scotland, Birmingham and Bristol. I came over on my own in 2006 much to the shock of some of the locals. I love it here and all my old friends comment on how well I look. I've even slimmed down and become fitter in spite of all the good food!

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Hi Brenda,
When we first came over in August we had plans to live in the Dordogne. We wanted to move as near to Montignac as possible. We looked at a few houses, but they needed such a lot of work on them and you could easily throw the purchase price at them again to make them habitable. So, we then started to search the area where we were staying in the Gironde and decided to buy a nice plot of land and have a bungalow built. It's in the gentle rolling hills terrain as opposed to the deep, pine forest terrain. We have gorgeous views over the hills and we are surrounded by sunflower fields and well-kept vineyards - breathtakingly beautiful ! We could never have this where we lived in Romford, Essex.
Jenny and Charlie.

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I think you made te right decision to have a new build, especially with current heating costs,older buildings eat money. I love the sense of spaciousness and contact with the natural order of things. I hope you both continue to be happy and content

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Hello Everyone, We've been visiting this forum for a few months now and have found some really helpful info. We have lived in Sarthe since April 2008 and love everything about it. We seem to be enjoying the same positive experience as Jenny and Charlie. We came here from Brentwood, Essex. Nice to meet you all and look forward to swapping tips and experiences over the years. :)

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Welcome to the Forum, It's a Mad House but fun someone here is always happy to help.;)

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Bonjour Smithy and Lisa,

We were just down in Harold Hill, Romford not far from you at Brentwood. I used to like shopping at Brentwood it was a bit more civilised than barmy Romford on Saturdays.
Jenny and Charlie, xx :D

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Hi Jenny and Charlie, Tesco at Gallows Corner seems a million years away! :D S&L

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Smithy and Lisa,
Oooh doesn't it just !!
We have to admit - we DON'T miss it one bit !
We are now in the Gironde about 40 minutes from Bordeaux. I would swop Gallows Corner Tesco for LeClerc at Langon any day :thumbsup: We use the village markets for all our fruit and veg and there doesn't appear to be anything we can't get hold of. There is a British Grocers Shop at Pau if we get really desperate for anything !
We noticed you are in Sarthe - without sounding too thick whereabouts is that ?
Jenny and Charlie.

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Hi Jenny and Charlie, Department 72. About 60km East of Le Mans. We absolutely love it here. Keep pinching ourselves to be sure it's real. How lucky we are!! :teeth_smile: S&L

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Hi Smithy and Lisa,

I think it makes all the difference the fact that we were able to retire early and not have the need to work. We never get bored or fed up and we potter about, go shopping and do things when we want to as opposed to having the "daily drudge timetable" we had when we were both working full time in england. We really do feel very humble and lucky. :o we too pinch ourselves now and then !

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Hi Jenny and Charlie, You sound sooo much like us two. We 'mooch and potter' too and love it! I don't know how we send a private message on here but perhaps that might be an idea so that we don't bore everyone with our ramblings. :zzz: S&L

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

Dont worry you not boring me yet - although there has been a suspicious lack of people on here so maybe you bored them all to sleep LOL

PJ:wub::wub::wub:

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Hi again everyone,
Haven't moved to France yet, still looking for a place somewhere in the SW, as far away from the Swedish winter as possible! I have met some interesting people here, and always think it's fun to make new acquaintances. Wonder how difficult you thought it was actually finding the right place to live! It seems there are literally hundreds of properties on the market at the moment and prices are falling steadily. Just have to keep looking I think.
BL

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Hi PJ. Nice to meet you. I'm flattered that you're managing to stay awake! ;) S&L

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only just S and L only just lol

PJ:wub::wub::wub:

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hi S&L
Just checking where you are - looks like we are neighbours :wub::wub::wub:
We live in 41
:wub::wub::wub:

PJ

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

Hi PJ, We live in 72, right next door to you. S&L

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The area where we are in the Gironde is kind of divided into two types of terrain. At the moment we are staying with friends in the biggest pine forest in europe. We are in a forest clearing at the end of a track and the terrain is very, very flat but twenty minutes away where our bungalow is being built it's gentle rolling hills surrounded by sunflower fields and vineyards, the difference is so marked. We also liked the terrain in the Dordogne where we planned to live originally, it was just the houses available to us were a bit too run down and needed lots of work on them. We wouldn't have minded decorating etc. but we have no building skills required for major surgery. The estate agents have these white elephants that must be hard to off-load, an english couple with cash in pocket is very attractive !

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P.S
We are in 33 :D

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Click on the person's name in blue at the left of the page. You will then be offered options including sending a private mail. Enjoy making new friends.:)

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Thanks for the tip. How long have you lived in France?

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Since November 2006 - quite a steep learning curve. Did you know there's some quite sizeable concessions for newbuilds -50% of total value in 2009 dropping to 25% under the new scheme in 2010. You get it spread over 9 years.
Destinée à relancer l'achat de logements, la réforme du régime fiscal Robien-Borloo, pour l'investissement locatif, porte le nom du parlementaire à l'origine de son adoption, Scellier. De quoi s'agit-il exactement ? L'avantage fiscal Robien prévoit que l'achat d'un logement neuf pour sa mise en location permet, sous certaines conditions, de déduire une partie du coût de cet achat. Sur une période de 9 ans, l'investisseur peut déduire chaque année de son revenu imposable un " amortissement ", c'est-à-dire une fraction du prix d'achat du logement qui, au total, représente 50% de ce prix. Le régime Borloo permet de bénéficier d'une déduction de 50% ou 65% sur une période de 9 ou 15 ans, moyennant des conditions de mise en location plus restrictives pour le propriétaire investisseur. Avec la nouvelle réforme Scellier, la déduction se fait directement au niveau de l'impôt sur le revenu à payer. Cette nouvelle réduction d'impôt Scellier, également étalée sur 9 ans, est égale à 25% du prix du logement, retenu dans la limite de 300.000 euros, pour les investissements réalisés en 2009 et en 2010. Le taux de la réduction est de 20% pour le logement acquis en 2011. Pour les seuls investissements 2009, le contribuable aura le choix entre les régimes Robien ou Borloo (déduction du revenu imposable) et la réduction d'impôt Scellier.

Alors, quelle différence y-a-t-il entre Robien-Borloo et Scellier ? Les mécanismes Robien-Borloo avantagent ceux qui sont les plus fortement imposés. Par exemple, une déduction de 10.000 euros d'un revenu imposable taxé à 40% procure un avantage de 4.000 euros, mais seulement de 1.400 euros si le revenu est taxé à 14%. Avec Scellier, tout le monde obtient le même avantage quel que soit son taux d'imposition. A noter toutefois que ceux dont l'impôt à payer est inférieur au montant de le réduction Scellier perdent la différence. En clair, en 2009, chacun devra calculer pour déterminer lesquel des deux régimes Robien/Borloo ou Scellier est le plus intéressant. L'avantage Scellier se décline aussi en SCPI (société civile de placement immobilier). L'investisseur souscrit alors des parts de SCPI ce qui lui ouvre droit à une réduction d'impôt égale à 25% du montant investi dans une limite de 300.000 euros. Les SCPI, comparées à l'achat en direct du logement, offrent une souplesse d'investissement supérieure : le souscripteur peut limiter son financement à quelques milliers d'euros. Autre avantage, la SCPI diversifie ses investissements immobiliers, ce qui diminue le risque de perte en capital ou de rendement médiocre. Reste à trouver la bonne société de gestion. On suivra donc avec intérêt les propositions des établissements financiers qui distribueront prochainement ces nouvelles SCPI.

Re: Introduction Thread (Somewhere to say Hi)
 

Thanks for the info. Think Jenny and Charlie may benefit from that. My longere is almost 300 years old. Looking good though!!