If all goes to plan, I'll be living in Spain in two weeks 😁

over 3 years ago

On the 5th December 2015, I left the UK with 3 suitcases and a mountain bike. With an additional two laptops, on December 5th 2020, I leave the UK again, and this time (bar visits), I'm going to make every attempt to make this the last time I move my life from the island sat under a cloud.

Yep, work have finally agreed to let me continue working remotely from overseas and have given a shot at setting myself up as an expat in Spain. When I had the initial discussion, in which I expected a short 'no', my IT director told me that if/when things get back to normal, 'tough shit', I'd be wanted back in the UK. It's been three months since that online meeting and since then, he/the business have had to readjust their thinking as the we have entered a new normal in relation to the world of work.

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The business recently lost a number of staff on the same day as they instructed them to spend time in the office. News came through that one of these staff members was now working for the competition, fully remote, and on a far superior wage. Over the phone, the Friday just gone, he told me to book my flight and that if I'm getting the work done and am happy 'there', don't worry about needing to return.

It's all my own making I know, but the last few months have been pretty stressful, and that was an awesome way to finish the week. Thanks boss!

Clearly I'm going to be putting a good shift in (I have room for improvement!) when I move over, just to prove the point that a happy employee, is a more productive employee. There's still much to sort out, both here and when I land, but I just have to tackle everything in as it comes, and hopefully my sleep will improve.

The latest on that list is that from today (23rd November), all foreigners flying (land-crossings are exempt!?) must have proof of a negative Covid-19 test <72 hours from landing on Spanish soil. Ah well, what's another 150 pounds onto the total, ouch. Hopefully, I can avoid catching the damn thing over the next two weeks, or it's a lot of time/money wasted, and I'll likely not make it there before the new rules come into play at the turn of the year.

I've been fortunate in that a friend has offered to put me up for the first week of December, this is going to save me a stack of cash which will almost cover the flight, taxis, Covid-19 test, and all the other bits that will likely make the 5th December one of the most expensive days ever.

Initially, I'll be receiving my salary into my UK bank account as normal, but at some point this will change as I need to be paying tax in Spain before 183 days are up. The other UK tax, National Insurance, will be the same to start, but I'll need to move that too and my company will also need to be registered. This is unlikely to happen right away and so I'll need private medical cover, which looks like it's only available yearly, at around 600 euros. The medical cover is required to apply for residency, so I think I'll have to bite the bullet on that bill.

Where I'm staying at first, the wired internet offerings are rather crap and so I've paid for 2 months of 4g unlimited. I'm embarrassed to tell you that this cost 140 euros. Feck. Decent internet is essential for my job though and so I'll start with that and hope that a wired connection will be good enough for the following months. I'll be able to test it before the term runs out on the 4g and so fingers-crossed it does the job because 70 euros a month is not cheap.

Ok, enough bitching about costs.

If all goes to plan I'll mostly be working, learning to play Padel, practicing Spanish/Keyboard, watching HIVE and crypto fly, and saving for a deposit for an apartment with a sea view. The sea view is optional but who knows, I guess it depends just how big the impending bull market is. The plan is to slice some HIVE off the 130k I have collected over the past 3/4 years and use that as a deposit - $3-4 a pop though and that would cover the purchase, and change my life. We are a long way from there though, and so I'll not get too excited just yet.

10k LEO at the prices I've seen in the Discord ($25/$40) would also do the trick - keep building/shilling/pumping guys!

Other tribe tokens, such as STEM, have woken up of late - 85k of those is looking quite good right now. Also, Splinterlands is ticking over nicely and looks set for action next year - Alpha packs are currently selling at 75 HIVE a go!

Should the stars align, 2021 could be pretty awesome for all involved with Crypto, and Hive.

Thank you to those who crossed their fingers following the previous posts, and to those have asked on and off-chain about the potential move to Spain - much appreciated!

Asher

life expat emigrate spain palnet neoxian

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94 comments

@tamiapt6 64

over 3 years ago

Can't even begin to describe how much I will miss you x

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