Joined
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13 Posts
Hi folks,
My parents, my partner and I are looking forward to embarking on a joint venture to France, currently aiming for late 2015. My parents will be in their early 60's and we (OH and I) will be early 30's. We've been through all the personal/emotional/soul searching to decide if this is right for us and we're all happy that it's what we want. My parents have spent numerous holidays in France and OH and I worked, travelled and volunteered in France over a period of almost 2 years, so we're fairy confident that we know what we're letting ourselves in for, in terms of knowing about the country. :fingerscrossed:
We have spent many hours poring over the information on the internet, this forum (super useful!) and books from the library to help us on our way to being well informed when we come to make our decisions RE area, property, and what we will do with ourselves once we are there. Obviously that will be a huge learning curve for us all (probably a never ending one!).
I guess our biggest concern at this early stage is "what we'll do with ourselves when we get there" and it would be interesting to hear some thoughts from you guys, people who have been there, done that, got the T-shirt, so to speak. Our plan, like soooo many others (!), is based around hospitality and tourism (ok, a gite... there, I said it!) alongside a smallholding set-up which we plan will generate a small amount of side income and also assist with our semi self-sufficient lifestyle.
Now, all the reading we've been doing around this has brought us firmly down to earth and we're completely aware that we won't be millionaires from this kind of venture (we don't really want to be!). What we would like to know though, is are we actually dreaming or can our vision become a reality??
So, here's a few facts that we hope are on our side. My dad is an incredibly practical, handy and resourceful man and is planning on becoming grounds/handy/maintenance man of our new property (and passing on his skills to my OH, who currently hasn't a clue about any of that stuff!). OH and I are not afraid of hard work, have experience of working in hospitality in France, and also of working on a smallholding, and we have a list of ideas for USP's that will set us apart from potential competitors. We have worked together at incredibly close quarters in stressful environments and we haven't murdered each other yet :rip:, so we know we can work together during tough times. The main thing that I think is on our side is finances... we are lucky enough to be in the situation where my parents will be able to purchase a property outright and so none of us will have any mortgage payments to worry about whilst we are getting ourselves up and running. We are also in the process of putting together our business plan to help us work out what we will need to run the first year or so, and over the next 18 months we will be working to ensure that our bank accounts will be able to handle this without even having a single customer. This has been our dream for a number of years so have been saving hard already!!
So, congratulations to anyone who has made it through my ramblings thus far! I promise that my future posts will be more concise! If anyone is happy to pass comment our our plan then I'm happy to hear pointers, tips, hometruths, similar experiences, etc.... I'm going through phases of thinking we're completely mad and so some encouragement would be quite nice too!
In the future I'm sure we'll have a ton of questions with regards to business structures, tax systems, social security etc., but I've got a stack reading material ready and waiting for me before I bombard this forum!
Anyway, thanks for your time (just scrolled back up through my post and it REALLY IS LONG!!
)
Best wishes,
Nina
My parents, my partner and I are looking forward to embarking on a joint venture to France, currently aiming for late 2015. My parents will be in their early 60's and we (OH and I) will be early 30's. We've been through all the personal/emotional/soul searching to decide if this is right for us and we're all happy that it's what we want. My parents have spent numerous holidays in France and OH and I worked, travelled and volunteered in France over a period of almost 2 years, so we're fairy confident that we know what we're letting ourselves in for, in terms of knowing about the country. :fingerscrossed:
We have spent many hours poring over the information on the internet, this forum (super useful!) and books from the library to help us on our way to being well informed when we come to make our decisions RE area, property, and what we will do with ourselves once we are there. Obviously that will be a huge learning curve for us all (probably a never ending one!).
I guess our biggest concern at this early stage is "what we'll do with ourselves when we get there" and it would be interesting to hear some thoughts from you guys, people who have been there, done that, got the T-shirt, so to speak. Our plan, like soooo many others (!), is based around hospitality and tourism (ok, a gite... there, I said it!) alongside a smallholding set-up which we plan will generate a small amount of side income and also assist with our semi self-sufficient lifestyle.
Now, all the reading we've been doing around this has brought us firmly down to earth and we're completely aware that we won't be millionaires from this kind of venture (we don't really want to be!). What we would like to know though, is are we actually dreaming or can our vision become a reality??
So, here's a few facts that we hope are on our side. My dad is an incredibly practical, handy and resourceful man and is planning on becoming grounds/handy/maintenance man of our new property (and passing on his skills to my OH, who currently hasn't a clue about any of that stuff!). OH and I are not afraid of hard work, have experience of working in hospitality in France, and also of working on a smallholding, and we have a list of ideas for USP's that will set us apart from potential competitors. We have worked together at incredibly close quarters in stressful environments and we haven't murdered each other yet :rip:, so we know we can work together during tough times. The main thing that I think is on our side is finances... we are lucky enough to be in the situation where my parents will be able to purchase a property outright and so none of us will have any mortgage payments to worry about whilst we are getting ourselves up and running. We are also in the process of putting together our business plan to help us work out what we will need to run the first year or so, and over the next 18 months we will be working to ensure that our bank accounts will be able to handle this without even having a single customer. This has been our dream for a number of years so have been saving hard already!!
So, congratulations to anyone who has made it through my ramblings thus far! I promise that my future posts will be more concise! If anyone is happy to pass comment our our plan then I'm happy to hear pointers, tips, hometruths, similar experiences, etc.... I'm going through phases of thinking we're completely mad and so some encouragement would be quite nice too!
In the future I'm sure we'll have a ton of questions with regards to business structures, tax systems, social security etc., but I've got a stack reading material ready and waiting for me before I bombard this forum!
Anyway, thanks for your time (just scrolled back up through my post and it REALLY IS LONG!!
Best wishes,
Nina