returning home
 

I read somewhere of people who actually want to return to U.K. because they either are "homesick"or just they realised they made a mistake in moving to Spain in the first place
As i intend to move over shortly can i have your feedback on this subject.I understand not everone would be happy with their new life,but am interested why they changed their mind.
By the way ,if anyone is intending to sell up let me know as i am determind to buy .

Re: returning home
 

Spain isn't for everyone, it is a difficult place for some to integrate into at times and sometimes people get a little daunted about living among people they have no cultural or emotional ties to, so they often make the mistake, in my opinion, of living in ex-pat enclaves. That's fine but all you are really doing is swapping one place back home full of Brits with another place full of Brits, just with sun.

Re: returning home
 

I agree with your view Matt.I dont like the idea of living in an all ex-pat communty.I want to be able to integrate with the local people(when in Rome etc)

Re: returning home
 

In my experience, it is the people who integrate more who last.

Re: returning home
 

I think if you were able to analyse the reasons why people return to the UK it would show that the majority did so because they could not get the work that they expected at the rates they would like.

Some return for family reasons - missing the family etc.

Some just decide they don't like it here.

Most people who retire to Spain seem happy to stay. The only retirees that I know who have returned did it for health or bereavement reasons.

My personal opinion (guess) is that the first reason accounts for 75% or more.

Re: returning home
 

agree with Matt and also it will depend on your expectations of Spain, whether you have to work, have kids etc etc all these things have major bearing factors on settling here

I have known a lot of people who came over and have now gone back - probably best for you to speak to them but generally most people on here are either already living or going to be living in Spain - I know one couple who sold up and moved over to Oliva, was here 2 days :eek::eek: and said they realised they had made a terrible mistake and went back :blink: didnt understand it then and still dont now - they had left their jobs and sold their house so had to go into rented accomodation as they couldnt get a mortgage it was all very bizarre but takes all sorts I suppose

Re: returning home
 

As we are retiring and are willing to intergrate we should be O.K. then

Re: returning home
 

Isn't not managing to find work a symptom of not integrating though?

I never found a single problem finding work at all.

Re: returning home
 

I don't think "integrating" has much to do with it. The failures can usually be blamed on too high an expectation of the ability to find a job and to high an expectation of the pay - usually due to a lack of research or rose tinted glasses.

If you take an really objective view of leaving the UK to find work and give you enough money to have a reasonable lifestyle how many would choose to go to a country where they do not speak your language, where unemployment is much higher than the UK and where wages are far lower.

But of course, I forgot, it doesn't rain and the booze is cheap!

Re: returning home
 

I arrived in Spain with a tenner, no friends and no Spanish, but I accept your point of view.

Re: returning home
 

Do you work Matt? How long you been in Spain?:)

Re: returning home
 

We will return at some point, but purely because it was never intended to be a permanent move. We will know when the time is right - it may be two years, it may be ten. This is the main reason we did not sell our UK house when we came here.

We have taken early retirement and live in a smal, traditional Spanish village with only a few other expats.

Some of the people I know who have gone back have done so because they have either come here with unrealistic expectations for work/money, some come here intending to live on capital from a house sale, do not budget properly and run out of money, or just hate the locals (like one couple in our village who hate it because the Spanish live/work/sleep/eat differently to them and keep chickens and rabbits for the pot).

Re: returning home
 

Yes but why did you leave Matt, that is the question?

Re: returning home
 

Shergar I have PM'd you.

Re: returning home
 

"I never found a single problem finding work at all"


You were very lucky then.

Re: returning home
 

I left for personal reasons, I have touched on it a couple of times on here and don't really want to say any more about it if that's OK?

Re: returning home
 

I never said it wasn't hard work or that I didn't have to do whatever I had to for a living but like I said, I never had a problem.

That said I have never had a problem here, I have never in my life signed on and to be honest wouldn't know how to even, but it hasn't been easy.

Re: returning home
 

I think some of the people that return back to the UK because they can't find work are peeps that have families and they need to have a decent income coming in every month to cover all their bills which in many cases include school fees. Many families come to Spain because they think they will have a better life which includes spending more time with their families, but in the cold light of day it often means that they have to work longer hours for less money than they got in thee UK (only they do it much hotter weather). Many Brits when living here in the beginning find it hard to switch off from thinking with their UK head and start with their Spanish head.

I'm not getting at you Matt, but I expect when you arrived you were younger and maybe did not have a family in tow, which means your needs were different. Also from what I know of you, you are a very determined young man who has ambitions and you work very hard to achieve them, not always so easy to do with a couple of kids in tow.:wub:

Re: returning home
 

And all I said was you were very lucky then!

Re: returning home
 

Do a search - Patsywhitehair is selling her place and on her site I think she is also advertising another member of the families house.

Rosemary

Re: returning home
 

My hubbys like you Matt. We dont have jobs lined up, okay for a while financially, but he has never been out of work and never signed on either, I think if you really want to find work then you will, and we have a daughter who is 8 so its a bit of a risk, but hey why not!! I have faith in myself and my hubby to make it work. For the people that have went out there... at least they tried it, instead of sitting years from now saying " if only ". I am a gerat believer in whats for you wont go by you, lifes hard enough at the rest of the time so why not have a bit of adventure.. x:shades_smile:

Re: returning home
 

I know, I didn't take it any other way that the way you meant it.

Re: returning home
 

Isn't that why most people leave? personal reasons...perhaps some of the newbies may find your posts misleading espcially as you have no location info, I for one thought that you actually lived in Spain until recently.
People reading your comments about arriving with a tenner, learning the lingo and finding work not being a problem, may be mislead into thinking that moving/living to/in Spain is a walk in the park. When the reality is far from that. As crispygirl said moving to Spain as a young free and single lad is very different than with a young family with kids in school trying to survive. We had no mortgage but when my fiancee was out of work boy did we struggle.

Re: returning home
 

I don't live in spain but having just bought there I have been talking to loads of people from loads of different ages. The people on this forum and others who I spoke to in the area we bought did help me make the decision not to move there whilst we have children. We have a good standard of living in the Uk and, I feel, we would loose that if we moved whilst we still have dependent teenagers. The hours in spain are very long and for a lesser hourly rate than we recieve in Uk. However, if our children had been younger ie under 10 and we hadn't got very stable jobs here then I would have given it a go. There are a lot of pensioners living a better lifestyle than they would get in Uk and the healthcare they recieve is very good. Once the kids are settled in their lives and me and hubby are ready we shall be off.

Re: returning home
 

That sounds like a really good plan, also you can rent out your place for holiday lets and have somewhere to go to every year for a holiday. Staying on the property ladder in England is good as well, as when you move to Spain you can rent that out and live off the proceeds.

Re: returning home
 

yep thats what I was thinking.. I'm not as stupid as I look!!! LOL:rofl:

Re: returning home
 

unfortunately we dont have a house to sell here, so what do you guys think, is it possible to go there and start fresh, or do we need income from a property here to survive. xx:confused:

Re: returning home
 

I only visit Spain so cant comment. But just talking to the german lady who rents the flat above me in Denia, and she said that after four or five years living and working in Spain, it is driving her crazy. I think cultural differences can make or break.

Re: returning home
 

I think if you've got nothing to loose then go for it!

Re: returning home
 

My wife and I both had successful jobs in the UK and bought a Holiday Home in Spain. During one visit, I was offered a job out here, so we seriously discussed all the Pros and Cons of moving our family (two children then aged 5 and 8) over to Spain for a change of lifestyle. We handed in our notices at work, rented out our house in the UK and drove down through France. The intention was to try it for a year and see. :D
Upon arrival, I found that the job offer no longer existed :ohmy: We muddled through on odd jobs and savings for a period of time, then decided to make the move permanent, so sold our house in the UK and used the money to open up our own business. We have been out here for two and a half years now and still have our ups and downs. Running a business and bringing up a family in Spain is so much different to retiring to the sun.
Should we stay or should we go :confused: - Whatever we decide in the long run, at least we can say we did it :thumbsup:

Re: returning home
 

It´s horses for courses. Good and bad. I can´t wait for the Autumn when all the hoards had departed back to Madrid etc. I love the warm days walking on the beach and then sitting around the wood burner in the chill of an Autumn evening. The brightness of the sun on the sand really makes me feel good, but, on the other side, I do get bored. Okay I do the usual Spanish classes, see friends for lunch, pilates but.......... my brain still wants to work but my confidence in my Spanish does not allow me to. I also miss the buzz of working and colleagues and shopping. Now too I have a baby grand daughter and feel that I am missing all those important steps. My husband has no desire whatsoever to return, but, hey ho, the good and the bad as I said before and there is a chance in a few years that we may end up in New Zealand. A friend who lived in Spain for four years just before we came out said in a letter, "That you can´t be on holiday for ever!" and was contemplating going back. I did lose touch with him and always wondered what happened in the end.

Re: returning home
 

how common is that !!!! hear it all the time mate - glad things worked out for you though, may would have chucked in the towel :thumbsup:

Re: returning home
 

I think that's very true.

I lived in Spain for two years. Everyone I met out there has now moved on. Some to France and some back home. Most cite not being able to deal with high crime rates (robbery and burglary) and just plain boredom of not having fulfulling jobs.

People talk alot of intergration but very few expats actually do it. Going to the local fiestas doesn't count. ;) Most expats head to the Costas and even if they're not in an expat Urb, they're very very close to one. They tend to go to the nearest Brit bar, install SKY TV and just stick to themselves.

I found the Spanish really xenophobic. I can't say I blame them entirely as their Costas have been totally invaded, putting house prices up and changing their culture.

Re: returning home
 

It really depends on you and your outlook on life. OH and I came out in January to purchase a business - plenty of them on the market - but if you could see the state of some of them! Found one and were then let down - too late to find another for the season - the lies that come out of the Seller's mouths are absolutely unbelievable. So we are looking for work but cannot speak Spanish (ok I know that's our own fault before anyone tells me so!!!). We are in our 50's and I do not have the figure for barwork (Crispy and I have the same problem:D) and even barwork they want experience and/or Spanish speaking. We intend staying for two years at least whether we find work or not. If all you kids can take a gap year we reckon we deserve at least two!!

We have decided that its not worth worrying about what is around the corner - if we hadn't done it now we would never have done so. We are just enjoying spending quality time with each other and if we fall flat on our faces so be it - we will have tried and have some wonderful memories.

IMO just go for it but be aware of the consequences.:wub:

Re: returning home
 

Hi Chiclanagirl, I agree with everything you have said, I took early retirement (51) and sometimes I think I am brain dead:blink:. I really miss the buzz of meeting people and just going shopping with my daughters just at a drop of a hat. The grandchildren look different every time they arrive I am sure one day when I greet them at the airport I will get the wrong child completely:ohmy:

I just love it here in the cooler months, as you say when all the hoards have departed Chiclana is a different place, we have been shopping this morning oh my 3 hours it took just to go and buy 4 bags of shopping....roll on September when they all go home:D

Chiclanagirl, I loved New Zealand when I went, Oh I could be very happy there so could Mal, but we thought very long and hard about the family, it is such a long way off and can be very expensive for family and friends to visit, no just popping over for the odd weekend to catch up on the gossip. At the moment Mal and I have no plans to go back to the UK but we are moving on from Chiclana when we sell up as we both feel after five years it is time to move on. I will miss it here as I think it has much charm and character, plenty of good points and a few bad but then so does everywhere else.

Re: returning home
 

So right what you say Sue, life is short and if you don't give it a go then there will always be regret, not such an easy thing to do with young children but if you are older and just the two of you then I would say go for it.

Mal and I are enjoying the quality time we have left together, after I spent over 35 years in a very difficult relationship and Mal's wife of 33 years died in her sleep next to him at the age of 53 it makes you realise that time does not stand still for anyone.

Re: returning home
 

I know what you mean - our Son is 28 and standing on his own two foot - I am 53 and Ian 56 - I nearly lost him when he was 50 with a faulty heart valve and complications - Alzheimers(?) runs in my family and we just thought - sod it - what have we got to lose. If we don't find work we will have to go back but will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Re: returning home
 

Hi Matt, what kind of buisness do you have? x:)

Re: returning home
 

I'm sending you a PM as I don't want to be hung for advertising.........

Re: returning home
 

and these personal reasons are ones I cant share with a public forum so why don't we drop it eh?

They were nothing to do with Spain, its people, its culture, its ethics or even its foreign policy.

Just because I was young free and single does that make my opinion not count?

Honestly woman, you come on here, are OK for a bit and then you start don't you? I have never made any intimation that I lived in Spain, if I did why would I have started a thread announcing I was moving back, why would I constantly ask questions about banks, cars and god knows what ever else I have.

If you don't like my posts then just don't reply, you only wanted my answer in the first place to prove a point about Spain.
I noticed you never piped up when a certain poster was slagging off the UK and I was defending it?!