spains appeal gone

i have decided to return to the uk,to me the appeal of living in spain has gone its changing fast and not for the better even the weather has changed to the humid heat,i have had a lot of family here for the holidays and they and other holiday makers have all said that its a lot cheaper to shop in the uk,im finding it hard to find anything cheaper here than the uk,and the laws change by the day..and i cant see the pound ever being as strong as it was,and crime is also on the up.i wont be selling my house just yet as it is possible that i could get back to the uk and think to myself what the hell am i doing here..i would like to hear your opinions on the fors and againsts in spain

 Hi, keeping your options open sounds good to me.  I am just wondering what you think you will be coming back too?   England, or the UK, is also changing almost by the day, and not for the better in lots of ways.   Oh - and it has hardly stopped raining for months in most parts!!!

Do keep your options open but good luck whatever you decide.

I go to Spain a lot but from this winter I will be half/half

Yes the poor exchange rate has put up the cost but where I am going to live near Huercal Overa, if you look around you can still get everything you want quite cheaply in this location but again not a cheap as it used to be

Where you are at La Marina it is bound to be more expensive than 20 mins inland

I always use the markets for fruit & veg and mainly only buy what is in season Also use Consum and their own brands are very competitive...I often see people buying UK brand jam for example which is double the price of own brand and just as nice

The other supermarkets always have selective offers

So not as cheap as it was but still not too bad..in general we eat better in Spain for just a little less than UK.....the fish is much cheaper and the chickens if you buy a whole or half one   

Eating out: you can pay a lot or get a good deal.....we often go to the market in Cuevas and have a light tapas lunch- 4 tapas freshly cooked & 2 small beers for 6.5 €...was very cheap but even now not bad....Wok buffet 9.5 € and eat as much as you like plus a botle of plonk when you go

Argentina Steal House , last time 16 € for a very large steak , Paella 11/12€

On the exchange rate the general view from the dealers is that it has moved into 1.15 to 1.20 range but there has been a set back over the last week or so

long time before we get back to 1.45 + but many will not be surprised if it is not near to 1.30 in 12 months

On the weather, well if you prefer our UK summer to Spain's then you like rain!!!...give me the heat anyday!

But there are always people who will try Spain or somewhere else new and not settle for various reasons so you will get some support for your views

For me and my wife, spending more time in Spain and the sun will we hope give us a better chance of having a longer and healthy life

thanks for your replys,we have been living here for over 5 years so its not a matter of not settling,but we do fill spain is changing but not for the better,i could go on all day about different thing i have seen and heard of,that i dont like,but who knows,maybe i will be in for a shock and end up back here

Like you coolrunner we now find Spain very expensiveand we don't stay on the coast.I'm surprised that rowlandsbb finds meat and fish cheaper as we have found just the opposite! (2 salmon fillets over 5e in Consum and the only really cheap chicken I found was in Lidl) All were delicious though.

Don't believe all that you hear about the weather in the UK either. Here in our little corner of E.Kent we have had a great summer (honestly) We have had just one tenth of our average monthly rainfall in August. Obviously the temperature have not been as hot as Spain, but that's an advantage in my opinion! A few days have been in the 30's but most in the upper 20's.

All countries change and sometimes not for the better so it's good that you are keeping your options open. Rowlandsbb idea of half/half seems to tick a lot of boxes for me but it is an expensive option. Now that we are both retired we will need to make some adjustments in our life and may well not be able to keep both a home in the UK and one in Spain. If you can afford that option then go for it. We now know that we could never live in Spain as we had once hoped but are not sure of the next step. We have many friends who have lived in Spain for years and have then returned to the UK. You can only do what is right for you.

As to crime it is everywhere. We have been burgled in Spain (horrid) but not in the UK. On the other hand our daughter as a student was robbed 3 times before she was even 21.(in London and Nottingham) so I would say to choose your area carefully.

Good luck with whatever you decide and let us know how you get on back in the UK.

Gloria and Mike

The comments that Spain is changing (for the worse ) day by day is probably right - but I think it is not  just Spain but the world and the sign of us all getting older.  The morals that many of us were brought up with are no longer applicable to the Western world.   I remember my old school moto was "to be not to seam to be" - I feel this motto is so out of date.  Nowadays it doesn't matter what the truth or honesty is about things - what is important is thaty all the admin is done properly so it appears right and no one can sue you.  I think things are getting so bad in the UK - no one really cares less about right and wrong and Spain is probably just following suit.

As for the prices in Spain I have just come back from La Marina and to be honest I felt the supermarket prices (comparing similar quality) on most things were the same as in England.  Some things eg Tea were more expensive but other things like water and orange juice were cheaper.  Obviously very British things were more expensive (eg Marmite, HP sauce) but generally i would say prices were very similar.

It connection with crime I am sure it is getting worse - sign of the times.  People just arn't taught what is right and wrong anymore - but I cant believe that it is as bad in Spain as in the UK.

The weather you like is down to personal choice some people like constant showers - in Somerset we havn't had a summer for 2 years.   July & August has just been rain and more rain. 

thanks for your reply,the only thing i can say about the crime in spain is watch the spanish news channels,becouse expats get most of their news from expat papers they dont get the full picture,i would bet that their is more crimes in spain than the uk,but i must stress this is not my main reason for returning,it was just one of my views that i wanted to express

True - but when you get back to the UK look in your local pepers.  They will be full of crimes - but many crimes now a day are so common that they don't make it to the papers - and often the police cant be bothered to chase them up because of the paper work they have to do on every case.

 The crime issue is an interesting one.  I am not sure Spain has been the crime free paradise people sometimes think it has, post Franco.  But I do read El Mundo daily, and I do watch Spanish news (both to improve my Spanish), and what always strikes me is that a murder in Madrid is pretty big news, whereas here in the UK some murders don't even make the mainstream news.  Of course you have to remember that the population of Spain is significantly lower than here in the UK, and everything is proportionate.

On prices, my brother has lived in Spain for nearly 20 years now, and visiting all that time ago there were plenty of things which have never been cheap - butter, milk, cream to name a few.  But come on - Rowlandsb is right, you can get a kilo of the most wonderful peaches for 1e on the markets when they are in season - I still have to find a half edible peach in the UK!!  And yes, maybe I did lay it on thick, and we did have one or two nice days when the temp got to 30, but generally speaking, it has been wet, wet, wet.

Just looking at our own property, and region of Spain (Mojacar) and our own area in the UK (Durham), where the UK REALLY falls down in cost of living is as follows:   Council Tax - astronomical now and well over £2000 each year, car parking charges, petrol, employing a cleaner/gardener,  road tax, heating (more because you have to use more of it).  In my opinion, grocery shopping in the Uk is pretty cheap if you use Tesco or one of the other giants, but equally most around here  in the UK are not that cheap.    

Like I said, keep your options open!!

Well Coolrunner...you have certainly got the thread moving!!!!

The silent majority who have bought in Spain and have no regrets perhaps do not bother to look at EOS

Same about problems over buying.....the silent majority have had no problems!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Don't know what happened there!

What I meant to post was....

Coolrunner, could you be so kind as to write a short list of the reasons you want to come back to the UK? You say the increased crime isn't the main reason.  Is the main reason the increased prices?  Or is it the ever-changing laws?  I ask because my husband and myself were going to buy in Spain again (having bought and sold very happily and successfully once before) but we have been put off buying after extensively researching the idea.  Our main reason is the fact that the Spanish seem to be making 'laws' that will help them to recuperate some of the losses they have made through the collapse in the Spanish property market.  AND, yet again, they seem to be getting away with it!!!!

Are we being overly-worried about this?

Meggie

What laws are they bringing in to help them recuperate some of the losses of the property recession?

We bought in Spain and are very happy with our life here.

Being somewhat naiive, we did a no-no and bought off-plan. Thank heavens all went reasonably well, back in 2004. We bought through Peinsa and while we needed to jog them from time to time, re. alterations to the standard casa, we found them quite good.

Nowhere is perfect, as we all know, the corruption levels in Spain are are very high, together with a justice system that seems to be a laughing stock, if it did not have such serious consequences for so many ex-pats. I say ex-pats, because I believe the Spanish people, through many years of hardship and frugality have learned to avoid many of the pitfalls encountered by the less wary. Sometimes a case of "who you know, not what you know".

Probably a bit selfish but in no way am I envious of the people that go back and forth from the UK to Spain. All the talk about car hire problems, the exchange rate, flight prices, etc., etc.

I had to go back to the UK last September for a week. First time for five years. To be honest, I felt claustrophobic!! I had forgotten the speed cameras, the traffic jams and the prices!! Takeaway large Cod and chips 7 pounds 50p. and of course it rained on it all to boot !!

Eventually flew back from Gatwick, after a seven hour delay ! They offered to take us all into town for a while, to kill some time. I refused and stayed put in the airport. I could take no more !!

I am proud to be English, not British, ENGLISH, please, born in the capital of the country but it is not the England I grew up in, so many years ago.

My needs here are simple. To sit under a parasol on the Paseo, sipping a coffee or a cold beer, with free tapas, plan a car trip without having to leave at five in the morning to avoid the jams, shangrila !!

´Til they cast my ashes into the Mar Menor, in a Jack Daniel´s Whiskey bottle (I have no head for heights) I shall continue to enjoy my "new" country for as long as I can, while offering sincere thoughts and hopefully good outcomes for those people less fortunate, who have and are still suffering bad times, financially, or otherwise.

Hi Pilgrim

What an excellent post! And I thought I was on my own, the way I see it is that many seem to have forgotten the reasons, why they left in the first place.

Pilgrim enjoy the sun, the cold beer, and the relaxed pace of life. 

You can't knock coolrunner for not giving it a good shot.  5 years is a long time and plenty of time to know if you really want to stay somewhere.

Our retired neighbours left for the UK last month.  They had been here for a couple of years.  Why did they move back?

1. It's no cheaper to live here

2. They were tired of having to clean their own street

3. They were tired of having to light up the street using the outdoor light from their house

4. They were tired to cleaning all the dog muck off of the pavements every day from other's dogs

5. They were bored.....and they had friends here.

6. It was way too hot in the summer for them and way too cold in the winter for them.

 And I could go on.

We have never painted a rosy picture of Spain and I personally think it's wrong to do so.  Like anywhere you live there are ups and downs, things you will like and things you will hate.  Nowhere is perfect and Spain is certainly no "paradise".

I myself am sick to the bone of going to the town hall to complain about basic stuff and needs.  It's not MY fault all the mayors have been corrupt and now the town hall has no money to finish anything off...although they are building a wine museum because that's just what we need.

Everyone has different reasons for living but at least those that are leaving had the guts to make the move in the first place.  The fact that they tried it and gave it their best should earn them some serious respect.  Moving abroad anywhere is a massive life changing decision.

And not meaning to pick on you rowlandsbb, but living here only half of the year is NOTHING like making a permanent move here.  When you have no option but to be here every day it can be tough for many people.  Personally, I'd like to spend my summers in the UK and my winters here in Spain but I don't have that option.

I sound like I hate Spain but I don't, far from it.  I love the late evenings out, I love that my kids can enjoy the beach and the pool in the summer, the wonderful kids parks, the mountains behind us, etc.  But I am always realistic that it's not perfect here and we should never attack those that have tried it and found it's just not for them.

Good on them for giving it a go.

Justin

Good post Justin!

We would also like to spend our summers in the UK and our winters in Spain - just trying to make that happen can be a little tricky even for us retired folk!

Gloria and Mike

It would be interesting to know how the costs compare between renting for 6 months each year as opposed to the buying route..... . As well as looking at the financial implications, would the flexibility prove a more tempting proposition? Are there drawbacks to this other than the obvious that it's not your own place?

A very interesting thread.

Although we have never stayed in Spain for any longer that 4 weeks at a time I cannot see a downside to the country with one exception and that is the corruption and lack of values in the Town Hall.

" Its no cheaper to live here", why should it be?, at the moment is probably around the same price in Spain as the UK but over the next year or two food inflation in the UK is going to take off, if not all inflation.

The are pluses and minuses for both countries to me the big plus side of Spain is the weather and the relaxed way of life, having said that I would not live there permanently( I don't think).