Ronnyone

Most expats here are retired and living in the southern parts. I think their experience of spain would be very much different if they had to live here solely off Spanish wages. I would say that the standard of living is higher in uk than Spain but Spain retains a more pleasant cultural ambience. The real problem in Spain is its deplorable employment record for graduates which the UK doesn't have. This doesnt affect most retired expats but for those of us with children in Spain it is a worry which is why I prefer my son to return to UK for university and job opportunities than slog his way through Bachi and Sapnish university only to end up living at home taking dead end seasonal jobs. As the OP has a young family I think this is a hugely important issue compared to the idea that life will be great if you can live in the sun. On that note, it has been raining here for ,what seems like months. Saturday was fine but now rain all week and they were reporting that today that the weather here is the worst it's been for 60 years. Scientists are also warning that the weather is part of the cause of the problems in the Mar Menor. Once again they have all the algae and dead fish this week which threaten the beaches and obviously the tourist sector. Couple that with fact it was 40 degrees in torrevieja one day last August- seriously scary- and I'm not sure that 10 years from now southern Spain will be the paradise people believe it to be

Albir_Tom

Ronny can I ask what is stopping your son to become a gas fitter, electrician, bricklayer in Spain or even get into IT internships in cities like Barcelona or Madrid where there is definitely plenty of high paying jobs ?

Things like desktop support engineer, IT business analyst, IT systems engineer ?

some of these jobs are paying 50k a year, always companies offering internships in the big cities,

if he speaks fluent Spanish there wouldn’t be anything stopping him working towards things like that.

i agree that the uk offers better education and job opportunities but it is possible in Spain also,

I don’t see Spain like a paradise, I live a normal life I’m not out in bars drinking all the time and I don’t even like the beach,

it’s the more cultural, laid back way of life what does it for me, less stress, less anxiety and not living at such a fast pace.

Lynn R

I agree with you. I have never been on a beach in the 16 years I've lived in Spain (I hate sand). I am not going to make any bar owners rich - I went out on Monday with friends who were going to be returning to Ireland, had two glasses of wine and a coffee, and went out for lunch with my husband today when we had one drink each. That will be my total alcohol consumption for the week which is my normal pattern, except if I'm away on holiday. If people (to quote Stingychips) are here to get pissed in the baking hot sun, what do they do for the other 8 months of the year, I'd like to know.

Albir_Tom

Dont get me wrong I like to go and have a few beers after work on the weekend but when I do I use spanish bars, I dont really mix with those types of expats that are on a permanent holiday.

I think some people can come to Spain and blend in with the lifestyle and live a normal life some just cannot get the jist of it, so then they start to slag it off, then when they start to feel like they need to go back to the uk they slag it off more, selective thinkers.

when I moved to Spain I was already a fully qualified bricklayer so I get plenty of building work, I got into landscape gardening and artificial grass I get plenty of work doing that, I’m autónomo at the moment but since I’ve had my Spanish driving licence I have taken my Carnet C exam and taken the CAP course and I get plenty of driving work. I’m now doing my C+E exam and getting my digital taco,

I have been offered 3 different jobs with indefinido contracts with decent salaries,

i dont care what anybody says, if you put yourself out here, there is money to earn.

Lynn R

Good for you, sounds like you will have well earned a drink by the time the weekend comes around. I must admit I took the easier route and carried on working in the UK until I was sure I would have enough to support myself until my pensions became payable. I think it is much harder for people in the UK now than it was for me, though. Just one example - I paid 6% of my salary (on top of NI) into my employer's pension scheme (not a public sector one). People who have joined the scheme in recent years are now paying 12% of their salaries for less favourable benefits.

Albir_Tom

Well all that aside like I have said in previous posts on this thread, money does not contradict my life in Spain, I am proactive, I work, my rent is cheap, I own a car, I own a van, I own a scooter all cheap to insure and run, I have a sip card, I spend next to nothing though really and I’m happy as Larry and that’s because of the lifestyle here, Mercadona is dirt cheap, if I go to a bar the beer is cheap, I am putting money into savings, no doubt I’ll have a pension but I’m 35 years old I dont really think about my pension I dont even know what I’m paying into it etc.

Me personally I find life in Spain loads more laid back and cheaper, plenty of work about if you put yourself out, they cant get enough lorry drivers, they even advertise for people without experience now as long as you have your licences, when I pass mine I will be driving to Germany, Holland, Belgium etc for decent money and when I get my time off I will be coming back to Spain to enjoy the sun and spend next to nothing.

what is not to like really ?

LarryR

How on earth could you possibly know that?

Albir_Tom

The odd few may want to stay in the UK for the rest of their lives,

very rare you will find Jose Manuel García wanting to settle down and raise his family in the UK, buy an expensive house and put up with the British culture all of his life.

they are there simply for the good wages,

as for copping off with birds that is because they tell me Larry

Moses2013

The other sad thing is that people assume you can only live a happy life based on heat and sunshine hours. Quite a few Spanish I know have left the South and prefer life in the North. Be it Bilbao, Santander or Vigo, there is a complete different Spain out there. 1 hour from where we are, you have Olot and many people love the climate and don't want to live in a desert. Those working in tourism along the coast often say the sunnier weather brings you the dumb tourist LOL. That's the thing with climate and on German TV there was an interesting programme the other day and they filmed climate challenges across the globe in 2021. Everybody who is working in farming across the globe sees the changes and it's getting more extreme with flooding or drought conditions. I'm in Ireland now and I can't remember when it really rained and I've been watering the plants in the garden since March now. Unfortunately a lot of people are disconnected from nature and as long as the water comes from the tap and the air conditioning works, there is no problem.

Lefty2021

I had to laugh as I live in Stoke and you are correct, it is a cesspit 😂 crime and drugs are out of hand, we are the monkey dust capital of the UK, the amount of mindless drunken attacks, racial tension, sexual assaults, drug farms and drug territory disputes are very worrying, only last Saturday the armed response were called out to a machete wielding gang to the pub across the road from where I live, someone was glassed recently in the same pub and this is the nice part of town 😂

My Spanish teacher comes from Barcelona and has lived in Malaga, Tenerife and Brazil but she loves Stoke on Trent for some reason and been here for over 20 years 🤔

Albir_Tom

its the same where I come from in Birmingham, I will never forget where I come from but facts are facts and it is so so bad now and if you want to buy a house away from areas like this then you need a good few quid behind you.

Going back to the moral of the story and the reason for this thread in the first place.

If the OP does decide to move back to the UK then I hope she does not have to live in one of these urban areas because it is not nice but people do just get on with it because they do not have a choice.

She has a choice, and my personal opinion would be not to take two kids who have been growing up in Spain back to an urban city in the uk to live, I would be frightened stiff to let them out of my sight.

Moses2013

Birmingham is extreme though and for me living rural a real shock. It gets better once you reach Wales.

Ronnyone

Spain doesnt yet offer computer science at Bachelerato level. Most European countries are offering this even earlier. Computer development and programming is happening in UK ,America, Scandanavia Germany. Spain sadly lacks in this area. My son's school seem to think that Valenciano is what is needed!! Need I say more.

Lou71

This thread is turning into a bit of a slanging match.

It's quite simple really, if you don't like Spain, nobody is forcing you to live here so just leave. It's not for everyone and we have seen most of the British leave since we have been involved with it (we first bought land in 1998) and that is mostly because they can't make it work for various reasons. There won't be too many arriving in the future thanks to the wretched Brexit.

We split our time between Spain and Portugal and it suits us very well but our income comes from the UK, we have never worked in Spain and we don't have children (through choice). If we did have children, things would have been very different and much more challenging.

We come from a wealthy part of the south east of the UK and worked in London but neither of us like it and there is no way we would ever go back and live there or anywhere else in the UK but each to their own. Most Spanish people I worked with/knew in London were there for the money, end of.

So it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, obviously there are a lot of people with various issues who are unhappy living in Spain and want to leave so they should either go back to the UK or relocate - difficult within the EU now thanks to Brexit.

Just bear this in mind... if you are British and you leave Spain now, you will lose the protection of the withdrawal agreement and you may not be able to get back to Spain if you later realise it was all a horrible mistake.

I would add that a lot of the people commenting on here don't even live in Spain.

Albir_Tom

Some beautiful parts of wales, beautiful parts of England too, but jobs are scarce, Cardiff is rough enough is it not ?

What can you say really, all the money is in the big cities but all the violence is too but it’s spreading into the country more and more

People are used to it in the UK it’s all they have known all their lives.

The lady who made this thread has a choice at the end of the day.

Spain is far from perfect but violence amongst children and youths is nowhere near as bad.