Hello from France !

[Rossox]

Hi everyone ! First, sorry for my non fluent English...

So, i'm a young man, i am 26yo. I'm living in the French Alps, in Annecy (a beautiful city, but so expensive!)

I just bought a small flat at 90K€ (376.7 sq ft) at 30mn by car from my job, and took a mortgage in 25 years, so apprixomatively 350€/month. (It's not exensive here, some flats like mine are at 190K€ in the city town..) I will go to work by car and bike. (7 miles by car and 11 miles by bike).

I'm a fruit and vegetable manager in an organic shop !

I have 40K€ in some index fund's, and want to continue to grow this amount. I don't want to stop working, but i want to work only 20H/24H a week in afew years... so if i want to keep the same salary than now, i have to invest ! I'd like to invest approx 150K€/200K€ if i want to cut my work time to 35H/week to 24H.

I have 10K€ in cash, my emergency fund.

I'm here to share with everyone who wants some tips and how we could be frugal in France

I don't want to stay in this city for a long, cause in other region in France you can have a house with what i pay for my flat.. (and so a garden to grow your own food, and to be autonom with energy thanks to solar panel etc..)

My salary is 1330€/month, and sometimes more when we have a good year about income and good profits With bonus my salary is approximatively about 1500/1600€/month.

Hope we will have good discussions !

[Solvent]

Bonjour! Jusque récemment j'habitais en Genève, près d'Annecy. Je visitais votre ville seulement deux fois.

Annecy is gorgeous, if I had a car I probably would have visited more often but the coach from Geneva is not so convenient.

I think that region of France is really nice, and it is definitely not expensive. I find myself wondering if someday I could live for an extended period somewhere in the area. I doubt I would retire there because it's so far from my family, but a long stay would be so nice. I visited Chambéry, which is also very nice, and I think probably cheaper than Annecy. I have not been to Aix-les-Bains, but I am curious if that would be a nice spot to live, because it's right on a lake, and very close to both Lyon and Geneva for any big-city needs, or if you want to take a flight somewhere. Weekend trips to Turin are probably even possible, but I don't know how much petrol that might take if you need to drive through the mountains...

I'll be interested in hearing some more about ERE lifestyles in France, outside of the big cities.

[Rossox]

Hello Yes, Annecy is beautiful ! But i'm not agree with you, it's one of the most expensive city in France ! (You say it's not expensive but it was maybe because you worked in Geneva...and so you had the swiss salary). When you work in France and you have to live in Annecy, trust me it's expensive !

Yes, Chambery it's cheaper than Annecy, and Aix les bains is approximatively in the same price than Annecy for the cost of living.
For the moment i'm living in a city, but maybe in a few years i will move for an other region and a house in campaign..

[Solvent]

I see where I caused confusion. I did not mean to imply that Annecy is cheap! It's beautiful, very touristy, and probably somewhat constrained by geography - not a cheap city.

But I did think that more broadly, the Savoie region is fairly cheap. I guess that it's true, when I was visiting I had a Swiss frame of reference. Interesting to hear that Aix-les-Bains is comparable to Annecy in price.

Which region of France do you think is more appropriate for ERE-minded people?

[Rossox]

Oh ok, yes some city in Haute-Savoie and Savoie are cheap, but infortunately not mine...

For ERE i think "La Creuse" is a very good department, you can have a house for 30-40K€ with a big garden...but there is no job, it's very very poor for job finding... it's a disaster department. Personnally i want to go in "Bretagne", a department near the Atlantic Ocean. It's just a little bit more expensive than La Creuse but you have the Ocean, and you're not lost in the middle of the France !

Ps: for the moment i'm living at my mother flat (she rents it) cause my craftsman made a lot of shit in my flat.. he has to renovate everything but there is some things i have to pass behind him cause he did shit.. and yet i paid him 33K€ for the renovation..!

[wolf]

Welcome Rossox! From the pictures Annecy looks really beautiful. Great surroundings. Wish you the best on your way toward ERE within a few years. You are definately on the right place to learn a lot from many experienced ERE'red people.

[Rossox]

Cheer's for the welcoming guys !

[Seppia]

bienvenu mec, et tres bonne chance dans ton aventure ERE!
DW and I love France, we lived in Paris and beautiful Nice for a total of 7 years, plus I studied in Lyon and she studied in Montpellier for a year.
I agree Bretagne would be a great place to ERE, maybe a bit isolated though. I love to be not too far from major hubs, so I would also recommend some not-so-turisty place not far from Nice (people don't know this but Nice airport is France's second largest), maybe Menton?
Welcome

[Rossox]

Well thank you The fact is i don't like big cities... and i don't like place where there is too muche people.. So the region Bretagne is good for me i think..

[RealPerson]

Bretagne is great for low population density and fantastic food, especially seafood. Les grandes tables de Bretagne sont magnifiques! I took a look and saw that the TGV lines extend to Bretagne. You could be in Paris in no time and fly out of CDG very easily.