Oooooo @Dave_Lawson’s company!
deVere Group - INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL ADVICE WHEREVER YOU ARE – 20 Jan 25
Brits buying property in Spain? 
A new tax could hit your wallet hard! 
Find out how this could affect you and your retirement home dreams.
(time to find out about devere
Just an FYI… not my company I just work through their French license with access to the deVere products.
Hundreds of posts into ‘Survive France’ - there are some remarkably detailed posts here.
Are you sure you guys aren’t Professionals?
@JoCo @George1 @KarenLot @JaneJones @larkswood12 @graham
Well done! chaps - anyway back to reading all of the posts here.
(it’s quite hard going though)
Wow @larkswood12 - lovely I can work in Spain and not lose S1!
“If you receive your UK State Pension as well as a pension from an EU member state, but are now living in a different EU state, the country to which you paid contributions toward your pension for the longest period becomes responsible for your healthcare.”
Have applied for jobs at the Unis in Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona (all weekly commutable from Perpignan) - but thought I’d have to shelf because of loss of S1.
The difference between how one thinks how money should be run and how it actually works is striking.
I can’t believe the hassle that @George1 - you’ve described getting a simple NT tax code
… … and how somebody of your financial skill @JaneJones is finding it hard to get your S1 acknowledged vs your ‘small’ Fonds en Euro Assurance vie towards paying the correct level of Social Charges.
-*-
It’s a little sad that it takes such effort to do all of this.
Personally - I can’t see why @George1 can’t pay his 25% lump sum back and take the 6.75% rate after explaining that it was just a mistake.
Or how taking £1 to get a decent tax code from a pension - could ever jeopardise the 6.75% rate … … all of these ideas contravene sense.
To follow rules even when they don’t make sense? It’s really easy to make a mistake - particularly when you’re like most of us and have no idea about money.
I’ve only just found out in the last couple of years that we can retire at 55 - and not 67.
You can retire if your job contract allows it - but you won’t get your state pension until 67
“The government will shortly be considering whether to bring forward the following rise to age 68, which is currently scheduled for 2044”
More specifically, age 55 is the point at which you are allowed to start drawing money from a UK personal pension fund, it has nothing to do with retirement as such, unless you are rolling in spondoolicks to such an extent that you can afford to stop working at 55. 
The ageing species.
My wife was adopted from Korea (into France).
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/south-korea-s-declining-demographics-a-national-security-issue
This ^^^ idea is REALLY important!
Ahhh - if you can live without money (or close to) - and that’ll be the subject of my next thread here in a few weeks time when I’ve been through the others and @cat’s podcasts … …
Notable mention to the mighty @captainendeavour and @Wozza
Whether Leclerc is cheaper than Lidl?
The importance of fasting regularly.
Bodyweight exercises rather than ‘Basic Fit’.
Showering using cold (in the garden) instead of heated water and capturing it.
The importance of a well stocked jardin potager, that’s productive year round.
Many, many more to follow.
@George1 - a previous dechetterie would give us compost for garden waste.
Don’t know if this is a general system elsewhere (other than Montbrison, Loire).
Ahhh - your wife is European too, mine loved Luxembourg, and I was taken by their free trams.
~btw~ we’re spoilt for choice for bike mechanics here in the University towns - do you do all of the work on your bike yourself?
The challenge we’ve set ourselves is whether we can live for next to no money.
I’m guessing there’s no way of getting out of an electricity standing charge, taxe fonciere and buildings insurance. Personally - I detest the standing charge.
Martin Lewis: ‘There is one big hole in what’s currently proposed’ This is progress. Standing charges are by far the most complained-about part of an energy bill.
It’s a ‘poll tax’?
I’m really not understanding whey you don’t join one of the existing self sufficient communities that are here in France. Make much more sense when families group together, and you won’t have to start from scratch. I visited a great one in the Lot, and they are restoring a cluster of interesting buildings. They have a café (overpriced) on site plus sale of surplus veg to be able to buy the few things they need.
One of our collaborators is getting people ready for the cure for HD and a lot more!
" Exciting progress in Huntington’s disease (HD) & epigenetic aging: could 2025 be a breakthrough year?"
(Steve knows it will be)
He’s on the paper with 3 of the people that pay my salary.
Yes - the goal is to be affiliated with but not physically close to self-sufficient communities.
My wife likes silence and if the truth were known, so do I.
Can’t be physically close to other people.
This is the one we’re in, in Cambridge in the DT.
That’s Paul’s head in the image.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/outdoors/4568109/The-green-gym-workout.html
Jesus effing Christ.
You do make me laugh a bit. And weep a bit as rehashing concepts of the 70s and 80s. So much excitement about living alternative lives, and I remember visiting Machynlleth in the late 70s anf being impressed by their vision. Which they have realised in the main.
I started a “green gym” in Hoxton in the 80s!
‘The Good Life’ without piggies and chickens, but an Internet connection in Southern France courtesy of the Boogie boys! Capn @captainendeavour
The Meta Orion glasses (mentioned in this thread and a true game changer) should be able to help us with plant recognition for foraging when out!
The old girl located wild garlic yesterday.
Calm down gnocchi old chap! SF’s an enclave of England you know.
Into the bin with you.
Really!
Not exactly hard if you have a nose. But do be careful about relying on an apprather than actual knowledge.
Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) is most often confused with wild garlic (Allium ursinum), and more rarely with many-flowered garlic (Allium polyanthum). All three plants grow in spring in the same undergrowth. The flowers of autumn crocus, which are very different from those of wild garlic or leek, only appear in autumn (after wild and many-flowered garlic), making it easier to confuse the leaves of these three plants when they are picked in spring before any of them have flowered.
Between 2020 and 2022, 28 cases of confusion between autumn crocus and wild garlic or many-flowered garlic were registered with the Poison Control Centres. The poisonings occurred between March and May, with a peak in April, mainly in the Grand Est and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions. There were two deaths.
Half of the people poisoned had used the leaves to make a pesto sauce. The other half had eaten them in salads, pan-fried them or used them in a quiche.
Among those poisoned, half showed pronounced or prolonged symptoms (persistent diarrhoea or vomiting) and four people showed severe, life-threatening symptoms including acute digestive, liver and haematological disorders.
Wasn’t exactly alternative.
Watch out you don’t confuse it with lily of the valley as well, which is toxic even in small quantities, though not as toxic as those @JaneJones mentioned.
I’ll be off, then 
Much as I appreciate being tagged here, and am not sure my meagre contributions deserve mention, I think the forum is outstanding. I think the organisers, CAT in particular, deserve as much support as possible. While I am sure one off contributions are very welcome (capital fund) I think cashflow is critical to any organisation. Hence I decided to make a minimal monthly payment despite the added transactional fee. Please subscribe and support us! - #4 by JoCo