Hi Scampicat,

I was actually referring to your pension. You can move that, I believe.

Whatever, I hope things work out for you.

Thanks Thomarense, I'd rather not risk it.

Thanks for your advice though, and your good wishes.

Any advise about perhaps training to be a driving instructor?

My friend used to live in Spain until 5 years ago and decided to do this.
He does work long hours but I know he does earn good money.
havent spoken to him in ages though.

I guess even with the resession people still want to learn to drive(ie students etc)

I am sure they will. I think the test got even more difficult recently which presumably means they will need even more lessons. So as long as you can finance a decent car, I would think if you are in a well populated area you would do okay. I guess lessons pay more the further South you go, but the cost of living moves up correspondingly if not more so.
Also with petrol now down below 90p a litre it must be a better business than before surely?
There will of course be a quite a few starting up, but they probably wont have the breadth of experience you will - L/H and R/H.

Hi, hope you are settling back into the UK, Spainboy. Hope it's not too dispiriting chasing the jobs at the moment. All we seem to hear of here is places like Woolworths and even M&S laying off thousands of workers.

I've been made aware of the Spanish chain Cañas y Tapas starting up in the UK. I doubt many here will be able to start a franchise with them though - initial capital investment is a cool half a million (talking real money with these guys). Surprised to a certain extent that their UK initial venture was in... Leicester! I would have thought a larger city would have been a better option:

canas y tapas franchise

According to the blurb
Now, if other outlets do open up, it may be worth doing a google search for "job vacancies Cañas y Tapas" from time to time. You never know, with your Spanish experiences, you may be able to get in as a shift or bar manager.

Hi Stevie.
Cheers for the link.Ill save it to my favourites and could be a good idea.
Im actually still in Benidorm and havent moved back yet.Since I was last on here I have had some positive news regarding work. Basically i used to run hotel entertainment in a hotel that closed down 2 years ago for refurb but i have recenntly bumped into the G.M who told me its open april and to give him a ring. Now it souns like i could be in with a shout of my old job back.
We used to earn good money there doing raffles for the guests and selling cd's so ive decided to at least stay around til april/may time to see if i get my old job back and get the same perks as i did before.

Regarding the uk though. Like you say it is depressing to find out all these job losses,(woolies, m&s etc) but some of the other supermarkets have just announced a profit too. Sainsburys are up 4 %.
Another thing is my girlfriend is good at any type of office work and is IT illiterate.Someone told her to have a look on REED agency website and she said there was loads of temping work to put her on.Some could lead to permanent too.We did have a look and there were loads on there so there must be some jobs floating around at least for one of us to start off with.

Thoughts?

Hi Spainboy - yes, temping work can sometimes lead to more permanent work. Plus it adds experience to the cv. In fact I've done temping work in different fields myself (but quite some time ago - for some reason temping agencies don't seem to try so hard once you're over say 35).
However I'm afraid to say that a lot of agencies are currently advertising non-existent roles. This is for 2 reasons 1) to get as many people on their contact list, so if some vacancies do turn up they can instantly provide staff with the right skill set 2) the agencies often use people's cvs to see which companies have been setting on/laying off people. Plus they can find out which managers/HR staff are the ones to contact.
What you need to do is find someone who's recently found temping work via an agency, to find out the true state of the market. Don't rely on their web-site "vacancies".

Lol. I hope you meant "literate"!!!

Gee what made me type that.? I haven't long woke up

My girlfriend has used agencies before,although this was before she moved to Spain 4 years ago and things were a little better and she got work straight away.We didn't find jobs from their website though and actually went into their offices (it wasnt REED though, it was a local Newcastle firm)though I do agree with what you are sayin.

I guess what we have decided to do is wait for this hotel to open and see if i get my old job back and then take it from there.I do have bits and bats of work in the meantime to keep me going but got forbid if we were trying to start a family over here, we just woudn't be able to do it.!!

I think one way or another by May we will have made up our minds what to do.All the better if I do get my old job back though even if the perks are not there at least we have something until this recession storm passes.

I do think though if I can hold on over here it would be good but when the world is in a better state in 2,3 or4 years then I still think we will go back to the uk,just because you can potentially earn more money over there and there is more opportunities to at least try something new.
Im 36 now, the g/f is 27 and I feel in 15 years time it will be too late to change my life and get a trade which I dont have right now. Ive always had holiday jobs,firstly as a holiday rep and now as an entertainer and in the next 5 years I want to put my hand at something new seeing as I will still have 20 years of working life left.

Good luck Spainboy. You've definitely got the right attitude. And you're right when you say you've got to sort your earning options out now. In most jobs companies don't hire once you're 50 (in fact it can start getting difficult once you pass 40). I personally feel that the right franchise could be the way to go (and thus work for yourself - normally the best and most demanding boss you can get) ; the trouble is you often need a large capital outlay to start going.

...Which I haven't got. We have savings of about 25k which I guess is a good start to at least get on the right footing when we do get back to the uk.I have always rented property too and would like to think about getting on the property ladder eventually. House prices have dropped and will predict a further drop in 2009. Some nice 2 bed apartments in good areas in Leeds are around 80k now as opposed to 110k the last time we looked 2 years ago and although it is hard to get a mortgage im sure there are still some lenders out there that would give us a mortgage as we would have 15k available to put down as a deposit which would make repayments less than 400p.m. (I pay 750euros a month in rent over in Spain and to rent anything cheaper in and around Benidorm are more like Holiday apts..)
Ive weighed up my options buying in Spain and theres no way we could financially do it with the wages here (well we could but I think it would be a lot harder)

So we have to act fast in what we decide to do. I do know it's not gonna be easy but to be fair we don't have any kids yet and desisions like this would be twice as hard if we did so both of us are capable of working full time without thinking about any children,schools etc.

Do you think this could be a good choice eventually? My head says yes but I do know nothing is plain sailing whatever we decide but what I said above is sort of the plan we have in mind.

Tell me what you want to franchise, I will set it up for you for 499,000 quid. lol

I'm in!

These type of operations (so far as I know) are normally done on percentages and expected rates of return. I'd be surprised if the investor was hoping to take out much less than say 175,000 a year in profits. Plus, so long as they made at least a moderate success at it, they can always sell on the franchise when they get tired of it. Canas y Tapas (according to the link) have already expanded successfully in other countries so they may continue to do so in the UK.
Even so, I agree that 500,000 does seem steep for what is a fickle sector. Surely someone like McDs or even Starbucks wouldn't ask that much? What sells well this year may not do so 2 years hence, and the restauarant game is notoriously difficult to succeed in. I remember the case of Pierre Victoire; their operation went under despite the fact many of their franchises seemed to be fairly busy.

If you're asking whether buying a place in Leeds is a good plan; well to be honest no-one can say for sure. (I was tempted to point you in the direction of housepricecrash .co.uk but it would only depress you). I suspect that 2010 will see the trough of house prices, but you can never tell. They do say that in the long run prices always go up, but in the long run we're all dead! There again, if it saves paying rent, and you're fairly sure you're going to stay in one area then it could be a good option. Be warned though that the low mortgage repayments we're seeing now probably won't last. All this extra borrowing by the government will eventually end up in inflationary pressure and high interest rates. Your repayments of 400 per month could well end up as 1000 per month. Budget for this possibility.