Why Living in France Can Cost Half as Much! With Adrian Leeds

Adrian Leeds returns to talk about the cost of living in France and why it can be more affordable than you think.

[Music] welcome vienu to why living in France can cost half as much with Adrien leads the Federation USA allows us all to learn French live French and love French at AF usa.org [Music] afusa is the largest aliance fres Network in the world helping 25,000 Learners of French each year again learn French live French and love everything French stay tuned for some upcoming National events um go to AF usa.org to hear about our French Cinema Tech next Monday we have a wonderful D-Day program and interview with Martin Walker and many events coming up so again afus AF usa.org is the go-to website for French events a few Logistics in format please stay on mute during the presentation stay on speaker view any questions that you may have for Adrien please put in the chat and if you have any technical issues please sign back in after a couple of minutes using the original Zoom link this event is being recorded to share on our national AF YouTube channel and the total run time is one hour we are thrilled to welcome back Adrien leads Adrien has lived in France for over 29 years she is an HGTV personality regular on House Hunters International she runs and owns the Adrian leads group licensed real estate agency property consultation and services welcome Adrien oh thank you Renee how wonderful to be here and I love to see all these smiling faces um and this is going to be so much fun because we’re gonna talk about how much money you’re going to save by living in France so I’m going to go ahead and let’s see share my screen and my presentation see if I can get yay there it is I hope everybody can see it um so we’re gonna find out why living in France can cost half as much here we go just to give you a brief idea of who we are we are Property Consultants and we work primarily for the buyer or the renter actually we call ourselves French property the American way because we are for Americans and I say North Americans by Americans we are a licensed real estate agency in France and our services include property consultation and search sales and listings we can actually assist someone in making a purchase or a sale we do appraisals uh we find financing resources we have resources for renovation and decoration and we actually provide an awful lot of resources that have to do with immigration and all the things you would need to make your move uh to France from Soup To Nuts the reason we exist is primarily because there’s no multiple listing service in France that means that you can’t go to One agent and have access to all properties that’s how this started but the process in France is different the laws are different the language we know is different and if you haven’t been studying at the Alan saids you better start there’s the currency is different the culture is decidedly different and everything you encounter is different so we help make this transition over now just to get an idea about cost of living I want you to know that you could go on to the web and you can look at an awful lot of these websites and find Cost of Living comparisons country to country but I think if you do that you might actually get confused so and I want to make one really important note these comparisons that we’re going to talk about today do not talk about any income tax you might pay on Revenue that is generated in France okay but you also need to know that this the best tax treating in all of Europe is between the US and France not the other countries so when it comes to paying taxes you’re going to get the best deal with France than you’re going to get just about anywhere um the uh photo on this housing in France cost 34% less than the US that’s uh tul La rampant from international living and that’s an article she wrote It’s the very first link in the top of this slide so um and it’s a really great article so if you have a chance be sure to read it okay today we are going to talk about 10 jawdropping cost savings first of all the property to rent or purch purchase why that can be much less expensive than the US property taxes utilities gas and electricity phone TV and internet services your homeowner insurance your homeowner association fees groceries restaurants and dining out Health Care public transportation I pulled these 10 together because I think that these are your PR primary cost of living expenses and I’m sure there are other little things but this is what comes out of your pocket more than anything else so this is what we’re going to talk about today okay let’s talk about property rent or purchase uh number one is that the most expensive property in France is Paris and Paris is about double any other city in France there are other cities that are even a quarter of the price of Paris but just know that Paris has doubled just about anything else now if you look at this chart you’re going to see that Paris is all the way at the bottom with $1,698 193 which is the average per square meter price of a property in Paris and compare that with New York’s which is $7,795 so we’re talking that New York is actually 40% more expensive than Paris so even though Paris has doubled the cost of any other city in France New York is still 40% more expensive and a lot of other cities are more expensive as well so when people say Paris is expensive sure it is but it’s not the most expensive in the world by any stretch of the imagination okay I know this chart is a little difficult a little difficult to read because the numbers are kind of small on the left side and the left two columns are price per square meter for a purchase and the two right columns are the price per square meter for a rental and as you can see Paris is the most expensive if you look at the uh map just know that the you can see the red colors and the orange colors are the most expensive areas of France so Paris which that little dot in the north is you know of course expensive and the other areas of of France which are somewhat similar are in the South along the Riviera and on the East close to Germany so because this is being recorded you can take your time later to really study this um but we’re still you know still it’s more affordable than just about any US city um the average monthly rent per square meter for for rental apartments in Paris on the average for one bedroom is $1,454 per month compared to New York’s $ 4,151 and if you’re looking at a three-bedroom apartment Paris will cost you 3359 and New York New York will cost you 8433 so that means that New York costs two and a half to three times what Paris would cost and of course the purchase we already looked at that 40% more now I want to make the point that proper property is your biggest expense everything else is going to be fairly comparable all across the country so all the other expenses we’re going to talk about will be similar whether you’re living in Paris or nce or Bordeaux or stor won’t matter property is your single most expensive expense you’re just going to love this one I I love to talk about property taxes because um I find that overall whenever I ask a client how much their property taxes are it ends up being about 10 times what I pay it’s it’s it’s shocking now there are two taxes that you pay annually one is tax Di and the other is tax Fier tax dut is paid by people who have a secondary residence not a primary residence if you have a primary residence in France you don’t pay the tax so the tax funer is what we’re talking about and both taxes are approximately 10 to20 per square meter per year so I’m going to give you the real figures My two-bedroom apartment in the Third District in Paris last year I paid 957 for a property that’s worth about a million euros I mean that so it ended up 1470 per square meter my one-bedroom apartment in E I paid 600 36 only $18.24 per square meter uh compare that with what you’re paying in the United States on property taxes so this is a huge savings property tax rate in the US US stands at 1.10% of the value of the home the average home value according to Zillow is 346,000 that’s a lot more than I’m paying and that’s the overall average for the United States now you consider California California is really high highly taxed State and according to smartasset.com an LA home valued at a million dollars would pay 7500 a year in property taxes that is 7.3 times higher than what I pay for the same valued property imagine how much you can save okay utility well electricity is a little more expensive in France than it is in the US um per kilowatt it is uh 21 cents per kilowatt compared to 18 cents per kilowatt but would you believe that the US uses 10 times more than France per capita I mean I think it’s unbelievable and that is because France really has done everything in its power to be as efficient and economical and ecological as possible even appliances are designed to use less energy so for example uh my niece apartment which is a a one-bedroom apartment my monthly uh bill is literally 6639 which is 7 the dollar rate by the way that I used at the time when I did this presentation was a doll 786 that’s the rate of exchange I use so approximately a doll eight and so you can get an idea of what the dollar to Euro amount is um now I am in that apartment about 50% of the year but when I’m there I run what’s called a mini split in the US we call it a Riva it’s a heat and AC and I’m there I use it 100% of the time so um I think that’s really reasonable you guys are going to love this this is not a joke because everybody I talk to tells me that their internet and their TV and their telephone cost them at least 200 bucks a month and when I tell you that you can do that here for30 EUR a month it is not a joke free started it the company’s called free it’s free.fr you can go online and find it for yourself they started this whole thing and then all the other companies had to come on they created a tripleplay package with the TV um highspeed internet and the phone and they offered it at a really low rate and they just broke the market open and uh it’s really it’s a really good service and I highly recommend it but even better than this is the telephone you can add a telephone a cell phone and I promise you this is true I pulled this right off their site for 9.99 a month you can have a cell phone to over 100 destinations free of charge and you’re going to love this it’s even better when you travel to those countries it’s free in that country and it’s free back to France so when I travel with my French cell phone to the United States or all over Europe doesn’t cost me a penny more and I know you cannot do that without having some international plan with you know I don’t know uh T-Mobile or Cox or whoever but I know you can’t do it as cheap as this okay homeowner insurance how much do you pay for Homeowner Insurance when you’re in an apartment building a Condo building in France um the building ensures the building so you really only have to ensure your own contents in effect so therefore the insurance uh costs are really really low the average insurance is € 372 or 400 a year um I pay 460 because it depends on you know the level of your how much you’re insuring for um in the US the average homeowner insurance costs 1915 or about 160 a month so you’ve just saved yourself a whole ton of money homeowner association fees if you’re in a condo you’re going to pay homeowner association fees and and according to Oscar the observ the fees in France are about 50 EUR per square meter per year okay so square meter for those who probably going to ask me what does that mean it’s 10.76 square feet so if you use 11 you multiply by 11 which is close you’ll get an idea of what that is in square feet um I used to own a co-op in the West Village in New York that my daughter lived in and the annual dues were $540 per square meter 10 times what it costs us to own and operate here in France groceries average American household spends an average of $475 a month on groceries according to the most recently available data set from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that same thing in France $330 now I I pulled this very recently that France in compared to other countries in Europe actually ranks 11th it is still not the most expensive European country either but aside from the costs I’m going to tell you right now that you’re going to get a much higher quality product so you’re going to eat better and you’re going to enjoy it more dining out uh I was in the states a couple of months ago and I have to tell you I was really shocked by the time you add tax and tip which is at least another 25 30% of what it says on the menu uh my lunches were 50 bucks it was really hard to find anything decent to eat for less than that um and for those of you who know I eat out just about twice a day and um I go to Cafe charlot just just about every day and that burger right sitting right there that’s Cafe charlot’s burger and it’s not cheap it’s €4 but that includes the tax and tip so when I’ve had a really fabulous lunch there and I’ve haded my coffee and I’ve got tax and tip on it I walk out for about 30 bucks and it’s fabulous so I don’t know ask yourself when was last time you had as good a meal as that for that price okay I hope all of you guys are sitting down because we’re going to talk about healthare the Health Care system in France will cost you one tenth of what it costs you in the US when you become a resident in France and this is once you have your visa after 90 days of having your Visa you can apply to be on the French Health Care Sy system France will pay up to 70% of your health care costs even though you never paid into the system and you’re going to love this a doctor’s visit in France costs about $28.50 before you’re reimbursed and if you go to a specialist might be about $54 okay and that’s without even being on the system now you’re GNA love this part too the government will refund patients up to 70% but when you have a costly or long-term ailment something horrible you know like heart disease uh cancer things like that they pay 100% of your costs 100% now you can top it up you can top it up with a um a mutual insurance policy uh so before I talk about the mutuel though I I just want to make a special note here um because I just want you to sort of understand that the problem with Healthcare in the United States is that it’s based on profit the sicker you are the more money everybody makes so the system actually works against you having good health whereas in France because it’s government supported the healthier you are the more money they save so they believe in preventive medicine which the US insurance companies don’t believe in and won’t cover so this is really a big deal because you’re going to get much better care now with the mutual policy you can top it up totally um and some plants are as little as 10€ 10 EUR a month for a supplementary Health policy I have one of the best policies in the business it it’s 100% coverage with no deductible and I am 71 years old and my premium is a little over $2,000 a year to have complete coverage uh last year I did the math and I saved as much money by using the French healthc care system as my Mutual cost me so I saw it as a wash and if you want to see the official healthc care costs there’s a link right here in the bottom of the screen you can go to that website and that’ll give you all the actual details of the health care costs public transportation I’ll bet most of you haven’t even been on a public bus for train in the United States but in France the network is amazing okay it features 146 kilometers of Roads uh 6.2 kmers of Rail lines 100 square kilome of 100 square kilometers the network they call it like a web that comes mostly out of Paris um I highly recommend getting rid of your car your car according to Triple A costs you about 12,000 bucks a year to own and operate and if you’re living in a city um that has good public transportation in France which they all do um you know any of the smaller cities or larger cities really do not need a car if you are living in a little village if you are living in the countryside yep you will need a car but if you’re in a city like Paris or ni or Leon or stasbor you will not need a car and you can save all that money just think about how many trips you can take all over Europe for 12 Grand a lot so dump the car and especially if you’re older maybe you don’t want to drive anymore you know driving a car is risky there’s I can tell you I haven’t owned a car in 30 years and I don’t miss it one bit uh you also have such amazing public transportation in these cities okay that also offer all sorts of savings especially for seniors um sncf the you know the train system in France for 49 euros a year I buy a senior card and I get a 30% discount on all of my tickets and you can change them you can alter them whenever you want it’s just absolutely fantastic and most of the Cities offer even senior discounts on the Metro on the buses uh you know whatever so if you’re over the age of 60 you score big time uh this bus pictured in this Photograph happens to be the new 600 bus that goes from nce all the way to Mont and back and I believe the cost of it is a70 is that right Patty it’s 250 oh excuse me it’s two50 okay to go okay they go all the way from n to monton an hour and a half so what’s the bottom line the bottom line is that it’s only going to cost you about half to live in the in France it means your retirement your pensions are going to go a lot further um and your quality of life is going to go a lot higher so how do you say no to that I don’t know uh by the way this is a list of all the sources I have used to find this information um I do not promise that every figure is exact but my personal information that I’m sharing with you today is that is 100% true and accurate so um it gives you at least a good comparison and uh just so you understand how we make a difference here we you know what we do is we represent only your interests we don’t represent our own pocketbook it’s not that is not our goal we search for property on your behalf as a renter or a buyer we provide all the resources Soup To Nuts that you need we help you do the due diligence and advise along the way so that you don’t need any expensive translations although you should be getting your French up to speed uh we manage the process from beginning to end and we think of it as a kind of insurance because we try our best to not let a client make a bad decision it is easier than you think you guys this is not difficult we have helped thousands of people move to France it all starts with a consultation either with myself or one of my senior staff members um we believe in getting good advice with whether with us or with any of the professionals that we can put you in touch with and please don’t let fear get in the way of your dreams to make this happen and while you’re at it replace the word expectations for hopes so that you will never be disappointed now we have we try to offer a lot we have three newsletters a week that you can subscribe to they are free of charge you can unsubscribe at any time if you feel overwhelmed you can see on House Hunters International I have filmed 56 shows I’m about to film my 57th we run uh coffee Gathering once a month in Paris and every other month in nce called Aid where there’s always a speaker and they are free and open to everyone you can always book a consultation as I said before and of course participate in webinars such as this so you can learn a lot we also have a YouTube channel so you can re-watch them and you can go to our YouTube channel and find a whole slew of things so and all that information is there absolutely free of charge and now I’m going to open this up to a Q&A so I hope you’ve been putting your questions in theh chat box Patty sedus who’s here with me is GNA monitor those and ask away and hopefully we’ll be able to ask answer as many as possible what have you got Patty we have a couple of questions regarding contributions to cover your health care for Puma the cost of the contributions the cost of the contributions okay well when you apply okay so you’re not going to pay anything into Puma at all the French government is supposed to assess you a small percentage based on your earnings but I don’t know a single person who has ever been assessed or paid it do you Patty um well actually I was assessed because I do earn some income in the US and the one bill I’ve had in nine years was for €200 and Tax Advisor um well I’m sure it was based on my US income that was not retirement income um The Tax Advisor I was working with actually said I did not owe it but for €200 it wasn’t worth arguing about okay so my decision was to give to give France her €200 euros and not worry about it okay that just happened recently I believe actually right um fairly recently yes yes yes okay okay okay now a whole bunch of questions coming in um oh here’s another healthcare related question how does the French medical insurance work when we travel back to the US oh that’s a really interesting question because uh the mutual that I have will cover um you know it will cover any kind of an emergency care in the US but only at French scheduled rates so when I travel back to the US I take out a uh travel policy it’s not very expensive no nope okay let’s see what else okay there’s so many it’s just hard to keep it’s hard to keep up um okay I hear that ‘s a housing shortage in Paris and it’s hard to find a rental your opinion well it’s near to Impossible but we do it every day um there is a there’s a huge housing shortage actually across the country uh this of course this has nothing to do with the cost of living you understand um but um we are able to find property for rent because we do this every day and we’re working with the agents every day and so we have access to information um it’s it would be very difficult on your own to do it very very difficult yeah so this it’s not just the shortage it’s the way the agents work because I’ve been I’ve been looking for myself for an apartment for those of you who read my newsletter I have to move out of my apartment in order for structural work to be done and it’s been really difficult to find an apartment but I have found one online that I like and I am going to visit it tomorrow but took an Act of God to get the agent to respond to me to make that happen and they just are they don’t care because they’re so busy so it it is hard but we do it okay I’m trying I’m trying to find questions on topic we have a lot of questions that aren’t on the cost of living topic oh that’s okay okay let me see what else would be interesting to the group bear with me because there’s a whole bunch and um I’m trying to find one that’s more about Healthcare okay hang on hang on okay now this is this is completely off subject but a question from Mike is What About Pets what about them what about pets France loves pets dogs are everywhere you can take them everywhere um it’s easy enough to bring them over they have to have certain um you know vaccinations and chips and stuff like that um but uh there’s there’s no reason that you can’t bring a pet everybody does it and I will add if if you’re renting an apartment you are entitled to have a pet that’s right yes you the landlord cannot deny you the pet but you do not want to know that you have a pet when you’re seeking an apartment because they will choose someone else that doesn’t have a pet that doesn’t have a pet exactly right yeah um okay we’re getting quite a few Visa questions do we we want to talk just a little bit about getting a Visa specifically a visitor Visa sure oh I I pulled that down I hope that’s okay you guys yeah um so Adrian do you want to just talk a little bit about the process of getting a visitor Visa oh the process is quite simple actually um you go onto the onto the we the official website and you schedule a consultation you just book a consultation uh not a consultation but an appointment to get your visa um there are three basic requirements in order to get your visa you have to show that you can support yourself with what’s based on French minimum wage which is about 177,000 Euros a year you have to show that you have health care coverage which is really just a a health health care policy we have um health insurance contacts for you to get the policy with and you have to show that you have a place to live and that can be the catch22 but our clients know that we can provide them with that answer so that fixes that and that’s how easy it is and once you’ve done that and you’ve gone to youro appointment and you’ve brought all that paperwork then you have your Visa in two to three weeks and then you can come to France yeah and I just added a link to the official website on the chat oh great okay um how long is the Visa good for well the Visa you’re going to apply for is probably going to be a oneyear renewable visitor Visa that is renewable in France okay we have a dental related visit how much does it cost for dental visits or dental insurance in France oh I just went to the dentist yesterday that’s matter of fact and I had a what’s called a control so they took all the x-rays and I had a what’s called a day so that’s where they you have a cleaning and um I think she charged me 126 EUR which my health insurance policy will reimburse me for yep it’s it’s really inexpensive and they’re very good and everything’s very modern and amazing I’m thinking that sounds more expensive than my dentist and niece well maybe maybe but you know I didn’t complain [Music] oh um we’ve got another question about closing cost for Furnishing purchasing a one-bedroom apartment in nce that’s a bit specific but well the closing costs um are the notarial taxes and fees which uh range between seven and seven and a half percent you can’t negotiate it there’s nothing you can do about it um and you just have to expect it so if you’re looking to buy a property uh and um and if you’re working with us and our fees are approximately 3% you pretty much just assume that between 10 and 11% of the price of the property is what you’re going to need in closing costs in cash you can’t mortgage that amount yep okay um do you want to talk about inheritance tax we’re really getting like a lots of very I know I’m looking at these too if I buy an apartment in Paris what is the inheritance tax if I leave the apartment to my daughter um the taxes that is a very complicated question okay just know everything in France is complicated okay the French are not happy if it’s not complicated okay because that’s because it’s not intellectual enough so anything related to tax is complicated but when you buy a property if you set the structure of it up correctly your kids could end up not paying any inheritance taxes at all so in fact uh this past year I transferred the title of my Paris apartment to my daughter so that when I die she will have it it’s hers she will pay no inheritance tax whatsoever so there are ways to fix this when you plan ahead which is the key to everything the key to taxation in France is planning ahead uh we work with a couple of tax advisers Jonathan Hadid is one of them Benjamin pick is another and they can really help you work that out before you make the move so that you do everything correctly from the get-go that’s what I would recommend doing but you got you guys got to get over like fear of taxes okay because uh quite honestly um overall you’re gonna have you’re going to end up spending a lot less in tax living in France believe it or not you’re going to spend a lot less on everything else and you’re going to have a much higher quality of life and you can’t take it with you anyway you’re not GNA be you know there’s no point in putting it lining your coffin with it so you might as well enjoy it the rest of your life and uh I I when it comes to this fear like don’t let fear get in the way of your move get put fear of tax on the on the Shelf okay and forget about it it’s it’s life is not about money I mean it just isn’t it’s about living and enjoying yourself uh if we knew how long we were going to live then and how much money we had we could probably be really smart about how much we spend right but we can so um you know I I I can you can trust me that you will end up spending a lot less in tax just property tax alone property tax alone is going to save you a huge amount of money it’s incredible now I pay a lot in um income tax here I pay a lot in ersoff because I I have earnings here so if you’re earning money here um yes you’re going to have a much higher tax uh basis but I don’t care because it goes to all these other things I have amazing health care we have an incredible infrastructure you know I have an incredible quality of life and I need a lot less money to live off of if you’ve got kids your Ed their their education is free of charge all the way through college I mean I can’t complain quite honestly Patty find me some other good ones um I like this one patty is that your view amazing yes it is that is Patty’s View and it is that’s my view guys okay that’s that’s a view for my apartment that’s right um we had an another we did have a cost of living question and Adrian I don’t know if you’re going to know the answer to this yeah um it’s based on the fact that is um we know many of the clients we work with are retirement age and we have a question about the cost for if you have children the cost for activities camps and child care but you raised your daughter and you probably have some idea of I have no idea about that I did raise my daughter here but I never used child care okay um she was old enough to you you know the kids here are very independent you have to understand she was taking the bus to school at the age of 10 by herself um they’re they grow up in an environment where they can be very independent and they need a lot lot less babysitting I don’t think I ever hired a babysitter can’t remember that at all yeah yeah um and I’m assuming this is a Visa related question how much savings do you need to show other than your Social Security and pension income only that you got at least 177,000 EUR a year yeah for just just French minimum wage equivalent of French minimum W minimum wage all you need it’s not a lot of money no they just want to make sure you’re not going to be on the street the American passport is the Golden Passport they really they really understand that Americans contribute to this society and are not here to use and abuse it so they dull out the passports uh the Visas very not the passports but the Visas very easily mhm we had one person recently that was denied remember that one patty very recently yes I do I do it’s the only person I know of who’s ever been denied yeah and we don’t know the exact circumstances no but I think it had to do with a certain kind of paperwork yeah that’s what it’s that’s what it sounded like [Music] right okay oh this is a good one how is it meeting people and being a me being a part of the community how easy is it how how is it just how is it meeting people and being a part of the community oh you’re going to make more friends than you’ve ever had in your whole life inside of two months make you bet the American Community especially in the cities where there are good American communities is very closely knit um and you’re what happens is you end up meeting people who are just like you they think just like you they been aspiring to be in France just like you they’re going to go through all the trials and tribulations just like you and uh so no doubt you will you will literally make more friends than you’ve ever had and anybody who who’s on this uh webinar who spent any time here probably already knows that when we hold ourem Gatherings um friends are made just there immediately sitting next to somebody talking to them I hear the story stories all the time it’s fantastic you know it’s funny um I lived in Knoxville Tennessee for 14 years and I can count all my friends on one hand literally because I couldn’t relate to the people in Knoxville Tennessee for one reason or another I can count that many people that are my friends on my block in Paris right exactly exactly by comparison uhuh um so now I’m going to ask a tax related question if you get pension from the US do you have to pay taxes again in France nope you do not pay tax in France on on your retirement income in the from the US yeah period no not your ta not your dividends not your Social Security not your pensions nope you pay it to the US but you don’t pay it to France and after you’re in France on your long State visa as a resident when can you apply for your cart Vall after 90 days yep you might not get it after 90 days it’ll might take you a few more months to get but you can apply for it after 90 days that’s why you need the first year you need the first year with health insurance for sure okay um we had another question about um access on public public transportation for people with reduced Mobility oh like on the buses on the buses trams Metro well the buses are all designed for wheelchair access the buses are fabulous um the trains are a little more complicated but they do have service for people in wheelchairs to put to put them on and off so it’s it’s not difficult to do right but the bus is real easy yeah the buses are probably best in Paris the Metro is terrible because most of them have stairs right yeah the Metro is not is not Mobility friendly that’s for sure and N the tram is very ex is very accessible right because you just go right on it’s at the same level right okay see you might even see something interesting as you’re scrolling through they’re just and actually we had somebody raise their hand but I don’t see it up any [Music] longer we have a question about mortgage rates mortgage rates are quite a bit less in France than they are in the US they’re hovering around four four and a half percent um but to get them more Mortgage in France you pretty much need to be under the age of 60 and be salaried right that doesn’t mean it’s not possible for someone older it’s just that it’s you know they uh the banks it’s all about risk assessment and it’s all about the there’s a life insurance policy that’s mandatory with the loan and the premiums become prohibitive after the age of 75 so they want the um po they want your mortgage to end by the time you’re 75 so if you’re over 60 you’re not as good a candidate for them it’s just that simple but that’s not it’s not that it’s impossible um another interesting question is there a language requirement for living in France there is no language requirement to get your cart to sour visitor and there is now a new language requirement um for uh the cidal which is the tenure card that you can’t get anyway until you have renewed your C to seizure for five years um and it used to be that if you were over the age of 60 or 65 you didn’t have to take the test but I believe that has not changed it has not changed nothing official yet Oh you mean it’s just in conversation yeah nothing’s official yet on that L change of language requirement if you’re over 65 um I applied for citizenship I um and I had to take the uh the language test for with a B1 level which is not very it’s not very high um and I did manage to pass so that was good now I’m waiting to hear for my interview and um hopefully I will not be denied we’ll see yep oh I just scrolled past a question I was GNA ask um we had a question about do we provide recommendations for individuals who are looking for insurance the insurance required for their long stay visas we do we do we have several Brokers you can work with who can help you we have all the resources you could possibly need we have them all it’s what we do and they’re on just check our website oh yeah they’re on our site um I see one question are there any advantages to giving up US citizenship versus keeping dual citizenship uh I don’t recommend giving up US citizenship if you can help it the only people who do that um it’s because they want to save themselves huge sums of money um but I you you’ve got dual citizenship so there’s really not much reason to give up the US citizenship except for money wouldn’t you say yeah I and we’re going to be talking about that I think in an upcoming Financial Forum oh yeah actually we are so yeah stay tuned on our newsletters for when the Forum is coming up uh here’s a question do I need to leave the country to renew your one-year visitor Visa nope you need to renew it in France um another one is as a spouse of a European citizen are the requirements for applying for Health Care the same as someone with a long State visa and my I believe the answer is yes I still think it’s after 90 days resident you can apply right but a spouse still has to get a Visa yeah here’s one are you able to select your own doctors and dentists of course you can I want everybody to go to do o.fr d o c o l i.r you can go online find any kind of doctor you want make an appointment immediately online it’s an amazing system incredible the Health Care system in the Health Care system in France is beyond incredible I I really have had fantastic care from start to finish in every situation it’s been and very inexpensive it’s silly inexpensive it’s almost a joke um when I took my cousin well I didn’t take her ambulance took my cousin to the hospital when she broke her leg and the ambulance driver said I’m really sorry but you have to pay for the ambulance and I said so how much is it I’m glad you guys are mostly sitting down because he said 67 I handed him cash that’s it okay when was the last time you had an ambulance in United States for 67 EUR um though I just answer this directly on the chat this would be good for the group I heard it’s difficult to find a doctor who will see you in France any truth to that of course that’s complete that’s excuse my language I could say BS okay um I’ll tell you the only doctors that seem to be scarce dermatologists getting a dermatologist sometimes can be can take an active of God wouldn’t you agree Patty yes yes yes otherwise otherwise there’s really no problem unless you’re in a medical desert area if you’re out in the countryside true it can be more difficult but we would recommend you live in a in a more I don’t I hate to say recommend is urban environment but you want to look at your access to health care when you’re deciding where to live in France well of course if you’re over the age of 60 you want to make sure you’ve got access to the healthcare immediately and you know hauling yourself up in a house in the countryside is not a good idea so um if you’re in any of the urban areas you’ve got access to everything nce in particular uh every building has a doctor’s office in it it’s it’s amazing no it is amazing there’s I think there’s more than one in my building yeah yeah yeah and you’ve walked like two two buildings there’s more doctors and more doctors yeah and pharmacies of course zillions ofes and pharmacists are basically um trained as almost as high as Physicians and they can they don’t normally prescribe exactly but you can walk in there and say I’ve got this problem and they will definitely help you with it and uh give you some sort of treatment they do like to recommend homeopath AIC and Herbal Remedies before chemical which of course in the US the US pharmacies aren’t able to do that because big Pharma won’t let them right exactly yeah right and that segues into another question we have does the Health Care System provide Alternative Care such as chiropractors naturopaths Etc oh absolutely I don’t I see a naturopath um I do pay for that myself though I don’t turn it into my um they may not be covered by your by your um French Healthcare no but my osteopath is because my general practitioner gave me a prescription to go to the osteopath and that’s all covered they really think outside of the box on these issues and we’ve just had some questions about the cost of living in specific areas and I just think it’s good to point out as you did during the um presentation is the biggest variance is the price of housing right everything else is no matter where you’re living is going to be similar I mean it could be that the restaurants in a small town are a little less expensive than the restaurants in Paris for example but um in fact property tax could be higher in the country than it is in the city because the urban environments support have have more population to support the tax base so um but generally speaking cost of housing is the only biggest difference well and you experienced that too in nce because your property taxes in nce on a much less expensive apartment are about the same as they are in Paris no they’re like 23s they’re 23s okay but they’re still it seems they’re still a little bit higher in these yeah they’re still a little bit higher in than they are in Paris on a if you were to compare it on a per square meter basis [Music] right I have some one person here says I’m Jewish is France anti-semitic I’m Jewish too I know more Jews in France than I ever knew in the United States um I don’t feel any anti-Semitism myself at all uh at least not from the French that does not mean that there isn’t a very large Muslim Community and of course we all know what’s happening in Israel um and Palestine with Palestinians and that’s hasn’t been that hasn’t been good worldwide um but I’m from New Orleans and David Duke who is a k k clucks clan master and the biggest anti-semite anti-semite I can think of came from my mother’s neighborhood so I don’t know um but it’s not something that we feel on a daily basis and I live in the mar and the mar is known to be a Jewish Community especially around rud Rosier and um I have not personally witnessed anything that does not mean that it doesn’t exist it’s [Laughter] everywhere this is adre this is a better question for me how much does wine cost okay Patty Patty knows how much wine costs varies no the price the price varies I I actually the one the one wonderful thing about living in France is you can order wine directly from the from the vineyard and there’s this well-known Vineyard outside of exm provance called chatau La cost and they recently had a sale where one of their white wines was less than five years was a bottle and that included shipping right so for the quality and for yeah so it’s a very high quality line but you can you can spend five a bottle or you can spend 50 a bottle I paid for a bottle of French wine in New Orleans when I was there a couple months ago for um for it was 25 bucks for what I would have paid five EUR for in the grocery store uhhuh right and one is usually cheaper than my perer exactly exactly um we’re down to two minutes um I love this question how important is it to learn French I am stupid with languages okay so here’s here’s the truth okay learning French and speaking French is g to make your experience a whole lot better okay if you are living in a remote place where most they French mostly do not speak English then you’re going to have trouble without it if you’re in Paris or nice or most of the more urban areas uh you’re going to find a very International Community and French isn’t going to be quite as important but there is no doubt that you will have a better experience if you learn French and at least learn some survival French so that you can you know show them that you’re making an effort so you know if you’re not already hooked up with the aliance Fran say Now’s the Time and we’re down to one minute should we answer one more question or Melissa or Renee do you have something you’d like to add here I think we’d like to add Adrian that I think you’ve motivated almost everybody on this particular webinar to to to take next steps to moving to France there there’s there’s no no one that I’ve ever met who is more positive about this potential experience and and I hope that many of us um are going to take advantage and give you a call and have lunch and have a meeting and and learn about just amazing way to just maybe make some changes in our lives at a later point and and do something new um listen it’s really easy okay it’s easy to be positive because I’ve been enjoying life here for 30 years and you know we have literally helped thousands of people people do this and we talk to people every single day Patty’s doing consultations I’m doing them uh Jennifer pret’s doing them and we hear everybody’s stories we know what everybody’s going through and we know that it is a big challenge to make this move but you will never regret doing this never and um and it’s not about the money you guys have to just get over this it’s really about enjoying your life but know that it is going to cost you a lot less if you have four or 5,00 Euros a month to live off of you will live like a king or queen yeah I mean it really is I don’t know Patty your cost of living is about that much no nowhere near nowhere near nowhere near uhuh right right and do you see that view she’s got yeah see that view no yeah no nowhere near um oh I you know what’s my cost of living I don’t know two I mean three grand a month gu on the high end it would be like a little I don’t know 2400 that would be on the high end right uhuh is are not okay this this is for real this is for real this is for real and I’m gonna add just that moving to France was the smartest decision I ever made my friends all thought I was crazy and like Adrian I came for a year or two and I’m here nine years later yep that’s how so just know if you move you’re never going back okay right just get that through your head right now that once you’re over here you will never have a reason to go back and on that note Renee Melissa Patty I’d like to thank and all of you I’d like to thank you all for having come and participated in this uh it will be on YouTube you’ll pass it to your friends and in order to contact us just go to Adrian leads.com and you’ll you know have fun on our website look at all the resources and let us know when you’re ready yep okay thank you ad thank you Patty thank you everybody you bye have a great rest of day