JollyScot's Journey Starts

[chenda]

@dara - Barcelona is one of Spain's most expensive cities, and Manchester one of the UK's cheapest, so I would expect the COL difference to be much larger in many cases, depending on the comparables.

I'm assuming the 'European ISA' was referring to was this:

https://www.finance-spain.com/SpanishCo ... Bonds.html

It's really nothing like an ISA.

One more problem but that's not specific to Spain is the money one has saved in ISAs that are tax sheltered in the UK would be taxed in other countries I believe.

Yes that is my understanding too. But Spain is a great place so I wouldn't advocate tax-led decisions when choosing somewhere to live.

[JollyScot]

Knock yourself with writing here I don't have any great attachement as to what is in the journal. Go off on a tangent if you find it interesting/helps in some way.

As for the costs of UK vs Spain. I am not sure the major cities are actually cheaper. We were recently in Madrid for a few days as part of our trip to visit wifes family and it is very expensive now. An additional one is that the food in Spain, I think, is of a higher quality than the UK's so it might not be a like for like comparison there either.

We had a similar tax differential when we lived in France. The taxes due for a early retiree relative to what is done in the UK is significantly higher. This is mainly due to threshold difference, minimum dividend tax amounts and also lack on an ISA. Every country will have a different pro and con. UK with ISA's and low general costs once the main house is paid off means you can pretty much stay tax free after a few years. It is a very nice place to stay though. Some of the smaller towns in the south we liked. I also like Madrid, but wouldn't move life again for something like that.

Summer in UK and winter travelling is more likely outcome for us.

The Spanish passport for my wife would be to open up Europe to us if we were so inclined again. Our son would get a Spanish passport too and come 18 will need to decide then if he wants to keep it or the UK passport. I would need to give up the UK passport to get the Spanish passport so it is not much use to me.

As for some people letting you keep both, maybe, the visa, passport, government systems can very much vary depending on who you get looking at it. My wife has found this when we did the France paperwork, UK paperwork and now her Spanish paperwork.

[guitarplayer]

People on the forum are a varied crowd hence these sorts of tactics will inevitably vary and also there will often be no across the board consensus on these. I resort to following journals and trying to see how trajectories align. For example, with @JollyScot I know that we have some commonalities in terms of spouse's place of origin and that we re both UK based; also earlier (in this journal I think) spoke about the trickiness of getting Spanish passport and then needing to verbally renounce UK nationality (even though in practice, it would still be a valid nationality in the eyes of the world outside Spain). So the comment about dealing with Spain using South American passport with the view of DW hypothetically applying for an EU (Spanish) passport down the road was in this context.

But this is hypothetical as at the moment we are happily based in the UK. Though it is becoming more of a possibility as DW works for a major Spanish company and will move there for work for 1/4 to 1/3 of this year.

In relation to building FI in Spain, whilst doing it from scratch is maybe not the smartest (I did the same search for FIRE blogs based in Spain @dara and found none, though my Spanish is poor), moving to Spain when already comfortable with money can be an adventure, as others mentioned there is more to it than money alone.

Also, I am trying to use proportionate response regarding money - either by intelligent design or by natural endowment. This is another way of saying that I personally struggle to aim for being a high earning and also having a lot of savings We as a household thought are strong in low outgoings. And for this sort of lifestyle, Spain might be good.

Finally, the Spanish passport would be really a nice-to-have and an insurance for DW, since we as a household already hold one EU passport. But I imagine now if DW wants to apply for a random job in the EU, she would have to do some explaining along the lines of 'I have the right to work at your company based on the freedom of movement of family members of EU citizens' or something to this effect.

[JollyScot]

So if you have one passport then you can technically settle anywhere under EU rules. We did that in France. Different countries have varying degrees of annoying paperwork however.

Typically you need some kind of income (say renting your soon to be paid flat) or sufficient assets set aside. The levels are usually comparatively low too.

It is easier if both have an EU passport but not strictly necessary. If we were to do th move again, then think we would pick Portugal.

[guitarplayer]

Yes, and I always found if hilarious that anywhere is easier than one's country of origin (which you will be well aware of @JollyScot). For example, before brexit my wife had a status of a family member of an EU national in the UK and this now concludes with both her and I getting the UK citizenship next month after a fairly straightforward process. Basically sticking around for the number of years required, doing a language test and the life in the UK test and filling out an application form. This would have been more difficult had we lived in my country of origin and wife attempting to get that citizenship. My understanding is that for UK citizens' partners the process is more arduous, too.

[JollyScot]

Pretty much the UK system treats UK citizens with a foreign spouse like garbage. I think the total cost now for everything is up to 12k.

Based one the net migration numbers, which is what it is supposedly about. Spouses accounted for about 30,000 out of the 700,000 net migration figure. Or 60,000 out of the 1,300,000 that came to UK.

So not the issue. However it is a lost cause getting people to actually care. Citizens will happily destroy the family lives of people in their country to sound tough. When they have no idea of the actual reality of going through it is like. The experience has permanently soured my view of systems, democracy and the general trust that a society would do the right thing.

So we are clear I don’t think people should get given the level of free stuff they do. My view extends equally to people here as well as those who come from abroad. I now longer believe I am a “good” person by supporting it.

So take advantage and figure out the way to set yourselves up as best as possible. Many backups would be advisable if you are a multi citizen family. As winds can change and democracy will smoosh you under its feet because that’s what the box says to do.

[chenda]

International marriage is a beautiful thing which should be encouraged. Lets bring the world together in the spirit of peace and love.

[dara]

@chenda

The second benefit is called 'Proportional tax relief'. When you come to take withdrawals from your policy the authority in Spain will only tax the growth element of that withdrawal. For example - You invest £500,000. After some years it grows to £750,000 (two thirds original capital, one third growth). You then withdraw £100,000. Only one third of this taxable so only £33,333 subject to tax.

19% for the first EUR 6,000
21% for the following EUR 6,000 to EUR 50,000
23% for the following EUR 50,000 to EUR 200,000
27% for the following EUR 200,000 to EUR 300,000
28% for any amounts over EUR 300,000

Haha, that really has nothing to do with an ISA.

Yes that is my understanding too. But Spain is a great place so I wouldn't advocate tax-led decisions when choosing somewhere to live.

I'm not saying that should be the main driver but one should consider it still and most people don't because they don't have substantial savings. Especially if you are still in the accumulation stage, in a country that taxes your savings to death getting to FIRE is like playing the game on hard mode. The weather (except Madrid) and the food are great, I agree. It's way too liberal for my taste, so I wouldn't move their myself if I had kids though.

@guitarplayer @JollyScot
Better not bring up immigration paperwork, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat just thinking of that (slight exaggeration). It's one of the reasons we left my home country as basically my wife was not allowed to work there (not entirely true but they made it complicated enough not be worth pursuing it).

So if you have one passport then you can technically settle anywhere under EU rules. We did that in France. Different countries have varying degrees of annoying paperwork however.

Typically you need some kind of income (say renting your soon to be paid flat) or sufficient assets set aside. The levels are usually comparatively low too.

It is easier if both have an EU passport but not strictly necessary. If we were to do th move again, then think we would pick Portugal.

I believe you don't even strictly need an income as it would go against the right to freedom of movement but you need local health insurance and of course do all the paperwork.

[JollyScot]

It has been a while since our last update.

My wife acquired a Spanish passport through the decendency route. So if we ever wanted to head back to Europe we could. I would be the problem citizen this time round. We are not looking to at the moment.

It takes a lot of the worry over general visa paperwork away now. As we have already been through an EU route for staying and now know there are actually a lot of back up options for us just in case.

Our son now has a Mexican, Spanish and British citizenship under his belt. So in the future he will hopefully be able to make use of this with whatever he chooses to do.

We have been enjoying our new place and the very low overheads again. Our costs have increased a bit since the last update. Our sons childcare costs ended up being quite a bit higher as we moved him to one that is closer and within cycling distance. It is a lot fancier. We sway back and forth between leaving him there and taking him out. He is only there part time.

With everyone getting free early school childcare now it means there is a lot less of the non paid groups for socialising. So we feel sort of stuck paying to have some socialising at his age until the free hours kick in. Where we moved is quieter than where we were. I though there would be people out and about with their kids as a result, there is still a general dearth of kids out playing/going about. It is a little sad.

Since stopping work last August our net worth has increase by another 130k. Based on where it is invested, Pension, ISA, bullion, house (previous) all of that has been tax free. I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. Yes I saved a lot for over a decade to be in the position to get that gain, however I can see how it is unfair relative to earning by work.

That would be the same as having a pre tax earning of £260k, that is a very well paid job. Granted a lot of that gain has just been keeping up with inflation. I was not overly exposed to the tech bonanza so the real return is a little more modest than the 130k would suggest.

Life for us is still pretty good, my wife has switched jobs a little and now works for a charity and seems to be enjoying it. I have the bigger chunk of childcare duties as a result. I don’t mind doing it as we spend a reasonable amount of the day in one of the local forests when he is not actually at the nursery.

Beyond that I have started to build out a home NAS with movies and TV shows. I got fed up with all of the different streaming sites and all of the items I wanted to watch being in different places. Even rotating round the sites was not really working. DVDs and Blurays are now so cheap that you can pick them up on Ebay for pennies each.

Once that is complete I will be moving onto building a shed, been putting it off for ages.

[guitarplayer]

Good work with getting the EU passports in the household. Looks like you're sorted by many measures, an eye watering net worth increase indeed! Think best to just see it for what it is, this is the system we're in at the moment.

[JollyScot]

It has now been about 18 months since my last bout of work and the time seems to have flown by. I think part of that is a sort of chaos routine of working around our kid that happened. It is getting to the point where I would need to consider whether picking up small amount of work to keep CV "refreshed" is worth it or not. Beyond this point I am effectively closing the door on my field of work unless a former colleague directly asks me to help. This is what happened when I was in France.

I have been slowly adding in more structure to my day by enforcing habits on myself. I initial went big early where I did not miss any of the newly added items in the first 30 days (I was doing daft stuff like drinking a cup of green tea at 9pm followed by a kettle bell workout)

Once I got the initial habits down I began setting aside times in which I would do them. It has meant reorganising my schedule quite a lot.

I now get up at 4am and go to bed about 9pm. Whereas before it was very easy for me to stumble into just drifting to 1-2am of wasting time on the internet.

it is working out, but I only keep to the schedule when at home. If travelling a lot of the things I do get dropped.

My day Plan has been:-

Wake

Morning Routine

- Green Tea and Stretch
- Do 2 x 50 minute pomodoros on what I am working on
- Gym for 30-60 mins
- Organise sons breakfast and play for a couple of hours
- Take him to my parents or leave with wife if she is not at her work (he is now out of nursery)

gets me to 9-10 in the morning

Mid Morning Routine

- 2-3 hours worth of DIY
- Some Chores depending on how long I DIYed for

Gets me 12-13ish

Afternoon Routine

Get son after his nap and take to some kind of activity
- Swimming
- Park
- Soft Play
- Museum
If weather is bad we do something in the house, usually along the line of the following
- Art
- Building
- Number/Letters
Organise his tea and get him fed again. May or may not have a bath.

Evening Routine

This has less structure and will generally be getting son ready for bed at 7-8pm
- some more playing
- reading some books
- or a movie if everyone is knackered

Once he is asleep I do another (1-2) x 50 min pomodoros on my thing (depends when I start). This is generally a review of something I want to ponder on or that I am stuck on. I always found this useful in my maths degree days when I got stuck.

Obviously I am not 100% sticking to this, but doing my best to. I think the DIY part will go down when I have finished the items I want to do on the house and I will slot in another 2 pomodoros or something else. The only items I try to never skip are the wake time, the bed time and the initial 2 x 50 pomodoros.

Obviously my sons routine is there pretty much everyday, he makes sure that never gets missed though. There is a bit of planning to make sure we have something to do each day, but not too much. On family outing days the morning routine is still attempted everything else gets dropped to whatever works.

After my trial of a dumb phone I am back to a smart phone (the dumb phone broke). I have filled it with apps that specifically help with the schedule and sticking to a routine

- Clockwork tomato - for my pomodoros (those were the graphs when I was doing Japanese the first time)
- HabitKit - for keeping track of daily routine items
- Anki - for flashcards on whatever I am learning
- Easy Fast - To basically have a fasting timer in the main screen, eating in a 4 hour window, although a lot of times it ends up just being lunch.

My home screen now has no communication, or distraction apps on them. Just a constant reminder of the routine. The pomodoro timer, how many anki cards I should be studying (fine for now as I am doing Japanese again) then about 8 "Habit" trackers for things I am trying to do daily.

These habit check boxes are not as strict as the planned routine above. As I get better I gradually make them a little tougher though. For example it took me 2 months to get back to being able to study for the 50 min stints. I was only able to do 20 initially before getting distracted. Thankfully I have managed to reverse this decline.

I think I got a little lost with the unlimited free time but having a kid. The structure of the day crumbled and this strict plan is getting back to something more sensible. I was wary of cutting out too much time with my son as a result of trying to do things so that is why every afternoon we make sure to go and do something. I found that all day with him was getting me a little more stressed than I would have liked.