We are moving to France in Jan 09! Questions?

[Indysmom]

Hello Mamas,

My husband just received a job offer from an International Government Project in France, specifically in Cadarache (about 30 minutes from Aix-en-Provence). We would need to live in or close to Manosque, France since this is where the school for my son would be.

I have many questions and need some answers this week since he needs to accept or decline in 8 days. Any resources you can point me to would be helpful!

We are having difficulty figuring out if the salary offer is functional for us to live there, with him being a only provider. There is no way that my work could apply since I was a birth/postpartum Doula and I do not speak/write/read French at this point. Plus I have a 19 month old daughter to care for and a four year old son that would only be in school for short durations during the week days.

There are many factors to work through and our car is one of them, since we figured that it would take $160 dollars to fill our tank for our Toyota mini van. We will need an automobile since it will be rather isolated and public transit will not be prevalent like in Paris or Marseille.

Questions:
Average monthly cost for renting a house in the Aix-en-Provence area?
What are average leases for cars like in France?
Cost of living in general for that area?
What would a family of four (maybe five in one or two years) need to make so we are not living from pay check to pay check?

I'm sure I will have more questions, but for now my mind is blown to bits from this news!

Thanks for any help.

[ewe+lamb]

Goodness you don't have a lot of time to think about things. first of all i would advise you to look up sites such as www.orpi.fr, www.fnaim.fr maybe google immeubliere Aix-en-Provence, to see if you come up with something - I can try and find out more sites if necessary. Louer or Loyer = rent, most houses are based on the 'big' rooms so a 3 bedroomed house as we know it comprising of 3 bedrooms and a sitting room, would be known as a 4 piece.

Cost of living is expensive - it depends if you are high or low maintenance but i would suggest a salary of 3,000 euros would be minimum.

You could maybe find some work with english speaking mothers as a doula - I posted a link I'll try and find it again.

Have no idea about car lease but you'll definitely need one car and maybe something for your dh to run about in as well or a scooter/vespa bike thing.

Please ask any questions you need to and I'll see if I can help - good luck.

[Indysmom]

Originally Posted by ewe+lamb

Goodness you don't have a lot of time to think about things. first of all i would advise you to look up sites such as www.orpi.fr, www.fnaim.fr maybe google immeubliere Aix-en-Provence, to see if you come up with something - I can try and find out more sites if necessary. Louer or Loyer = rent, most houses are based on the 'big' rooms so a 3 bedroomed house as we know it comprising of 3 bedrooms and a sitting room, would be known as a 4 piece.

Cost of living is expensive - it depends if you are high or low maintenance but i would suggest a salary of 3,000 euros would be minimum.

You could maybe find some work with english speaking mothers as a doula - I posted a link I'll try and find it again.

Have no idea about car lease but you'll definitely need one car and maybe something for your dh to run about in as well or a scooter/vespa bike thing.

Please ask any questions you need to and I'll see if I can help - good luck.

Thanks for your reply and the links. I will have my husband check them out after work tonight.

The offer is for net 46000 euro.

That is basically less than he is making here in the states and we live low maintenance. I don’t want the situation of being so tied to our budget every month that we will not have any extra to do some traveling or saving.

I'm not sure we could do it here in the states for any less than he makes with student loans, rent, monthly bills, and food. At this point don't have extra for savings with his current salary.

Thanks!

[dani76]

I just saw this on new posts, how exciting!

[ewe+lamb]

Thanks, and I just wanted to add that when I said 3,000 I meant 3,000 per month min - hope that makes sense - that's just living etc - for us it's a fairly tight living with just under 3,000 per month but we're near Paris so I think it is slightly more expensive, can you get to choose to pay french tax and US? I know that someone who lived here had that option, maybe because it's governmental job then you may have that option, some governmental agencies can pay up to 80% of school fees for kids as well - maybe worth looking into.
here are some estate agencies for you:
www.laforet-aix.fr - 04 42 91 27 00

www.immobilier-aix-plus.com - 04 42 26 93 26

www.aix-accord-immobilier.com - 04 42 26 99 89

www.immobiliere-stjerome.com - 04 42 99 30 00

www.agence-immobiliere-aix-lesmilles.com - 04 42 24 24 30

www.aix-en-provence-immobilier.fr - 04 42 21 33 65

www.immobilieranastasiou.com - 04 42 26 34 47

www.immobiliere-du-palais.fr - 04 42 26 37 70

www.ipsh.fr - 04 42 20 80 91

www.immobilierecarnot.com - 04 42 21 41 66

[Indysmom]

Well DH took the job offer in the south of France! We will be moving early January 2009. I'm in shock and have lots to do...

Off I go to prepare a move to another country in less than three months

[Indysmom]

So seriously, what is the true deal with the whole transformer/adaptors?

I'm so frustrated to have to unload every electronic we own. It will be hard to replace it all quickly with the financial unknown.

Any ideas for what we could bring that would work with an adapter?

[ewe+lamb]

Certainly when we moved from the UK our tv didn't work and we eventually bought a universal one - we didn't get too fussed about things not working and did plug changing and used some adaptors which we necessary - certainly for us it wasn't everything we had though!

[cytogal]

We moved to Lyon (north of Aix) just last January, and it has been a crazy year, though we do like living here overall. As far as the adaptors--as long as any give item has dual voltage, you can just use an adaptor. We brought three adaptors with us which we share among our electronic items (computers and such), and we didn't need to bring a transformer. We did buy a few things here, though, and did most of our electronics shopping at Darty (a chain store).

[livvylivvie]

i am new to this site- but i saw your thread. i hope you have a good move. My husband also is considering taking a job in france. its exciting and scary at the same time. please keep us updated on how things are going, i would be interested in know how the process goes.
i also have children, an almost 2 1/2 year old and a four month old... so i am have a little bit of anxiety over moving accross the ocean with a baby and a toddler. Anyway, keep us posted.

[Indysmom]

Originally Posted by livvylivvie

i am new to this site- but i saw your thread. i hope you have a good move. My husband also is considering taking a job in france. its exciting and scary at the same time. please keep us updated on how things are going, i would be interested in know how the process goes.
i also have children, an almost 2 1/2 year old and a four month old... so i am have a little bit of anxiety over moving accross the ocean with a baby and a toddler. Anyway, keep us posted.

Where in France is the job offer? I’m just wondering if it is at all close to Aix-en-Provence. I know my kids will do wonderfully. The move to another country is not so scary for me, it's the lack of common language that I’m most concerned with. Also for me to loose my friends & family and to start a new with regard to community that is giving me the most stress.

I will keep all posted. At this point we have a start date for Jan. 19, 2009 but we are now in the waiting period for the contract to get to my husband. A nail biting, extreme anxiety situation for us at the moment!

We feel so held up by this aspect but we don't want to sell all of our furniture incase something falls through. Trying to keep thinking positively but still in a state of some serious stress through!!!

[livvylivvie]

the offer is for north east of paris... i think.. its in the st,mihiele area. I am going to have to get familiarized with the area better.
on another note my family really doesn't want us to go.... so that is hard to deal with. and i am wondering about odd things, like, what type of food do they have? my 2 year old loves ketchup and ranch dressing, haha, do they have those there? crazy.... but a valid question for my 2 year old.

[ewe+lamb]

A very valid question!!! We do have ketchup here not so sure about the ranch dressing though!! If you're nursing we have an excellent group of LLL Paris English Group which is very multi national, diverse and busy, we have bimonthly meetings, carrying and parenting workshops, the support is mainly for breastfeeding but we have many other pluses too, there is a book ABC of Motherhood in Paris which is published by another (fairly mainstream) group called Message Paris - they too have lots of resources, there is the American Library and Les Enfants D'abbord, if you're interested in homeschooling, even if you're not they have some great activites - anyway hope that's a little bit more reassuring for you and if you have any other questions please don't hesitate.

[mntnmom]

Anything with a motor, will cause you trouble with a transformer. Clocks loose time, microwaves tend to be weird.
Anything without a motor in it should be fine. It's the cycles/second that cause you trouble when you use a transformer.

We're in Germany, right across the border near Belgium. I've heard the area you are going is GORGEOUS. Good Luck.

[livvylivvie]

Ewe+lamb - thanks for the reply... yes i am breast feeding, so its good to hear that they have support groups for that there. as for the ranch dressing i will have to see if there are any restrictions on bringing that into France.

Indysmom- how is all the planning going? I was wondering, are you bringing all your furniture over? That is somthing my husband and i thought about. although We haven't taken any offers yet... that is still in the works, we really want to figure out the cost, what would be the best way to go about things.... ship our furniture or get furniture there. ? rent ? rent furnished? buy? haha i bet you are thinking all the same things. We want to make sure the move would be a good thing, besides seeing more of the world, and seeing another culture. (That would be a very good thing. )
Hope the packing is going good!

[livvylivvie]

Oh by the way, to help with the language, - I heard you can get books, that are really easy to use, they have a phrase in English, then they write it how is sounds, then they have it written the correct french way.... ex. Supermarket -- leh sue pehr mar shay -- le supermarche
I thought that might be helpful.

[IsaFrench]

I'm in Aix and speak English if you want some information ....

Hi Indysmom,
am french, my DH is Britsh, returned from the States last summer, was living in Aix for 10 years before 3 years in the US ....
check the website of AAGP (anglo-american group of Provence), you can still borrow books in English for a lesser fee at the Mairie Annexe du Pont de l' Arc, even if you don't want to pay the membership fee but they are a good source of information generaly with loads of expats who have been in the area for ages ....
There's also the Aix en Provence Expat meetup that you can join for free on the internet (but haven't managed to get to a meetup yet, with 3 children and my DH working away from home right now ..... you can always try to contact people you like the profile of via the website to ask questions or suggestions ....).
some small electrical items I braught back from the states didn't work or got our electrical system to cut itself (kettle, hand blender) my French mixing bowl and chopping thing worked fine with an adaptor in the US for 3 years but was dead here on our return, only our old radio and cassette player has been working in both countries (was listening to NPR radio, here it's France Inter !)
I don't know about Manosque but here in Aix there's a lot of possibilities for someone with limited French and kids to meetup with other english speaking mothers ....
sorry, no advice to give about a buying car (we choose to live in town = no car)
Isa.