The future for ex pats

Well that sorted out the smoking issue. LOL

So...the future of expats.

Every time we watch a programme on the TV that includes an article concerning those expats in Spain who are keen to get back to the Uk if only they could sell their Spanish property (ie ITV News last night) I have mixed feelings.  I have great sympathy with the feeling of being trapped somewhere you don't want to be.  It's a horrible feeling, one which I had several years ago when it took us months to sell our property in Devon at a time when we needed to be back here in Lincolnshire.  However, we knew that our place in Devon would sell eventually, even if it took a couple of years.  There must be property on the market in Spain that will take several years to sell...if at all.  However I am curious to know why anyone would buy a place in another country, only to sell it a few years? later.  Has Spain really changed so much? There's still the sunshine, the relaxed way of living, the wonderful people. Yet, we ourselves were once in the position of wanting to sell our Spanish home.

We did find one answer to my question when we were on Tenerife a couple of weeks ago.  An estate agent told us there are many expats there that bought a place for their retirement around 20 years ago and, now that they are in their 80s and 90s they want to get back to the UK to spend the last years of their lives with family and take advantage of the NHS should they need it.  Yes, I can understand this.  Having paid tax all their working lives, I do feel they are entitled to NHS care. 

We sold our place in Spain because my son, then aged 16, had little hope of getting a decent job.  I hold up my hands and say, we hadn't really thought this through when we moved to Spain with him.  We didn't care what we did for money then, having already 'proved' ourselves in the work place for many years. We went to Spain wearing those 'rose-tinted spectacles'.  Thank goodness we managed to sell our place (it took several months) without a loss.  Now, we spend time in Spain by renting from someone that needs the cash to keep their Spanish property from being taken by the Bank.

Bobaol,

Nicely put - but tofu eating? That's a bit harsh...

Baobal- the last figures i saw showed smokers tax contribution-9 million, amount spent on smoking related diseases-14 million!

By the way, i hate tofu!

keith28-sorry if the truth hurts! you forget the many years that non smokers were out in the cold! No one is claiming to own the atmosphere, but everyone deserves to live in a clean safe environment, and children don't get to choose! Of course we want to sit inside and outside without smoke wafting everywhere. We don't hate the sinner, only the sin, and feel great pity for thhose who can't last a few hours without their gaspers.

Camposol,

I think your millions might be billions...and I also think you can present statistics to support just about anything. But even if you're right, the same principle must apply to alcohol, with all the health problems, violence and misery it causes. So do we go the same route with drinkers? I know...be careful what you wish for...

By the way, most smokers smoke because they enjoy smoking, not because they don't have the willpower to stop.

fyfin.............. Obviously not

keith28........ And the damage that hair spray and other aerosols do to the ozone layer.

camposol... I take it that you are a non smoker. I think that the phrase regarding “tofu eating” was directed at Non-smokers and the rest of the description was very descriptive. Have you ever considered the pollution that you create every day? Do "the children" have a choice about those? Are you sure that the general public are not offended by anything you do, or that you force upon others?

I am offended when I go to a good restaurant and pay good money for a meal, then being forced to accept the odor and appearance of mutton dressed as lamb, on neighboring tables. Don’t I have the right to eat my meal without the stench of over applied perfumes?

Single mothers are a much bigger cost to the NHS and the benefits system. Does that mean that all single women should be sterilized?

What on earth happened to “Live and let live”?

 What happened to "Live and let Live" indeed. 

IF as I believe even non smoking, non drinking, non drug taking and non highly perfumed single parent vehicle owning cattle polute the atmosphere then all non vegetarians could soon for the high jump as well. LOL

But let´s put all asunder and RETURN to topic..which after todays scaremongering DM headlines I think the future looks rather bleak for us expats now !!!

Whatever happened to Live and Let Live - I can answer that , it was demolished in 2007, well the pub in Ipswich of that name was anyway.

Seriously, the Daily Mail Eh? I have tried to resist buying any newspaper since I came back from Spain but today I popped into Tescos mini mart to buy some tomatoes (yes I know what I said earlier) and stupidly bough the said paper and of course saw the article by Dan Hyde who seems to revel in sensational nonsense. Euro panic lol Maybe I'm naive but I thought European banks had a compensation system same as UK up to €100,000 although recovering the money is different if a bank goes "bust". Taking money out of a bank is just silly and if we all tried to do it there just wouldn't be enough cash in the bank. I think James Stewart put it very well in the 1946 film "It's a wonderful life"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Er69b4HMl8 

Also I don't understand the first example in the D.M. article, they obviously sold the apartment fro more than they paid for it but giving up their 6 months (probably) in the sun to face the heating bills in UK might not have been a good move.

Still makes for good journalism and I'll get a few comments from friends who have read it!

Good to see the thread back on track, even if it is courtesy of Dan Hyde and the DM!

Euro panic is real in some quarters, and Hyde does touch on matters which are of concern for some expats and those thinking about moving to Spain, but he says absolutely nothing new and his examples are terrible.

I think he knows even less than most of us about what may be the future for expats!

Keith28- all the usual smokers rants about others polluting the environment-and pretty poor they are, too. I know the response from smokers is always going to be blinkered. But hey, there's good news-read inthe Sol Times today that some beaches in the Canaries are putting up no smoking signs, not just because of air pollution, but to discourage young people from taking up the habit, setting a good example, and also to get rid of  the cigarette ends that, curiously, smokers don't regard as litter. Hope it catches on. As for people smoking because they like it, well, i like a lot of things but i don't inflict them on others!

Seems I was wrong about the thread getting back on track....

Keith28,

may I ask on what basis you make the statement that "people smoke because they enjoy smoking, not because they don´t have the willpower to give up"!!

I am sure there are exceptions to every rule but that statement bears no relation to reality whatsoever!!

It´s as bad as all the tobacco companies stating that there is nothing additive in their product. What a miserable pack of lies that was. All down to money, of course.

I am an ex-smoker, for some 28 years to date, back then, I even tried smoking brown paper once, when I had no money. If anybody had told me to quit, I would have told them where to go!!

I eventually quit because three friends had one guy drop out of a holiday booking to Lanzarote and asked if I could go in his place.

They did not smoke, so I thought I would go and sit on the outside balcony for a fag. Got fed up with that, so got a little wobbly during "Happy Hour" most days, with beer and Jack Daniels, sniffed my fingers, where I held the fag, also had a coffee, when the craving hit really bad!

Lasted seven days like that, bought a carton of fags, left them unopened, booked non smoking on the plane back to the UK and promised myself I would put a fag up each nostril when I got home, to celebrate. I didn´t however, went from hours, to days, to months, sniffing fingers, drinking coffee, withdrawal symptons were quite strong. At one stage I thought I could pull on the steering wheel and my car would fly!!

As I say, that was 28 years ago. What a blessing when Spain introduced the smoking ban. Even the faintest smell of nicotine makes me feel repulsed!! Please, please, Sr. Rajoy, do not cancel the ban.

I forgot to apologise, which I do now, wholeheartedly, for going off topic but I felt it important to state my thoughts.

Bobaol

Lol!  Well done on your little speech!!

 Well, the thread did get back on track for a little while but the ex and non smokers derailed it again.  My point was that everything that has been said has been said many, many times (Oh, Camposol, I don't know where you read those figures but smokers contribute £15 BILLION a year in extra taxes on top of their NI contributions.  Smoking has been shown to cost the NHS three times what was previously thought at around £5 billion of which nearly £2 is on stop smoking campaigns - alcohol abuse costs almost £6 billion in direct costs and this rises to over £10 billion due to lost working days.  By the way, I'm also ex (12 years now) but I have absolutely no problems with smoker who can come to my house and have a fag any time they want, as long as they sit on the balcony or in the garden. )

However, I digress.  There are still no indications around our way of people leaving Spain.  Quite the contrary as we are getting new residents coming in.  I can understand why some people have gone back, the very elderly to have family around them, those on OAP who have seen their income cut drastically due to the very poor performance of the British pound (yes, it is going back up but it is still a good 25% down on what it was 5 or 6 years ago).  Others haven't done their homework and didn't realise how much they woujld miss their families so much and even, heaven forbid, that it actually gets hot in Spain!  There are also, unfortunately, many Brits (and it may count with other nationalities as well) who seem to have a lot of time on their hands and become quite nasty to others and can make other peoples lives a misery.  There are, again unfortunately, a lot of little enclaves with up to 100% British people on them and these seem to be the worst.  On the other hand, some of these urbanisations are very nice and people get on very well with each other.  

I still love it here, I can see no reason to go back to UK (I was there last week and found it absolutely horrible, the UK population just don't seem to be able to cope with 27 degrees heat.  I know there's a hosepipe ban on but I didn't realise it applied to having showers as well! - the rolls of flabby, white flesh and men with no shirts on was really a good reason to come back as soon as possible).  I am also fortunate that Mrs Bobaol loves it here as well.  As I said earlier, if I felt like some of you on here I would have gone back or moved somewhere else ages ago, regardless of being able to sell or not.  I'm not, though, I'm staying for the foreseeable future.  

(It's also good to go back to UK now and again just to see how expensive things are.  Quite a shock tootling around Tesco thinking you could buy stuff to take back which are expensive in Spain only to find that they are the same, or cheaper, in Spain - the +4% monthly inflation in UK has really pushed things up.  The only thing we brought back was half a ton of teabags which are the brand the OH likes and can't get here albeit they were rather expensive.)

The nicest thing, though, was that we got back if felt like we were coming home.  Maybe that's the difference (oh, and the standard of driving in UK is just as bad as here as well, except that there's loads more of them).