Thinking about leaving the UK? Here's how (and why) we made the move to Spain…

It’s not without its complications but leaving the UK for our small village home in Eastern Andalucia and our old motorhome has been incredible. Both places, in almost equal measure, are our happy places.

Por supuesto que si!

We often get asked what made us leave our jobs and the UK and set off in our old motorhome. What made us buy in a small village in Spain? How do we make it work?

Maybe you’re thinking about doing something similar so telling our story may resonate and we’re happy for you to reach out. We’re now also doing a series of blogs on what is actually involved in making the ‘move to Spain’ so check back here for those!

So, it feels helpful to start with what we’re not. 

We’re not wealthy. 

We’re certainly not retired (and we can’t be).

We do not have huge savings in our bank accounts at all. So, we need an income to make this work. 

Why did we want to make this move?

• A mutual desire for real change (i.e. exploring beyond the UK, we’d already moved cities)

• A strong desire to be immersed in another culture and learn another language properly

• A shared love of travel

• A fear of leaving it too late to do the above.

What really pushed us to make the move?

• The need for a career change for Eppie. Hospitality, even in great pubs/restaurants, is tough long term and we realised that we couldn’t afford the UK with a significant pay cut for her to start building something new.

• For us, it was all starting to feel a bit insular. Like we’d stayed still too long.

What made it possible for us?

• Niamh has an EU passport and we’re married so this meant that we could move to and stay in the EU indefinitely (but we still needed to go through the residencia process - more on that coming very soon)

• Some savings and some help from family meant we could buy a simple village home cheaply (for not much more than a deposit on a house in Britain).

• Niamh was offered a sabbatical from work which meant that there was a safety net of an income to return to if things didn’t work out in a couple of years time.

• We don’t have caring responsibilities. We don’t have children (other than our fur baby) and we’re lucky to be able to visit our parents in the UK regularly and NZ (far less often). However, plenty of people move their children and their elderly parents over here with them (but that would depend on healthcare and your particular circumstances, of course).

What are we doing to make it work for us, so far?

• We’ve worked hard to build on our skills and experience (i.e. to train/upskill on the digital elements) to ensure we can build a sustainable income here. 

• We’ve made sacrifices. To be honest, neither of us need the finer things in life (other than good food but that doesn’t have to come at a cost) but the reality is that we’ve had a very limited income so we’ve had to:

  • cut spending

  • cancel holidays (we even lost a free AMEX/BA flight)

  • miss friends events

  • say no to things when people come to visit (as their income allows meals out etc but ours doesn’t, yet)

  • budget carefully both at home and when on the road

  • keep our nerves in check (moving to a project-driven income can be terrifying)!

We are definitely not complaining. Far from it. These things must come at a cost (at least initially) and, despite things being a lot cheaper here in Spain (there’s a post coming on this so keep an eye out), we probably should have left with more savings than we did. Ain’t hindsight a wonderful thing? Frankly, it’s definitely also about planning - we should have done more!

Has it all been plain sailing? Nope. But we didn’t expect it to be. I mean, that’s the idea of real change, right? 

Also, it was always something of a leap of faith. Life can be short.

But, for us, we realised that we needed to make this move to get what we both wanted and needed. So we put the plan in motion and we have each others back when we wobble (which is still happening.)

So, here we are. For a while, at least. We’re very much still on the journey but, do we regret any of it? 

Hell no. Not for a second.

P.S. If you’re thinking about doing the same, there’s several options for how you could make it work here. Also, we're going to be posting about the cost of living here in Spain, matriculating (registering) your vehicle (a motorhome, for us), becoming a resident and getting a drivers licence very soon so subscribe or check back for those!