ESSENTIAL TIPS FOR MOVING TO FRANCE: 4 MUST-DO THINGS WHEN YOU ARRIVE!
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- As a new Expat in France, some things may be overwhelming. There's a lot you need to do to get settled, beyond just unpacking your boxes. The first thing everyone needs to do is let France know you've arrived by validating your Visa.
If you're a senior, collecting US Social Security benefits, you may want to transfer the payments and have them made in Euros directly into your new France bank account,
If you're moving from a state in the US that has reciprocal agreement with France, you may want to swap your driver's license for a new France driver's license and skip the classes, and tests
And last, but certainly not least, you're going to want to request an absentee ballot so you can continue to vote in the upcoming US elections.
We'll review how WE took care of all of those things in this video.
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If you're looking for the contact information for the translator we used, here it is:
Carmen - bctraductions11@gmail.com
Hi! I'm An Scott. I'm a happily retired 70 year old woman with my “golden years” on the horizon, living the “good life”, whatever that is on any given day, with my fun husband Jeff, and our “bossy” little Yorkie, Bella. We have recently moved from the USA to the beautiful south of France and made our new home in Nice France.
Moving from the USA to a foreign country is no small “project”. Through my videos, we’ve been taking you through the process, sharing the steps, talking about what we’ve learned and the ups and the downs.
And now, we continue to share our life, our new life, here in Nice, getting settled, adjusting to the “French” way of doing things, dealing with the French “red tape” and all the while, making every wonderful day in Nice, the best day ever…
SUBSCRIBE, FOR FREE, to my channel and come with us!
MUSIC CREDITS:
ES_ Peace At Last by Atlas Kind
ES_ Morning Laughter by Water Mirrors
Most of my videos are shot with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Note Ultra Smartphone and a circular ring light, as needed.
I cannot thank you enough for all of this wonderful logistics information. I am American, but lived in Nice for two years when I was a preteen with my French mother and have returned many times since then. My husband is Swedish and we have decided to retire to Nice in 2025.
Transferring the Social Security monthly payments is just unbelievably helpful. Thank you so much. I will ask you, if you could please allow more time to read when you have text up. You need about double the time you’re allowing to be able to read it. Other than that, I consider these to be a gold mine. We are coming to Nice for three weeks in October to set things up. Hope we can get to meet you guys then.
Always keep in mind, if you need more time to read text I have in a video, the beauty of RUclips is that you can pause the video, slide back and re-read, and take as long as you like to read it. 😊
Agree, very helpful! I won't be in the social security situation for about 10 years, but it's a relief to hear how straightforward it is.
I absolutely love your videos. They are so informative! I'm moving to Nice before the end of the year, and you provide a great preview of the essential tasks I need to complete before moving, and all the wonderful experiences that await me in the South of France. I also heeded your advice to begin learning French before I arrive in Nice. I'm working with a French tutor. Merci!
Thank you for taking the time to share your kind words! 😊 ❤️
Great info on the bank accounts, SSA, and DL.. You both look fantastic in your formal wear at the start of the video. Luckily I am a dual citizen with the EU. I head to Beaulieu Sur Mer next week. Cannot wait. With T-Mobile it is 25 cents a minute to call from France to the USA.
That was actually our wedding day, a little over 9 years ago, in the formal attire ❤️
I am having a chuckle listening to the driver’s license situation because I have never had a driver’s license in my whole life. I spent my 72 years traveling solo, to wherever I needed to get to, including countries in four different continents and not one time did I wished to be the one driving.
Many thanks! I've had several long-stay French visas over the years, but not the last 15 years. I never thought about how the process might have changed in this age of QR codes, I assumed I would be going down to the tabac to buy the fiscal stamp and put up with being grilled by the guy behind the cash register asking me questions that are none of his damn business before agreeing to sell me the stamp, like always before, lol. Nice to know the process is more streamlined these days. I'm currently in the US about 6 months/ year, going to France for 6-8 week stays several times a year, and waiting out my youngest child's graduation before making the permanent move next summer, probably with him in tow.. I'm not too afraid of the process, but you've clued me in on how a few things have changed that I hadn't even bothered to think about. Many, many thanks!
Thank you for the excellent information. I am a Florida resident and planning a move to France. Best wishes always. Ralph Rocchiccioli
When you renew, a good thing about having your SSI deposited into your french bank -- is that when you renew you can simply show your french bank statements and not have to deal with showing your US bank statements AND having them translated - it makes things a touch more convenient when that time comes!
Thanks! Good to know!
Thank you for explaining all this. The process is convoluted and anything but simple or easy
You create and exude such JOYful energy, not allowing setbacks or administration to be a "hassle" that is overwhelming. I"m sure, one has to expect that there will be glitches and hassles at times yet, remaining flexible, letting it go, sleeping on it, going for a walk and taking your mind off of the "challenge" will give your brain that time it needs to find the solution. Bravo on another wonderful Video. See you in July!!!
So glad my other half is European and I don’t need to go through the visa situation.
Can go straight to residency!
Excellent information. Thank you for taking the time to share!
I was on the she of my seat for the driver’s license debacle! I belated a huge sigh of relief at the end. I could feel your anxiety!
I know, right!? I am so glad that was resolved. It was terrible timing. We've almost gotten all of our translations to make the exchange of our licenses now. Don't want anything to go wrong, 😉
Great practical information in this video! We have our VFS interview scheduled for next month, so watching your progress a couple steps ahead of us is very reassuring.
Thanks! The interview at VFS is not really an interview. They really just make sure you have all of your documents and take your fingerprints and they forward everything to the French Embassy for processing. Check out our past video about our appt with VFS in Miami to turn in our paperwork for our Visas.
Love the new opening! You both look fabulous, well rested and you wear Nice well.
Thank you . Your videos always very informative. Appreciated
Hello ! I m french,if you live in Nice,don t forget to go to Cannes during the "festival de Cannes ".❤
Yes, we were there last week!
Beware of not buying fake big brand items in Vintimille. There are a lot of them but the French customs do a lot of checks on the trains and road coming back from Italy. If you get caught the items are confiscated and you have to pay a heavy fine.
Beware of "not" buying? We saw lots of knock-offs, many that looked very authentic. We don't buy those things. I'd rather have the real ones. Had my "fun" back in the day, many years ago , when I never dreamed I could afford to own real ones, shopping on Canal Street in NYC. Those days are long behind me.
Hi An and Jeff
Greetings from New Zealand 2 u both❤❤
We r enjoying yr vlogs.
Fondest regards fron Victoria & Richard 👱♀️😎
Excellent info - thank you so much!!
So informative! I appreciate you sharing your first hand experiences!❤. A bientôt!
Merci beaucoup!
I am not sure I want to drive in Europe. And too much hassle with exchanging your DL for a French one.
Love the information you provide and optimistic vlogs!
We have no plan whatsoever to own a car, here in France. We do plan to travel and on occasion may want to rent a car to do that....or if we just need to go to a store and pick up things that are too large to move by ourselves, while riding a tram or walking down the street. You can rent cars very inexpensively here. And there are some places it would be tough to go to without a car, like the lavender fields of Provence, Tuscany Italy....you need a car to get around, unless you want to spend a fortune using taxis or Uber, if you can find them. You need a driver's license to rent a car and your US license is only good for one year once you move to France.
Hi An. I did not see where the translator is located. love your videos … following the process. Thank you
The information is under the video in information on the video, about halfway down the page after my social media and contact info. I don't know exactly where in France she is located. I simply use her email address to work with her.
It has always been that you have to turn in license plates to DMV when you sell youe car,,, exception is a trade-in with a dealer that handles that for you. Love watching your Nice Adventures. Take Care
Good Morning!
❤❤❤
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us. I learned a lot from your step-by-step explanation of each process and the challenges you faced getting through each one. You two are real troopers! Looking forward to your future videos.
Dear An and Jeff, one more helpful and fun video! Thank you! Quick question. Do you have by now a rough and approximate estimate of how much do you spend on groceries shopping in Nice? :) Thank you so much! Elena, Seattle
We haven't really kept track of it and we're still buying generic things just to have in the cabinets, for our apartment, as we determine we need them, like baking supplies (flour, sugar, spices, condiments, etc), serving dishes, kitchen tools, etc. I'd say maybe $300 month for food. It really depends on how often we eat out and/or conversely cook at home. If we ate at home more, I think we'd spend more. We have breakfast at home, 6 days per week, lunch at home 3-4 days a week and probably have dinner at home 2-3x per week and eat out the rest of the time.
Can you give the translator info? Thanks!! The s was great!!
bctraductions11@gmail.com Her name is Carmen
Loved this very helpful video. Have you ever looked at Menton to retire? I’d love to know your opinion on this idea😊
We did consider Menton, however, we didn't feel that it has as much to offer us, as Nice. There's always something happening in Nice, and the public transportation here, particularly, if you're a senior, (and don't want to own a car) can't be beat by any of the other towns along the coast.
Thank you for your response. Good to know about transportation
Bonjoun, i cant find the information on the translator you recommended. Please forward. Merci janet
Check again. It wasn't there right when the video was published but I did add, it a couple of hours later, on Sunday. It's in the details/info on the video, below the video, maybe half way down.
Hi An, great content, thank you for sharing. What do you think went wrong with your US cell phone number ? Was it the carrier? Didn't you sign up with Mint? and what do you plan to do with that cellphone number if it doesn't work? My experience with these less expensive plans tend to fail on delivering on the service. I know that others have continued with a service like Verizon or AT&T.
We had Verizon for many years. Verizon is very expensive to continue to use in France. $10 per day for International Service plan with your regular monthly bill which was expensive . Dumped them for Mint Mobile just before we moved because of the price. Unlimited everything for only $15mo, prepaid for 90 days. The problem was that when we're in Europe, Mint Mobile wants us to have an International plan to make calls. So you put dollars in what they call a "bank for International calls. Not an issue, But it doesn't automatically draw from that "bank" if you want to make a call. You have to manually go to Mint Mobile and turn it "on", for a day or a week or ? Can't just be for one call. When I turned it on to try to make a call, I'd get an error message saying "outgoing calls blocked"! I spent an hour on the phone with Mint Mobile, using my France number to call them. (Cost me 35 Euros for the call) and they couldn't figure out why I can't call the US or why I'm not receiving any "4-digit security codes from my US bank when they tried to send them or why I only get the outgoing calls blocked message when trying to use the Mint Mobile sim card. Plus since I have 2 Sim cards on my phone, I can only have one on at a time. If the Mint Mobile card isn't turned on, I don't receive any codes or texts from the US. So I can't call out, must use my France Sim card to make a call and never get the 4 digit codes. A mess.
Thank you both, An & Jeff, for this information!!! We are so excited to start the process as soon as our home sells in Portland. Question: did you sell your Florida home before or after you started the LSV process? Another question: When you asked SS to direct deposit in your French Wise bank account, did you use your new French address? Third question: Do you still maintain a US address? We heard we must for US banks and SS, so I am looking into a PNP Baribas (*maybe a different bank after watching this video?) International account during the transition from America to Toulon (or maybe Nice). Merci!!! Dean & Cindy
Hi, we didn't own a home in Florida to sell. Yes we have a US mailing address only for our US credit cards and US Bank accounts. Once our SS starts to be deposited into our France bank acct we are closing the US bank accounts. Too much trouble trying to get 4-digit security codes, etc. We use physicaladdress.com. We aren't requesting to have our SS moved to our Wise card. We're transferring it to our France bank account, Credit Agricole. Just an FYI, we tried to open our old BNP Paribus account in the US too, but as soon as we told them we were moving to Nice, they transferred us to their Nice International banking representative. We had to open the account thru her and she wouldn't finalize the approval of the acct until we met with her, in person, here in Nice. We have subsequently moved our acct from there. BNP requires that you keep 10,000 Euros in a savings account and not touch it, if you want a debit card from the bank (which also has a monthly fee). We didn't want to have 10k tied up in any bank. Last, when we originally got our Wise cards we were still in the US and used our US home address. When we moved we changed the address to our new France address.
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears Thank you An & Jeff! I will look into both Wise and Credit Agricole. Another question: Why Nice? We looked at Nice via RUclips but found Toulon to look less busy. But video can distort. Also, Toulon seems cheaper to rent. We want to rent and travel. And we want to be in a secure place to invite friends from Ukraine (to visit or escape the russian genocide). Italy looked complicated, as did Spain and Portugal. The French healthcare looks so much better. A neurologist MS scholar I contacted stated that Nice has a good neurologist (Cindy has MS). Merci, again!!!!! Dean & Cindy
@DeanRamser As "seniors" moving from Florida, Nice ticked all of our boxes on what we were looking for. And the public transport system here in Nice makes it very easy to live without a car! For our answer to "why Nice", check out the video we did on why we selected Nice, last year, as we were planning our move. 😊 Here's a link - ruclips.net/video/dCZJXjMqocM/видео.html
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears Merci An & Jeff!! Thank you both for your experience, insight, and advice.
@@DeanRamser Hi, Dean and Cindy! I am always interested in your comments to An and Jeff because I feel we are kindred spirits or something like that. I live in Longview WA just up the 5 from Portland and my daughter is in Portland. I am planning, as you are, to get over to France the sooner the better! I am wondering if there is a way we can meet and share what we know with each other? I feel that we would really hit it off, I think we share a big enthusiasm for this change in our lives and could be friends in France! My s/o hangs his hat in Hood River, is a retired university professor and I am a retired RN. If interested, name a place any Sunday afternoon. Gloria
Thank you An and Jeff. Very informative and many thanks for sharing with me. My husband will never drive outside of America. You guys are very brave. An, you look smashing today; seems like Nice is agreeing with you. If all goes well, our visit in Sept. will be our first and we shall see how it goes with that! I am open to change, but my spouse, well that's another story! I appreciate your time guys and many thanks again.
May I ask what brand of bright blue shirt Jeff was wearing is? Jeff is so handsome on that beautiful shirt. I want to buy one for my husband. Thanks in advance!
Yes, the shirt does look good with his gray hair! The shirt is "Reel Legends". I think he bought it Bealls in Florida. They have an online website. I think they sell the brand on Amazon too. You can probably order one from there. It's a thin material that is cool in the summer and protects you from the sun. We used to be out on our kayaks and other boats, back in Florida and he bought them to wear to keep from getting sunburned.
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears thank you very much
@@WanderingDaysWithMertzs you're welcome!
Set up a Magic Jack account with a US number, it's not too expensive
I believe you can only do that from the US and it requires a landline. We don't have a landline and I don't really have any need for my old telephone number. I am dropping it at the end of the month. Someone had suggested that to us before we moved, as well, but we switched to Mint Mobile instead. Bad decision. For the most part, everyone we care to hear from, in the US, knows how to contact us on Whatsapp instead. If we could just get our Credit card company and US banks to use it life would be perfect. We don't really need to contact them for anything anymore and rarely even use our cc, so for us, almost a non-issue.
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears No, no. It's completely virtual. I use it for calls to the US and banking where I don't have a Whatsapp connection. If you can set up Whatsapp connections for entities other than banks, credit card companies, brokerages that will be a big help too. Just google magic jack and look at the section that explains how it works.
For me a French man, it is very weird that the reciprocal agreement to exchange the driving license is not with the federal state (whole USA) but only with some states. Are you better drivers in those states ? I guess, being from a very centralized country, we're not used to all these states differences...
I have no idea how or why France decided these are the only states they will have a reciprocal agreement with. 🤔
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears It's not a French decision but a US state decision. It would be much simpler for French administration to exchange all US licenses.
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears I think it has to do with what age you are eligible for a licence. In France you have to be 18 years old, so the reciprocal agreement is with those states in the US that have the same requirements.
@7314jazzy That can't be the reason. In PA where I got my first driver's license, I was 16 yrs old. In FL, where we moved to France from, also a reciprocal state, allows driver's licenses at 16 as well.
Bonjour
Didi! Where have you been? We're still hoping to get together with you sometime. Be sure to send a PM. Have a good weekend!
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears i had vacation with my parents and my partner therefore I wasn’t around much.
🤥@@Didi-ir1gr I checked my Instagram account and never received any request from you.
Hi Anne I sent invitation on instagram so that I can contact you ❤
Didi, I never received any PM on Instagram or elsewhere