A french newcomer into the rabbit hole

[Starman]

Hello everyone,

After having read the book and a lot of the forum, I'm glad to join you all.

I'm a french 30's guy living in Paris.
Having always been frugal, I accumulated several years of income, being more interested in science, philosophy, programming, and video games (amongst other things), than in superficial things and people.

Several months ago I introduced myself to investment (stocks and real estate) and liked it. I discovered ERE from there.
What a breath of fresh air! Being an INTJ, I feel like I've found a place full of sane people, which is unusual from my point of vue.
I praise this movement which values competence over consumerism, independence over conformism, and authenticity over superficiality.
I like ERE's contrarian nature, and the paradigm shift it proposes.
Your book is very good Jacob!

Doing ERE is not especially easy in Paris, housing being very expensive. Real estate prices are high, but property taxes are low, and me and my girlfriend wanted to feel at home, so we bought an apartment. We did not take the max size we could though. And lending rates are very low (around 1 or 1,5%).
Now, considering our mortgage (minus interests) as a form of savings, we manage to save about 85% of our income (my girlfriend is into ERE too, which is a blessing!).

Retirement-wise, as a conservative person, and having quite bad expectancies about the future, I intend to take a fair margin of safety, so we will not retire, in the best case scenario, before 10 years.
We'll use this period to learn useful skills, continue investing, and decide where we would like to retire.

France is a country we know, there is some beautiful places here, and medical system and social security in general are well developped. In other countries, health would be much expensive.
On the other hand, France is a declining country, with more and more social, security, and financial issues. Property right, in particular, tends to be less and less respected, and investors are widely despised. Not only taxes never stop to climb, but the possibility of spoliations isn't unreal here.
In the end, not a very ERE minded country.

Amongst others we consider going to the U.S potentially, but we're not there yet!

Thank you for being here folks.

[Alphaville]

welcome to the forum

Amongst others we consider going to the U.S potentially, but we're not there yet!

and a serious question because i really don’t know: what about nearby places for you, like monaco, luxembourg, etc?

[Hristo Botev]

Welcome to the forum!

If you'll permit me, I'm going to do a little cut and paste job with the quote below, resulting in a statement that is at least as true as your original statement:

On the other hand, [the U.S.] is a declining country, with more and more social, security, and financial issues. Property right, in particular, tends to be less and less respected, and investors are widely despised. Not only taxes never stop to climb, but the possibility of spoliations isn't unreal here.
In the end, not a very ERE minded country.

[wolf]

Welcome starman.

[FrugalPatat]

Nice to see a frenchman on this forum. I'm wondering if there are any french sites that you frequent that are ERE-related (forums, investing sites,...)?

[Jean]

Welcome!
What about switzerland or eastern Europe as possible escapes from France?

[Starman]

@Alphaville: is considering the US so surprising? About nearby places, some are probably great: for example, Germany doesn't face the same problems without being too expensive like Switzerland. But I still hope to live somewhere nice in France, at least for a while. We're still very early on that topic.

@Hristo Botev : haha, you killed me. Recent events in the US are a bit scary indeed. If we seriously consider to go there, we'll carefully select the state for sure.

@wolf: thank you very much

@FrugalPatat: FIRE is not very spread in France. ERE even less
That said, I heard about ERE on the best french investment forum, devenir-rentier.fr. Not ERE focused but the forum founder retired early, too. He publishes his portfolio and gives some good insights! Very good quality members, like here, but not especially frugal oriented.

@Jean: we were attracted by Anglo-Saxon countries because of their liberal philosophy, in which we recognize ourselves more. I also like their cultural pragmatism. But you're right, eastern Europe is attractive, as a new member recently pointed out about Romania. Switzerland is just too expensive

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville: is considering the US so surprising?

yes. health care here is a royal mess and our handling of the epidemic is proof of it. and the politics of 50 different states are... incomprehensible.

if you were coming here to work to a specific place with an employer-provided health insurance plan plus the assets to back up a strategic retreat if things didn’t work out, it would be one thing. but coming here to retire seems a bit risky to me. notmsire what health insurance you’d be eligible for nor what kind of care could you afford without it.

another country to consider: new zealand? especially of you have money to invest.

[Loner]

Welcome Starman.

Have you considered Canada, and specifically Québec and Montréal? Québec likes French immigrants, and I believe it's somewhat easy for French people to immigrate here. It's also relatively cheap, and the typical Quebec character is somewhat at halfway between that of Americans and French people.

Here's a blog of a couple here. (FrugalPatata might also be interested.) I read only one post a way back. It seemed like they were more like MMM than ERE, but it might worth having a look: http://www.jeuneretraite.ca/

[Starman]

Thank you for your insights!
I note that none of you agreed with the US idea, and that you all proposed alternatives! That's a strong sign that I should carefully (re)consider this idea. Message received! (And thanks for the explanations Alphaville!).
New Zealand is superb indeed, and Canada very tempting too (you sell it very well Loner!).

I think that a life plan, especially if it's ERE focused, should nowadays take into account a number of variables that could impact the retirement in the 50 next years or so. Amongst them are large scale issues like climate change and (the resulting) geopolitics, which complicates the choice of the retirement location. The future being blurry, even if outlines can be glimpsed, one should at least be open to the possibility to move on.

[Frita]

yes. health care here is a royal mess...if you were coming here to work to a specific place with an employer-provided health insurance plan plus the assets to back up a strategic retreat if things didn’t work out, it would be one thing. but coming here to retire seems a bit risky to me. notmsire what health insurance you’d be eligible for nor what kind of care could you afford without it.

Just to dovetail on @Alphaville’s comments, the state of things is ever changing. Perhaps insurance costs don’t seem too bad and then explode. This happened in our state. The ACA has been a disaster here. We now have one insurance carrier choice. Insurance premiums are so high that employers will not consider older applicants and prefer single, childless hires. Every year or three these people are rotated out with more of the same newbies. Part-time work with no benefits is also popular. There was no Medicaid expansion either, so many people don’t qualify for anything. Providers have increased the fees for services so the cost of being self-insured has steadily increased too. I think that our state foreshadows what is to come in other states in a matter of time without intervention. I would not recommend this Russian roulette-style health insurance business “healthcare” on anyone.

[Starman]

Thanks for your interesting input Frita!
I realize that I misunderstood this country in an idealized way. You were helpful

[Frita]

You’re welcome, Starman. As an aging idealist, I get the draw.

[stoneage]

France is a country we know, there is some beautiful places here, and medical system and social security in general are well developped. In other countries, health would be much expensive.
On the other hand, France is a declining country, with more and more social, security, and financial issues. Property right, in particular, tends to be less and less respected, and investors are widely despised. Not only taxes never stop to climb, but the possibility of spoliations isn't unreal here.
In the end, not a very ERE minded country.

Northern Italy is my best guess for now, but I'm also looking into Eastern EU countries.
I'm looking for a "plan B" to fall back on if SHTF, because I think we share the same concern about our beloved country.
so Northern IT : Cheap food and accomodation, no safety issues, but declining demography. Already a shithole, but a much nicer one than Paris in 10 years...

[Crusader]

I can tell you about the two countries I know: Canada is indeed a good choice (free healthcare for all, although sometimes the quality is questionable), but Quebec is very cold, make sure you look up the average temperatures (might be a concern if you want to farm your own food). If you do want to farm your own food or live away from the city, I can also tell you about Serbia (where I am originally from) in Eastern Europe -> lots of very fertile land for cheap (as people are moving away from farming and rural areas into the city).

[Starman]

@Stoneage: haha, I didn't know the SHTF expression, even though I like the prepping movement (without being in myself).
Northern Italy is an idea to be considered indeed! I love the mountains very much by the way.
I also think about eastern EU countries since several days! A friend of mine visited several of them and was shocked of their overal good condition. Cleanliness especially. What could we have been!

We were such a powerful and glorious country back in the days, embodying such ideals of excellence, valuing intelligence and competence above everything else. The romantic movement was very good too, I like it above all else. We have such a scientific, philosophic, literary heritage. We once represented the will to elevate the whole humanity for the better, in all domains.
It's all gone now! I have tears inside.

@Crusader: thanks for this interesting insight! You're right about Quebec. Eastern europe could be a good option indeed! I will keep an eye on how things evolve and take my decision when the future will be clearer.

[stoneage]

France may very well come back...but it would require quite a political shift : sovereignty is pretty much gone, and the European dream is turning into a nightmare. Main political forces think this is fine.

It isn't.

[amandastone]

Hello there, France! A very nice place for early retirement, haha
Welcome!

[UK-with-kids]

Bienvenue chez nous.

Looking forward to a French perspective on ERE.

Maybe you can retire to Indo-Chine.

[JollyScot]

My wife an I lived in France for a couple of years. We really liked the country.

However navigating you taxes was sufficiently brutal that we decided to head back to UK. I was a square in a system of circles. Went to the tax offices withy various earning and even they weren't entirely sure what I should do.

There are some very nice places in the country though. Not as dense in UK. Some nice bit if land in the countryside. We weren't quite financially independent enough for that to work how we wanted though.