My one and only concern that I keep coming back to over and over again is earning money. Yes, we will have some money saved to start us off but it wont last long considering we will be renovating a house and having to buy everything we need for our new life.
Currently I don’t work and, as we want to be as self sufficient as possible when we move, I will need to be at home as much as possible. I also don’t want to do what everyone else seems to do ..... teach English online.
Matt manages a concrete batching plant. He is a hand on type guy so gardening and building type jobs would do him. He has experience with scaffolding which I understand might be in demand over there so buying a tower to bring over might be an option. Obviously his knowledge of concrete might be useful too. His company does own 3 plants in Bulgaria but they are not in areas we want to live and I guess they will be fully staffed with Bulgarian staff. Maybe we could do some type of partnership working with them.
I don’t like the uncertainty of this part of the move. I know we always have the option of returning home for the winter and earn money back in the UK to last the rest of the year in Bulgaria. I know we can always return to the UK if we fail. I just wish I had some definite answers! I know, I know ..... I just have to go with the flow on this!
Anyway I will be doing some courses to gain some new skills. It will have to be online courses as we are no where near any colleges! What courses I choose remains to be seen. I keep changing my mind!! I have a HNC in Housing Studies ...... that’s not going to be much use to me over there!! I know how to be a housing officer, an estate / letting agent, a housing support worker and an area manager in all those areas. I can’t see that experience being any use! Yes, I guess I could set up an estate agency, but is it really needed? And would it actually make any money?! It’s not really a country of high sales or profit. Maybe a holiday let management company. But we don’t really want to live near the coast and that’s where the tourist money is. And do I even want my own company?! I don’t think I do. I just want to earn enough to pay the bills.
Sigh.
I just need to win the lottery so that money isn’t an issue!
I’m off to ponder some more.
I may be some time.
And I doubt I will be any closer to an answer!
I suggested that you should buy a place not too far from Sofia so that you can go back to the UK for a few months, if you desperately need to earn some cash. Another advantage of being reasonably close to the capital is that it makes things easier when you have visitors coming from the UK.
ReplyDeleteIn my blog, www.bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot.com, I have a couple of posts all about the pros and cons of buying property in Bulgaria. Yes, VT is nice, but it is about 300km from Sofia. Not exactly round the corner.
My wife and I are going to retire in June, so we will receive a pension and we have some savings. Earning money online is not so easy. Claire Ruston, aka Auntie Bulgaria, has her online proof-reading and editing business. If you have a background in education, then maybe you could mark exam papers online.
Please stay in touch. Perhaps I may be able to help you. Anyway, you can contact me through my blog or else e-mail me at simon_hill81@hotmail.com
We are still in China at the moment and we will be back in Bulgaria at the end of June.
Hi Simon. Thanks for the message. I understand your reasons for suggestion being near Sofia but we have already researched and decided that its not for us. We live in remote Devon, my daughter lives 7 miles from us yet it takes us 45 minutes to drive there and our nearest large supermarket is a 45 minute drive in the other direction! 300km is of no concern to us; we do close to that to visit our eldest daughter.
ReplyDeleteWe are in contact with a few people already living in the areas we are looking at and they have given us some ideas of what paid work we can find in the area. Over the past few weeks I have joined up to a few online sites and have earnt a very small amount; I suspect given more time to work on it I could increase that by a fair amount.
I suspect I am always going to be concerned about earning money even once we are over there and earning. I think purchasing the house will help a little, at least then I will know the area we will be living so can working on networking. Buying a second property on the coast is an option so we can rent it out but I want to try to avoid that if possible. So many options, so little space left in my head!!
Well, you can get some amazing bargains away from Sofia, especially if you want to buy quite a lot of land as well. We love VT: it is a beautiful city, with gorgeous architecture, surrounded by some lovely countryside.
DeleteI do not know anything about letting out property in BG. As house prices are so low, rents are also low.
We bought both of our properties through Bulgarian Properties (what an original name!) They have a lot of properties on their books and some of them really ought to be demolished. Some of the BP people were really thorough and helpful; some were not.
LOL to the comment about the houses needing to be demolished .... we have seen sooooo many of those advertised! As much as we want a run down one, we do want external walls and a roof .... even if its not a water tight roof!
DeleteBulgarian properties do have a fair amount of properties don't they?! Its likely they will be our first port of call as they have quite a few with the amount of land we want. Although we are interested in a house we have found on FB via a private seller, it has the land we want, the location is good and the price is amazing..... however we wont be buying anything without seeing it first!!