{"id":251,"date":"2015-02-06T15:42:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nikkimcarthur.com\/?p=251"},"modified":"2015-02-06T15:42:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:42:04","slug":"10-tips-id-give-myself-before-moving-to-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/10-tips-id-give-myself-before-moving-to-france\/","title":{"rendered":"10 TIPS I\u2019D GIVE MYSELF BEFORE MOVING TO FRANCE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"10<\/a>A little over ten years ago, we were busy preparing for our big move. We were full of anticipation and raring to go.\u00a0 We had battled our way through huge obstacles in selling our property in the UK and it felt we would never achieve our goal of moving to France.\u00a0 Despite the difficulties though, we got there in the end.<\/p>\n

Life is often strange (well ours seems to be anyway).\u00a0 Maybe the difficulties we encountered were preparing us for what was ahead. If we couldn\u2019t get through those trials, then there was not a hope that we could cope with the struggles we were to face after moving to France. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love my life (on the whole) and have no real regrets (well maybe a few), but I would definitely have done things differently had I known then what I know now.<\/p>\n

So, if I could go back in time to ten years ago and talk to my 37 year old self, what would I tell her?\u00a0 Here\u2019s a few things that spring to mind:<\/p>\n

Tip 1 Don’t waste time<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stop wasting time reading books about the amusing experiences of wealthy retirees living in France \u2013 it\u2019s nothing like life bringing up\u00a0a family and trying to earn a living.<\/p>\n

Tip 2 Improve your French<\/strong><\/p>\n

Concentrate on improving your French before you move as you\u2019ll have precious little time to do it when you\u2019re there. \u00a0Not speaking French very well is a MASSIVE disadvantage and you WON’T just pick it up as you go along. \u00a0I personally blame my French teacher Mr Walker for my aversion to French!<\/p>\n

Tip 3\u00a0Sort out your Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Be prepared to be telephone-less for at least the first three months and make sure you get a French mobile or you\u2019ll run up a horrendous bill with your English one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 4 Be\u00a0Warned\u00a0– it gets COLD<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might be moving to the South of France, but budget for insulating and heating (and replacing broken windows) as it\u2019s blooming freezing in the winter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 5 Don’t rush to\u00a0have all things French<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keep your UK driving licence as long as possible as the rigmoral of changing to a French one just isn’t worth the hassle and make sure you renew it before the photocard runs out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 6 Prepare to be Poor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect to make your fortune in France, social charges,\u00a0amongst other things, for the self-employed are far higher than the UK. \u00a0Although take heart, your life will be rich in other, more important ways.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 7 Use your Assets Wisely<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take on a business property lease as you already own the perfect place to run your business.<\/p>\n

Tip 8 Don’t try to Run before you can Crawl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keep your business as simple as possible and don\u2019t employ anyone if you can help it\u2013 the employment laws and costs of employing someone are counter-productive for small businesses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 9 Avoid Borrowing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t rely on banks to help finance your business or help you in any way. They are inflexible, unhelpful and full of unnecessarily complicated, restricting, backward regulations and they will find any excuse to rob you of your hard earned money.\u00a0 (Not that I\u2019m bitter or anything!).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tip 10 Hold your nose and Jump!<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know you\u2019re preparing yourself for the red tape and famous French bureaucracy, well brace yourself as it\u2019s infinitely worse than you could ever possibly imagine.<\/p>\n

Hmmmm, on second thoughts, forget all that younger me.\u00a0 Do yourself a favour and move to Spain… only joking…. I think<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little over ten years ago, we were busy preparing for our big move. We were full of anticipation and raring to go.\u00a0 We had battled our way through huge obstacles in selling our property…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amotherinfrance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}