EB Retires This Week. WOOHOO!!

Welcome

Welcome to the 26th post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog. That is 26 weeks, wow, half a year. I didn’t think that I had that much writing in me. LOL

As I sit down to write it is Monday, 14th of July 2025 (Bastille Day). As you know I start early in the week and finish up on Sunday just in time to publish.

Our plans for the move to France have undergone major changes over the past 26 weeks. In fact, we figured that we wouldn’t be actually moving until the middle of 2026. Now here we are in 2025 and only roughly 2 weeks from the flight. We talked about living in a town where we wouldn’t need a car. That idea is out the window too.

We kind of thought that we would have another year to save up and get organized. However, the opportunity came up ahead of schedule and we didn’t want to miss it. We didn’t need the extra time to get organized! Organization is overrated anyway. Right?

If this is your first visit to our blog, I hope that we keep the ongoing story of our move to France interesting enough to bring you back each week. We publish each Sunday. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” on an adventure to move to France permanently. It sounds easy enough.

As we shared our plans with friends and family, we were asked questions about who, what, why, when and where, I figured that there is enough interest to share the experience. So, we started this blog. Our plan is to publish every Sunday even after we get to France. After all, that is when the real fun starts.

What’s going on this week?

This is the week that EB retires. She is looking forward to Friday even though she will miss her friends and coworkers. The adventure has to start sometime. It might as well be sooner rather than later. I have been talking about Elizabeth’s retirement for weeks, so it is not big news. It’s just that it is really happening. We will be going to Coopers Hawk on Saturday with friends and will celebrate.

I mentioned last week that it is time to catch up with all of the address changes needed, like:

• IRS
• SS
• Voter registration

I also want to talk a little about some of the cultural changes that we will experience when we move to France.

This month we have been saying farewells to our friends and family. The following 2 weeks are filled with more heartfelt farewells. For sure, I will tell you about our dinners and get togethers.

Getting used to French Lifestyle and Culture

We have been watching You Tube videos to familiarize ourselves with what expats say about French culture as compared to the US. It is really no surprise that the most common challenge that we hear from expats is the language. We heard that concern early on in our research, so we started Duolingo almost as soon as we started thinking about the possibility of the move. It was December of 2024. We have a long way to go, but we are starting to feel a little more confident as we do a lesson every day.

I’m reminded of a time that my 3 brothers and I took Leif’s VW van (I think it was Leif’s) to Mexico, Baja actually (It was early 1970s I think). My brothers were going to surf, and I (not having a surfboard) was just along for the adventure. Anyway, as I remember it, my brother Leif had no fear of talking Spanish and got along just fine. Not that he was super proficient, but he just did it and the locals were pretty cool with it. That is what most expats in France say one needs to do in France. Just do it and you get better and better. Leif designed and built sail boats in California a few years back and had Spanish speaking guys working for him. His ability to speak the language as best as he could helped make his business a success. To me, that is the lesson that a person needs to take to France or anywhere. Just get on with it. You don’t have to be perfect.

I have spoken of another cultural difference and that is, “the French people work to live, not live to work”. I know that I have been guilty of living to work before I retired. 60 hours or more a week and taking it home with me. Sometimes working 3 jobs. The lifestyle in France is a much slower pace. No guilt about taking a vacation or taking time off for family or a doctor’s appointment. I have had some time to get there as I have been retired now about 6 years. Elizabeth is just now retiring and will have to make the adjustment overnight. Fortunately, we have been talking about it for a while, so she knows what is coming.

I plan on talking about the culture shocks as we actually experience them starting next month in France. OMG it is next month!!

All Those Address Changes

The address changes are not something that we thought about when we started talking about moving to France. Taking care of these administrative things needs done though.

For the IRS we had to download a form 8822 from the IRS site. Fortunately, it can be filled out online then printed and signed. Then it gets mailed into the office in Austin, Texas. So, after this goes through whatever administrative and governmental processes required, we will be residents of France in the eyes of the IRS. We will have to get some proper envelopes and postage to do the actual mailing.

For Social Security, I was able to go online and fill in the address change paperwork. I used my sister Cindy’s address in Long Beach, California for this. I was concerned that having a California mailing address would subject my SS check to California taxes. I checked with our tax consultant, and he said not to worry. I’m so glad that we have built a long-term relationship with our tax guy, Brian Palmer. I called him with my concern and in less than 5 minutes he set my mind at ease. I met Brian in 2007, if I remember correctly. It was just after I started my handyman business. He was recommended to help with business tax preparation. One of the best recommendations that I ever followed up on. His children are all just about grown up now and graduating college. Amazing how time flies by. If anyone is looking for a tax professional, we HIGHLY recommend Brian.

The voter registration change of address is interesting. I didn’t realize that we have to specify our last Florida address. The interesting thing is that this address is your last address in Florida even if you do not still own property in Florida or even reside in Florida. So, we will submit an address change for voter registration to be our short-term address in France. This will have to be updated, but for now it will work. We decided to go into the Voter Registration office to submit our paperwork. That was a good thing as the gentleman at the desk there had us fill out the proper paperwork. Very nice guy and very helpful.

Speaking of Addresses

You know that our first 3 months in France will be in Duras, France. This is a town in the Lot-et-Garonne department which is in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region. The region is named after 2 main rivers in the area the Lot and the Garonne rivers. The rental looks pretty nice in the pictures. We will let you know how it really is. One thing that bummed us out is that we are not allowed to receive mail at this place. We didn’t know that before this week. I guess we have to go to the post office in Duras to get a mailing address. WTF!

Note to self: Make sure we can get mail whenever renting in France. Sure, you can manage for a week or two, but 3 months?

Elizabeth has found a place where we will spend the 2nd 3 months of our time in France. It is a town by the name of Confolens in the Charente department. It is also in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, like Duras. The drive is about 3 hours north from Duras. I checked the Weather Spark application and found that the average temperatures of Duras and Confolens are about the same. We will be there November through January so will have a taste of the colder weather. This is a much more economical rental than the Duras property at about 650 euros per month plus utilities (electricity and heating oil). It is something like half the cost of our Duras Airbnb rental and over twice the size. Part of that is due to the Duras property being in the “high season” time. The town is at the confluence of the Vienne River and the Goire river, hence the name Confolens. We will be there during the Christmas market that is held at the chateau. We will bundle up and enjoy winter.

Hopefully, Don and Cindy will be able to visit us in Confolens this fall. They already have flights booked so we are looking forward to their visit. Fingers crossed all works out.

Farewells

We are so lucky to have made such great friends in Venice, Florida. We will miss everyone. We still have roughly two weeks left in Florida, so we are trying to catch up with everyone before we fly.

We had dinner with Darryl and Greg at Coopers Hawk last Friday. It is always great to visit with them. Darryl is getting ready to retire soon or maybe not so soon. TBD

Rob and Francis Wysocki invited us over for cocktails and hor d’oeuvres Tuesday night. It is so nice to chat with them whenever we get together. Unfortunately, we don’t get together often enough. We spent close to 4 hours visiting and the time went by so quickly. We also got to meet their daughter and granddaughter too. She offered to come to France to watch Rosie for us. We will be looking forward to keeping up with Rob and Francis. I met Rob playing golf with the Grand Palm group. It turns out Rob is a fellow Sous Vide aficionado too. (I had to look up how to spell “aficionado” correctly. LMAO)

Two people that we met when we were working at Teleflex over 20 years ago still hold a special place in our hearts. EB and I went over to Jan’s house and jumped in the pool and had pulled pork sandwiches. Great STUFF! Jan and Debbie and their husbands (Chip and Joe) have been friends all those years. Unfortunately, Chip and Joe passed away some time ago. We had some great times golfing and fishing over the years.

We did get to see Sean Farro at Transparent Retirement Group on Thursday at his office. His financial guidance has been instrumental in helping to make this French adventure possible.

EB has been saying her goodbyes to her friends and coworkers at Tervis this week. She has been at Tervis over 14 years and will have fond memories. But she is ready for our new adventure.

Lastly, for this week, we will have a Zoom call with Leif and Lisa. I’m eager to find out how their cruise on the Rhone River went. Also planning on a zoom call with Cindy and Don and possibly Danny and Rhonda too (if they are in town!).

You gotta love technology. The zoom call is almost like sitting in the same room. It makes traveling to Europe seem like being just down the block. Well, the time difference makes it a little cumbersome, but not horrid. France is 6 hours ahead of Florida and 9 hours ahead of California. The folks in California just have to open the wine a little earlier.

More farewells to report next week.

And Speaking of Next Week

We have a very long list of things to do over the next 10 days. No stress though.

We will update you on all of it as we go. I will also share more French Lifestyle and Cultural topics. I have been watching more You Tube videos on driving in France too. It seems like I learn something new every time I watch one.

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below.

A bientot

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com