Stage1:
Selling our house in Poole - Completed
Purchasing the house in France - Completed
finding somewhere to rent in the UK - Completed
Stage 2:
saving up so that we can survive until the B&B can sustain us - Okay this may not happen given the new timeframe...
modernise the french house to create a home - Brought forward
network and establish a B&B 4 motorcyclists - Brought forward
Stage 3:
give up work in the UK - Handed my Notice in 5 March 07 - Leave 1 Sept 07
move lock stock barrel to france
enjoy our life riding and entertaining motorcyclists.
9 Mar 2007
Full Steam Ahead!
Well we have upped the pace a little, after returning from France we had a couple of eye openers on how life should be lived and not wasted...
One of my colleagues asked for time off as his wife had just been diagnosed with a "C" lump in her breast and they were going to operate to remove it and as many Lymph nodes as they could saying how lucky they had spotted it at this early stage, he was also worried about a lump in his testicles...
Wendy then had an Accident in her MX5 being rear ended she was okay a little shocked and bruised, but then a couple of days later she was admitted into Poole Hospital with symptoms not dissimilar to a "Heart Attack" which turned out to be Liver related and the Dr's had/have no idea what the cause was.
So I have handed my notice in at work (I am on a 6 month notice period) so we will now be moving lock stock and barrel over to France by 1st September.
One of my colleagues asked for time off as his wife had just been diagnosed with a "C" lump in her breast and they were going to operate to remove it and as many Lymph nodes as they could saying how lucky they had spotted it at this early stage, he was also worried about a lump in his testicles...
Wendy then had an Accident in her MX5 being rear ended she was okay a little shocked and bruised, but then a couple of days later she was admitted into Poole Hospital with symptoms not dissimilar to a "Heart Attack" which turned out to be Liver related and the Dr's had/have no idea what the cause was.
So I have handed my notice in at work (I am on a 6 month notice period) so we will now be moving lock stock and barrel over to France by 1st September.
We have now taken possession of the House
We went over to France on the 14th Feb and traveled down to Treignac on the 15th Feb where we met Catherine (the Imobilier rep) who walked us round the house and arranged for the owner to come up and show us where all the water and electric meters were and how to use the appliances such as the Oil Fired Central heating system...
On the 16th we opened a bank account, sorted out buildings and contents insurance and went along to the Notaire to sign for the keys and have the contracts explained and Whola after a busy day we were officially property owners in France...
On the 16th we opened a bank account, sorted out buildings and contents insurance and went along to the Notaire to sign for the keys and have the contracts explained and Whola after a busy day we were officially property owners in France...
11 Feb 2007
The beginning of the rest of our lives…
So we decided to escape the rat race and work for ourselves, well if you are going to slog your guts out it may as well be for your own pleasure rather than to make someone else rich.
But how do you get out of the Rat Race and live a good life? You need to be self sufficient and financially independent, right. We still had a big mortgage with 17 years left to go until we could call it all ours and paid for. We did have a good income and a good lifestyle but this depended on a well paid job and a healthy profit share bonus at the end of each year.
So armed with a calculator we added up what we were worth if we liquidated our assets and became cash rich. I am fortunate (through working) to be in receipt of a military pension which is index linked from my 55th anniversary so 55 seemed to be the optimum year to do it, but we wanted to go now.
We worked out that if we sold the house we could use any equity 90k to buy a property in France and then live on the pension aided by any savings to raise the living level until I was 55 ( that would be August 2013) - so we had a plan…
Since we had done some riding on France we had a good idea of where we would like to be located. Since we also wanted to spend what quality time we had riding our bikes we would need to be near some of the best biking roads we could find but also in an area which would afford us a 360 degree option of rides which would be different. Our choice was the Limousin. With the Med, and Spain to the South, Switzerland, Italy, and the Alps to the East, The Atlantic Coast to the West. North gets us the Grand Massif, Holland and of course the UK.
We were pretty lucky to find a house which met all of our criteria quite quick – second house hunting visit. It was on the market for 120,000 euros plus fees another 12,000 euros just over the budget but we made an offer of 110,000 euros and to our surprise it was accepted, we put our house on the market in October 06 and within 3 days we had accepted an offer for £5,000 more than we expected. We were commited.
Since we still have to save a bit of cash we decided we wouldn’t go over full time until I was 50 so we needed somewhere to rent in the meantime. Well you could have knocked us down with a feather when the buyer (a fellow Marine) offered to rent our house back to us until we go and for £100 less than we had been paying on the mortgage – RESULT!
SO we have a house in France which cost us £84,000 leaving us some money over for improvements a place to live in the UK whilst we save a little and a future to look forward to.
The Future is Bright…
But how do you get out of the Rat Race and live a good life? You need to be self sufficient and financially independent, right. We still had a big mortgage with 17 years left to go until we could call it all ours and paid for. We did have a good income and a good lifestyle but this depended on a well paid job and a healthy profit share bonus at the end of each year.
So armed with a calculator we added up what we were worth if we liquidated our assets and became cash rich. I am fortunate (through working) to be in receipt of a military pension which is index linked from my 55th anniversary so 55 seemed to be the optimum year to do it, but we wanted to go now.
We worked out that if we sold the house we could use any equity 90k to buy a property in France and then live on the pension aided by any savings to raise the living level until I was 55 ( that would be August 2013) - so we had a plan…
Since we had done some riding on France we had a good idea of where we would like to be located. Since we also wanted to spend what quality time we had riding our bikes we would need to be near some of the best biking roads we could find but also in an area which would afford us a 360 degree option of rides which would be different. Our choice was the Limousin. With the Med, and Spain to the South, Switzerland, Italy, and the Alps to the East, The Atlantic Coast to the West. North gets us the Grand Massif, Holland and of course the UK.
We were pretty lucky to find a house which met all of our criteria quite quick – second house hunting visit. It was on the market for 120,000 euros plus fees another 12,000 euros just over the budget but we made an offer of 110,000 euros and to our surprise it was accepted, we put our house on the market in October 06 and within 3 days we had accepted an offer for £5,000 more than we expected. We were commited.
Since we still have to save a bit of cash we decided we wouldn’t go over full time until I was 50 so we needed somewhere to rent in the meantime. Well you could have knocked us down with a feather when the buyer (a fellow Marine) offered to rent our house back to us until we go and for £100 less than we had been paying on the mortgage – RESULT!
SO we have a house in France which cost us £84,000 leaving us some money over for improvements a place to live in the UK whilst we save a little and a future to look forward to.
The Future is Bright…
8 Feb 2007
Our New House
We Sold our house within two days of putting it on the market This made us wonder if we had under priced the property but also we were very happy that we could sell quickly thus doing away with needing a mortgage to finance the French Property. We were also pretty fortunate that the buyer was looking for an investment and was happy to rent the house back to us for less than we were paying on he mortgage.
We quickly made an offer on our French house 10,000 euro's under the asking price and were very pleased to have it accepted, we were off to a good start. When it came to transferring funds to France to pay for the house we were also in luck as the exchange rate rose in our favour and actually saved us £2500 from our estimations.
So the date is set to pick up the keys. Friday 16th February, the ferry is booked for the 14th Feb (romantic crossing of course) as you can imagine Wendy is buzzing and I am reserving judgement until I have the keys in my hand...
Whilst we are over there we need to ensure we read the meters, arrange direct debits for the utility bills, and open a bank account.
So we will be saying at our house in France from the 16th Feb til 18th Feb when we dash back to Poole, which is going to be difficult as I suspect both of us will want to stay as there is much to do for phase 2.
Stage1:
- Selling our house in Poole
- Purchasing the house in France
- finding somewhere to rent in the UK
Stage 2:
- saving up so that we can survive until the B&B can sustain us
- modernise the french house to create a home
- network and establish a B&B 4 motorcyclists
Stage 3:
- give up work in the UK
- move lock stock barrel to france
- enjoy our life riding and entertaining motorcyclists.
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