In my last post, I announced our upcoming move from Limoux to Andalusia. To put it in perspective, I would like to elaborate a bit more on Limoux. It all goes back to 2014 when I did what possibly some women might dream of but never actually do.
While living in Brisbane, Australia, I took a few months’ sabbatical and headed by myself to southern France to find a house. We had created a list of criteria, and with those in mind, I explored a part of France that is now known as Occitanie.
I did indeed find a few houses that could be an option. At that stage my husband joined me, and we put down an offer on our current house in July 2014.
The house exchanged in October 2014, and I returned to France to pick up the keys and prepare the house as a rental. It needed a heating system, a ventilation system, and some other improvements. I had to connect utilities and internet, and I had to buy furniture, bedding, and kit out the kitchen. It took me five weeks to do it all. I even found our first tenants on the central square in Limoux.
A Rental Journey and a New Life Chapter
From 2014 until 2017, while in Australia, we rented out the house. We marketed it as a semi-long-term holiday rental, had 20 tenants, and received 19 five-star reviews on TripAdvisor. We are still in touch with some of the tenants! As a matter of fact, our Swedish neighbours are repeat tenants—and they bought the house next door.
In the meantime, we had decided to leave Australia after living there for 25 years, and we made the move in 2017. In fact, I went first, as my husband had to finish his contract. One daughter decided to move to Melbourne. The other came four months later, as she had to say goodbye in a lengthy way.
From 2017, our life has been a mix of living in Limoux, travelling, and doing house sits. Don’t think we are retired as we certainly are not. We picked up all kinds of work and in 2019 I landed my current online gig.
Finding Our Feet and Income in France
We learned that you encounter two types of expats when you move to a popular expat location: those who are retired with an overseas pension, and those who still need to create an income. We fell into the latter category and that takes creativity and a flexible approach. In the beginning, I did everything: cleaning, changeovers, gardening, painting, and photography.
The work is out there, but it may not be your ideal job from the start. The trick is to tell everybody and to check out the Facebook groups. I found enough, and then via via I found what I do now.
Life in France is good, but for some reason, France and Australia do not connect in every way. One of the flaws is that you can’t get your Australian pension in France. People have campaigned, written letters to important people but all without result. Just over the border in Spain, we can claim our Australian pension. In fact, in almost every Western European country, it’s possible—just not in France.
When It’s Time to Move On
So we knew that when the time comes, we would need to make a move……again. We love change, so it didn’t matter to us. We have come across some expats who didn’t realise this pension issue. Could be a bit of a problem!
Over time, we explored Spain. A house sit here and there, and many visits to my sister, who had a house near Rosas. During the last two years, the focus was more on research, and we spent six weeks around Valencia in 2024. This year we aimed for the Costa Blanca and explored that region during Spring for four months—only to find out that it was not for us.
Andalusia came on our radar, and the rest is history—and for other stories.
Stay tuned
Marijke
