Hi everyone.  Im 53 years old and want to do something different with my life.  My son and girlfriend and myself are fed up with the english way of life/weather/government etc. and are thinking of moving to Spain to start afresh.

I have capital of ?200k from home owned outright, he has mortgage on a home bought 8 months ago (he has 2 lodgers to help him out financially). I have no savings.

We dont know where to start - do i sell up and take the risk, rent out my home, rent out or sell his home, rent or buy in Spain, look for work when we get there.  We had a dream of living together but separately (me in a separate flat/granny annexe), and those two running a bar.

Am i being extremely naive thinking that this would work?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated (please be gentle on me - please dont scream at me to wake up and smell the roses!)

Thank u.

First of all why do you believe Spain has no issue with Weather, govt etc.

Trust me they do, its not unique that the UK has issues and no other country does.

I found that Expats who don`t have an issue tend to be the retired non Spanish speakers, they have a relaxing lifestyle as there not in the rat race anymore.

Working in Spain is far more stressful than the UK, there is a lot of corruption, bar work is long and huge competition, plus bar owners face many challenges from legal complexities to illegal complexities, if you haven`t run a bar in the UK, forget it, you need to be a rich tough guy for bar work in Spain.

My advice would be to move to Spain for a month into a small town away from tourism, just to get a feel for the change in lifestyle.

I would also consider other countries as well.

In all my years in Spain the ones quickest to return to the UK tend to be the ones who moved because they were fed up with the UK, its not a good reason.

I found that out the hard way, the grass on the UK is far far greener than the Spanish side, but I guess I needed to find that out for myself rather than listen to others.

If you do go I would advise you keep as much of what you have now in the UK, don`t sell the house until your sure Spain is for you.

If you need to sell everything to finance the move, don`t, thats a huge risk and you`ll put your life back 20 yrs if you need to return to the UK.

You can only judge if Spain is for you and that can only be achieved by living there, don`t believe Spain is for you and rush into it before you live there, it`ll blind your judgement and aid in making it a mistake.

Moving to Spain is very easy, its the staying there that is very hard and by that I mean to work and live.

Retired expats love writing how wonderful Spain is on forums, you have to ask why in the middle of the day are you writing on an English site.

Most spend there day near there villa, reading the net, English newspapers and watching Sky TV, there experience of Spain is very limited.

Plus if you counted all the membership of all active members on all Expat site you`d only be reading 2% of Expats living in Spain. So your not going to get much of a balance.

Anyway take your time with the research, try to do it in Spain as much as you can and don`t sacrifice everything you own in the UK to fund the move.

Good luck.