Is Spain still the best option for retirement abroad?

Aliton.  

"All real manchester people support City "

Well there must be a real shortage of men in Manchester because every home game on the telly...there are loads of empty seats at the council pitch.??

Baboal -

Great minds think alike, I couldn't put it better myself.   Anyway Cameron got a bloody nose yesterday at Eastleigh when UKIP took second place and sent out the message loud and clear, "you have completely lost touch with the British people and what they want".   Politicians in the UK have failed to listen to the people here now for over 20 yrs or more and they are all 3 the same, we have the country in the state it is in to show for it.   The people are paying a very high price for their political career ambitions on the EU gravy train and the onward march into an EUSSR and I think they have finally cracked and come to the conclusion that they are all a bunch of losers only out for themselves.    I can't even recognise the country I was brought up in.   I have just been into our local town, full of eastern europeans of course, we now have them begging on the streets !!    To say the town is a ghost town is an understatement and all the shops we have are charity, £1 shops, mobile telephone shops, a few card shops and a few frozen food shops.   The majority of the buildings are getting ready to fall down, such is the low level of investment by the local council.    We do of course have the obligatory "Tesco town supermarket" just being built and when it is finished it will be the only supermarket to offer clothes, DIY, food etc. at an astronomical price of course !!   I also have to wait a week for a doctor's appointment and we are offered a"touch screen" to check in (for all the immigrants who don't speak English of course!).   The walk in clinic centres are also full of immigrants and the local hospital is approx. 80-90% full of immigrants (all nationalisites, nurses, doctors and patients).   Our NHS is now getting to the point where hospitals are being closed and it is breaking under the strain.    Don't get me wrong, I don't mind immigrants in small quanities who come to work and contribute (unlike Spain where they are expected to work or starve), but not when they are overtaking the country and forcing it into decline through the economical pressures of supporting them with benefits and services.

No Spain isn't perfect but it has a lot going for it, we don't even have the weather here !

Maybe before we shout too much about immigrants in the UK, we should consider the fact that we are immigrants in Spain.

Donlochnagar -

Yes but wealthy in comparison to the type we get here and no doubt you don't have your hand out to the Spanish government !

I don't, indeed I'm thinking of instigating a 'sun tax' which would help Spain out of it's current situation.

i did do a reply to the post.

but i deleted it

as an immigrent in spain that came to make a better life

all i can say is that JWhite needs to open his eyes and look at the world.

its a very biggoted and pretty shocking attitude in my opion.

but everyone is free to their own views.

We are renting in Quesada at the moment - we have always had our "end plan" firmly in our head which is to retire to Spain at somepoint in the near future.

In a rare moment of clarity we realised that our dreams, based entirely on extended holidays and visting friends might not be as good for long term living. So here we are renting a small apartment for 6 months whilst we try and find out if Spain is for us. We are trying before we buy so to speak. Search out different areas and hopefully find a community that we like.

To be fair its its not just Spain we are test driving but being away for this long in a different country. I am a Londoner and it was hard enough leaving city living and moving to "semi rural" Buckinghamshire 10 years ago...what the shops are shut its only 11.30 in the evening I seem to remember screaming at some point or another.

The advantages of being here so far (excluding yesterdays down pour) is for us the weather. I suffer from SAD and it has been getting worse over the years. We shop in local shops and try and use local produce and find that the cost of living is slightly less than the UK.  

We are keeping a spreadhsheet (anal I know) of our expenses here etc  and how that compares with the UK. We have not been here long enough yet to make a sensible comparision but what springs to mind whilst typing this is that if savings are made then that money will most likely be spent on travel back to the UK to visit friends and family etc.

Another thing that we will have to consider is that we want to semi retire here and work fewer hours for Our UK based company and the tax implications that this might entail and also that we will want a home base back in the Uk that we might have to rent out to subsadise our pensions as our investements etc havent realised what we hoped etc.  So we have an appointment with a spanish firm of lawyers and accountants to discuss the best way forward.

So far we like what we see ....but only more time will tell

Angie

Ps. As for the great footie debate..being a QPR supporter I really dont feel qualified to comment :(

Aliton

kindly have the decency to read and comment on what people write not how you wish to read it.

My comment

"think you will find the latest statistics show that almost a million individuals from these countries are now residing in Spain, many living on rubbish tips or similar around the cities. That is more than Brits on the Padron"

says nothing about individuals in those Countries living on rubbish tips or any generalisation whatsoever.

For your info, without generalising, you are correct most people from Manchester support City, if you knew your country you would know Old Trafford the home of the greatest team in the UK is in the City of Salford very adjacent to Manchester as it happens.

Keep smiling

so far in 10 years i have lived in possibly 12 different apartments.

some of them for 5 months and some for 14 months.

my life is vastly different each time i move.

from being so close to the sea that when we sat on the balcony we were wet through to living in a huge mansion with 14 bedrooms.

every apartment or house had its own ups and down and each part of the costa del sol did,

one of the places i lived i considered buying but circumstances dictated i move away and than god i did because that 1,1 million apartment is now on the market for 400k and i could get it for 360k i bet but i just wouldnt because the market has futher to go.

To just buy in spain with never actually spending some time in different parts is crazy i think.

Just moving 10km away from where you were the places have a completely different feel and attitude.

Unfotunatly when you have been on holiday in spain for a few summers its very easy to get enchanted and not see the reality.

He is a she (me) and I don't mind immigrants, hell we are all those if you go back in history, what I do  mind is trying to change the face of Europe by moving 3rd world poverty and criminals around the rest of the countries to force down wages in the more prosperous ones (like the UK)  to make corporations and governments millionaires whilst keeping the people in poverty (communism by another name).

Unless you live in one of these areas in the UK with mass immigration, you really cannot understand the depth of the problem and so cannot possibly comment.    Birmingham is about 6 miles from me and it has had its face changed forever over the last 15 to 20 yrs and some of its areas are minority British population.    Some of those areas are in desperate poverty, high levels of crime and generations of benefit claimants.   Before anyone makes the comparison, yes I know we have a few home grown ones too who like to live their lives on benefits, but the immigrants we get coming here are not vetted, do not speak english, come with all kinds of diseases all needing to be treated (TB is on the increase although having once been eradicated more or less completely, to name just one), all levels of criminality, people traffickers (we have them in most of the big cities now), druggies, beggars, who expect to come here and be provided for.    What was started by Labour has been continued throughout by Tories and LibDems who are all millionaires and have no comprehension of the problems they have created amonst the ordinary working class people and what's more are not interested in the results at all.    They are too busy performing on the world stage, enhancing their political careers, preaching to 3rd world countries how they are going to help change their countries with our billions and have their eyes and hearts firmly fixed on their political and personal exit from the UK when they have finished it off, meanwhile leaving behind a decimated country. 

Spain on the other hand, does not have the money, benefits, government heart or interest in importing 3rd world poverty to its shores although obviously they cannot stop any going there, there is not much to offer them when they get there, so they have no hatred from the Spanish who may have been made to pay for their provision on health, welfare and benefits (if they had, it may be a different story).

As it is the Spanish have a lot to be grateful for, even if they are suffering at the moment, at least what jobs they have no doubt are not going to 3rd world immigrants willing to work below the minimum wage, which is what we have here.

you do actually make valid points to be honest

i did do a reply to the post.

but i deleted it

as an immigrent in spain that came to make a better life

all i can say is that JWhite needs to open his eyes and look at the world.

its a very biggoted and pretty shocking attitude in my opion.

but everyone is free to their own views.

Not much bigoted about it at all, just saying it how it is here now in the UK,  for the most part the English immigrants that come to Spain are not the scum of the country they left behind, who then get a local girl pregnant or buy a cat or just so they can stay because of their "Human rights" to a decent living, lets not even mention the rubbish that are driving with no licence or insurance then run down someone and also run away, and the many others who do much worse.

The person who is doing exceptionally well in these Eastern countries hardly want to come to England to make a go of it, just the rubbish does,  did you know we now have in this country three prisons that are full to the brim with Eastern and Muslim inmates...no English, they cant be chucked out thanks again to the human rights thing. Cameron forgets to mention this when he tells of how good it is to have another murderer come to the UK.

The people of the UK who voice these opinions are the people who can see whats happening in the UK, the people who let them in cant see this because they don't want to admit that is what has happened here over the past few years...they might of course if they lived next door to them.

If this rant makes me a bigot then so be it..i am, but then i have been called this before by a vicar who was doing the voting rounds and was standing for the party that wanted to bring down the legal age of homosexuality to 16...i told him he just wanted to make sure his type had plenty of new fresh stock.

Sure i am an immigrant in Spain, but i am one that sticks to their rules, their laws, respect the people...shame the same cant be said for the Eastern rubbish who come to the UK.

Hugh-Man you said

" As for the comment about..  retiring to Bulgaria or Romania, who in their right minds would want to retire there, where people live on rubbish tips and many would cut your throat for a shilling !

It was YOU who wrote the above comment so I am "reading what you wrote" and that is generalising about about two nations, as for Old Trafford I believe they pay Rates to Manchester City Council i e the Borough of Trafford where most of my family live so how can that be Salford.?

JohnSX, we are part of Europe and are not immigrants.  Try telling the Spanish health service that if you are not self employed here and under pension age.

JWhite

'He is a she (me) and I don't mind immigrants, hell we are all those if you go back in history, what I do  mind is trying to change the face of Europe by moving 3rd world poverty and criminals around the rest of the countries to force down wages in the more prosperous ones (like the UK)  to make corporations and governments millionaires whilst keeping the people in poverty (communism by another name).'

Well said!

Hugh_man

That is right, I did say it and stand by it, reporters went to Bulgaria and Romania to photograph and interview people there who want to come to the UK, they were living on rubbish tips and they all said "to a man" that they were intending to come to the UK as they would be treated better, and have access to benefits and be given a house.

No surprise there then !!

Jwhite there may not be Big issue sellars, but there are certainly muggers, druggies and beggars!

Mungry wrote "

"all i can say is that JWhite needs to open his eyes and look at the world.

its a very biggoted and pretty shocking attitude in my opion.

but everyone is free to their own views."

& to be honest I do not know anyone , either here or in the UK, who does not espouse the same views. Except politicians or anyone working for the PC brigade.

" JohnSX, we are part of Europe and are not immigrants.  Try telling the Spanish health service that if you are not self employed here and under pension age."

You must be doing something wrong as we had no problem renewing.

I am afraid there would be a few embarrassed faces amongst the British expats, if suddently the Spanish government were instructed by Brussels that they have to  house and provide benefits for immigrants (and I am not talking expat British here !).    Can you imagine the attitude of the Spanish people too if they found their government giving their taxes in the form of benefits to the immigrants from Romania or Bulgaria and housing them in front of the Spanish and their hospitals were 80% full of immigrants getting free healthcare from the cradle up !   Also if their companies were told they could not discriminate against the immigrants by giving jobs only to the Spanish !!   It's easy to be non-racist when  they don't bother you and only come to contribute their money to the economy.

NIMBY comes to mind here