About 10 Weeks Until We Fly to France
Hi everyone, welcome to our 19th post to the “Baby Boomers Move to France” blog. At the end of May, we will move out of our Grand Palm villa and move into a (very) small VRBO rental in North Port. We will miss Grand Palm and all of the great friends we have made here. We moved here for the community, and we sure got a great community.
We are looking at another busy week of getting organized for the move to France. We did another round of purging. This time we took all of the clothes to the Salvation Army. We realize that we don’t really need all of those clothes, jackets and shoes. It is crazy how we accumulated jackets in Florida. LOL
Our French address for 3 months starting in August will be in a city called Duras. Below is a picture of the chateau in Duras and the French countryside around the city. I pulled this picture off of the internet. Sorry, I don’t know who the photographer is.
Duras is not in the Dordogne department. As you know the Dordogne has been an area of our house hunting focus. The Dordogne department is in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and as we learn more, we have expanded our search area. Duras is in the Lot-et-Garonne Department, but it is still in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Weather is pretty mild in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine with a mean daily high of abut 82 degrees F in the summer and about 39 degrees F in the coldest month of January and it gets about 37 inches of rain a year.
Duras is southwest of Bergerac about a 38 minute drive. You may recall that we visited Eymet the last time we were in France. Eymet is about a 20 minute drive due east. It is about a 6 hour drive south of Paris and about an hour and 15 minutes drive east from Bordeaux. That gives you a rough idea of where Duras is in the Southwest of France. The Dropt River is not far from the town center and the population is around 1200 people. We will have to visit the museums to learn about the history of this town.
Bank Accounts
We did make progress this week on many of the zillion details that we need to get finalized.
Opening a new US bank account and transfer of funds from our existing bank was a big step. I think I mentioned that we need a new bank because PNC couldn’t handle the international transactions that we need to make. We will keep the PNC account for the next few weeks to be sure everything clears.
Speaking of bank accounts, I made no progress on the French bank account paperwork as I want to wait for our new bank account dust to settle. the French like a lot of details and until the new account is totally squared away trying to finish the French account application will get me confused.
Social Security
One of the most common questions that people ask me is about the Social Security check? Will I still be able to draw my check? As I have shared before, the answer is yes. I still will pay US taxes on it, of course.
I did go online and updated my banking details with the Social Security Administration to update check routing to the new checking account. The July check should be deposited to our new bank. So as long as the government doesn’t mess anything up, my SS check will keep coming in. If you are wondering about Medicare, Medicare doesn’t work in France. I will keep it of course just in case we ever have to return to the US. EB will have to go online when she decides to take her SS. She will hold off collecting as long as she can.
EB updated her Tervis check routing too. There is a slim chance that Tervis will be able to take advantage of Elizabeth’s expertise and have her work remotely and part time from France. This makes EB very happy. I guess she will function as an independent contractor for this new roll if it is approved. We will set up an office for her at our new home. Getting her business set up will be another thing on the to do list. Keep your fingers crossed for her.
Car Options
I had a Zoom call with a French Connections HCB partner to discuss the various car options. I need a follow up call to finalize my selection. I will follow up next week. Our plan now is to rent for a month or so, then buy a used vehicle. I’m still not sure what is available. We want to keep the cost down so a small car that will not require expensive insurance is the goal. I’m told that car insurance in France is pretty expensive. I haven’t checked it out yet.
There are a lot of different cars to choose from. Of course there are BMW, and Toyota and Skoda (Russian) and VW and Fiat and Ford. The French manufactured cars include Peugeot and Renault and Citroen and others. I need to do a little more research. We need a decent car for road trips that is good on fuel and with relatively low insurance costs.
I’m sure that I mentioned that we will go on a road trip in 2026 across France to meet up with Cindy and Don. Cindy plans on competing in a Dragon Boat regatta in Aix-La-Bain, France. Our goal is to drive over and cheer her on.
Another question that we get is, how we will get our mail? There are a number of services that digital nomads and long-term travelers use especially for mail. One such service is Traveling Mail Box. I have set up our “Traveling mailbox” account and it seems to be working pretty well. It really is kind of cool. Our mail is forwarded to a processing site in North Carolina, and they send us an email when new mail arrives. We log on and view the envelope then we have options to have them open the mail and scan the contents. I can then print it and request that they shred the contents or hold onto it for a while. If when we see the envelope and we don’t want the mail, we just ask them to shred it, and we are done. If there is something that we want them to ship to us, we request it shipped to whatever address we are staying at. We are just now getting used to it, so I’ll let you know what I think after using it awhile. So far so good.
Medicare
Well, given recent developments with the current president and his administration I am a bit concerned about Medicare. Luckily for EB and me we will soon be on the French system and Medicare will not be an issue. I just need to get with my agent that handles my “supplemental” insurance and stop the payments for the supplemental. That will save about $180 per month. I’ll probably keep the drug plan for a little while. We plan on staying in France forever, but we will keep some options open.
French financial adviser
I mentioned last week that I planned to have a conference call with a financial adviser. I was wrong, my call was with a tax adviser. While we won’t have to pay income taxes in France unless we start earning income in France, we still need to file each year. We will pay taxes to the US Internal Revenue Service for income in the US. Things like SS, dividends paid in the US, any income EB gets from Tervis and our income from investments are taxable. We now have a tax man in France. He was helpful beyond the tax issues. He has friends in Duras that are real estate agents and a Notaire and he introduced us. We now have contacts in Duras if we want to look for property in the Duras area.
I think I have mentioned that we have a great financial adviser here. Sean has guided us through the tricky issues of taking income from our investments, so that we qualify for the French long stay visa year after year. He has really helped us get our accounts set up for our move to France.
I still need to set up a call with a financial advisor in France. We want to make sure any funds that we transfer to France are safe.
Artimis the Cat
We have decided to find Artimis a home in Vencie. I will miss him a lot. He is a great cat. He and Rosie still don’t get along. It is not Artimis really, Rosie just doesn’t like him. He just wants to play, but Rosie doesn’t want any part of it. Rosie wins since Elizabeth promised her dad that she would take care of Rosie. Rosie was EB’s dad’s dog and when he passed, Rosie came home with us. If I remember correctly her name was Lacey, but EB quickly changed it to Rosie.
You have heard the story of Artimis. We took him in for just “two weeks” for my son and his wife as they were preparing to move to the Marshall Islands with their children. Well, the 2 weeks turned into a year plus. Poor Rosie has been just barely putting up with Artimis for that time. I hope we can find Artimis a home soon.
Golf
We have decided not to take our golf clubs with us to France. Our neighbor Marshall mentioned that he wants to get back into golf, so he was the perfect person to gift my set of clubs to. This works out great as Marshall’s grandson is getting into golf. What a great way to spend some time together.
Next week
Come back next week to catch up on the latest news of the Baby Boomers Move to France adventure. Hopefully I will have more news on the car deal and how our move to North Port is going. It is only for 2 months, but a lot has to happen during those 2 months. We will keep you posted on all that is going on.
As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions just jot them down in the comments section below.
Thanks for following us and please share our blog with anyone else that might be interested in moving to France. Hopefully our experience will inspire folks and answer the nagging questions they might have. It is a little scary, but man it is exciting.
Okay, until next week be safe, take care of yourself and we will talk to you soon.
A bientot
