Our Home in Provence Cost $200,000: Affordable Living in France

Curious about what it’s like to swap the fast-paced American lifestyle for the charm and tranquility of the South of France? Tuula Rampont did just that, and in this video, she shares her story of why she moved to France.

Discover why she chose the South of France, the hurdles she overcame while adjusting to a new culture, and how slowing down in France has brought her more joy and fulfillment.

Whether you’re planning your own move abroad, living the expat life, or simply curious about what life in France is really like, this video will give you a glimpse into the rewards of a slower, richer lifestyle.

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what’s going on why don’t the French like us why don’t the French like Americans and he was really taken back and now I feel very silly having asked that question couldn’t believe that people were living this lifestyle no one seemed to be really in a rush I don’t make a lot of money and I am living very very well in the south of France B everyone I’m tulan Pont and I am the France correspondent for international living and we’re here in my backyard in the south of France and I’m going to tell you all about about why I moved to this beautiful country and what I love about living [Music] here I have been living in the south of France since 2010 we are just outside the larger city of Tong which is considered the French Riviera between Mar and M this is the Southeastern portion of the country which is classically known in the hearts of Mind who all who love it as the south of France or Pro Vance first of all is just incredibly beautiful that’s why we chose this area secondly reminds me a lot of Southern California because people are out all the time things are happening the cafes are bustling you go to the seaside there’s beautiful beautiful provanto Hilltop Villages it’s a very Dynamic area of course the weather is a plus one thing that really surprised me that I didn’t expect to love is that there are four distinct Seasons here so we do get enough rain and I do have four separate Ro wardrobes sets of clothing which I another had in Southern California so things are green it’s Lush it’s beautiful we have The Vineyards it’s just a very very pretty place to live so that’s why we chose the South and we live 10 minutes away from tulong we lived in tulong for about 7 years in two different apartments when we rented another we purchased and we are now in a village because we wanted a house with a little bit of a garden so our name of our village it’s quite funny it’s called I which comes from the word French word Olive which means olives so our village is full of olive Orchards olive trees and there is even a local Mill you can take your Olive Harvest too to have it pressed for olive oil so all the Romantic wonderful things you can think about of living in the south of FR France in the area known as prance so we’ll go ahead and go through also why I chose this country in the first place and specifically why I continue to love living here first of all um I’m from Ventura California and um one of the things that really shaped me in my life was I was a first generation college student so of course I had a lot of help and assistance along the way but financially I kind of did it all on my own and I was coming up on my 30th birthday and I had never really traveled so I decided now is the time and I took a trip around Europe and we went to um Italy and Switzerland and France couldn’t believe that people were living this lifestyle no one seemed to be really in a rush of course there were people working but the real priority was on spending time with friends and family and you could just feel the slower pace of life and I felt like uh just a weight being lifted off me um um I didn’t really realize how busy and how hectic my life was in Southern California and it really opened my eyes I loved France I thought it was beautiful but I really felt like I couldn’t for one I didn’t speak French felt like I had a hard time accessing what was going on with the culture people seemed standoffish to be completely honest I had um different experiences I stayed for a week on my own in Paris and nobody really talked to me I felt lonely um and then later on I thought it was a big city but still I don’t know I think I guess I expected more at the time but I had a really wonderful experience um in a restaurant recommended by one of my guide books where the owner actually spoke English and I went on my own as a single lady and he spent time to explain the men to me and just ask me where I was from what I was doing uh and that was really impressive because not only did I have one of the best meals of my entire life it was the first time I felt like a French person had been really friendly to me but I had really not the best impression to be honest of France and I think a lot of the stereotypes we all carry around about them being snobby like bordering on rude and it seemed really Chic and inaccessible so I had crossed France off the list at that time as life goes I met a French Guy and um first thing I asked him and I’m very embarrassed to say is I asked him what you know what’s going on why don’t the French like us why don’t the French like Americans and he was really taken back and now I feel very silly having asked that question and he said actually we love you we just we love your your culture we love we watch your TV series we always think you’re 10 years ahead of where we are in business and and my my cousin lives in San Antonio right now and I visited and I love just going out for a hamburger and I was just really just couldn’t believe it so um we just talked about what we’re going to do and I mentioned going back to Southern California and the more I learned about French culture and things they was telling me me um I especially got sold on the 5 weeks of vacation the Health Care System um just the style of life I had my impressions of French people also thought it would be fabulously expensive but um completely absolutely completely surprised first of all I learned that France is not all about Paris we moved to tulon and um we lived there for about seven years the first year was challenging because I didn’t speak any french I didn’t want to learn it I was against it I thought I’m I’m just going to slide in there and try to do my English I got some grammar books from back home the bookstore in Ventura and I studied my grammar and that’s all I really did and my language skills just took off people were incredibly nice they thought you’re making at least an effort even at the market to say like bonjour and how are you and um you know talking in the cafe just I went to the same place every day and little by little my language skills just really took off and people were extremely helpful and always conf complimenting me on trying to speak English and I made friends really easily it was a complete shock I found out that the French people are just very reserved it takes time to get to know them but once you’re in you’re in so it did take me a good year to make um French friends um something pretty amazing that happened uh that enabled me to go to Europe in the first place was I got a second passport and uh I was born in Southern California but my father is from Finland and buy some Stroke of Luck I was able to get a second passport through Heritage so that was the best $500 I ever spent at the Finn Consulate in Los Angeles so if anybody has an opportunity to get a second pass for it I say go for it quickly for the Visa process great news it is not difficult to get a Visa in France uh about 95% of people are going to come over on the long stay Visa the long stay Visa is the equivalent of a retirement Visa there’s no designated golden Visa or retirement Visa in France and so you just need to be making U French minimum wage which I think current figures are about for a single person I think it’s about 1,300 it could be a bit more 1,400 a month uh dollars and that is just the French minimum wage so uh the site to look at is france-visas outcom and you just have to have three months of accommodation when you’re applying for the Visa you don’t have to have a lease or you don’t have to buy a property what you do is go to the france-visas website you fill out the application it’s processed at a third- party processing center and you have to do this in your home country so like us or Canada and then you go for an in-person appointment at the processing center which is VFS um they forward it to the consulate the turnaround time is about 2 weeks so it been streamlined back in the days when you had to go down to the consulate so the long stay Visa is the one you’re going to come over on that’s good for 12 months it renews around the 12- month period and then you renew for four more years 5 years total in France you can apply for 10year residence card or citizenship so we’re going to move on and we’re going to talk about why I found France such attractive destination to move to this is bendal beautiful south of France about a 10-minute drive from where we live and a pretty great example of why I was attracted to the country so even in the first year got to travel around a lot and discover all of the beautiful natural landscapes so from Vineyards of burgundy and Bordeaux The Chateau of the lair Valley gorgeous dordon you have the Spanish influences down in Tulu uh the half timbered fairy tale homes in places like alzas along the German border there are a lifetime of very incredible incredibly beautiful places to discover in France and of course we have all of our European friends to pop on over the high-speed tgv train makes it easily accessible to go to Spain or Italy and also there’s lowcost flights so I thought that while I’m in France and while I have all this diversity of landscape and culture I can also have the opportunity to visit all of these other amazing European countries our neighbors just a few hours away so besides the very attractive Landscapes and the ease of traveling around the country I absolutely absolutely fell in love with the lifestyle I remember that the first lunch uh we went to an Exon provance it lasted 4 hours it was a Sunday we arrived we had an imperatif U then we had three different courses um and I believe I can remember the order there’s a salad course and a cheese course and then we had a dessert maybe it’s five or six courses in the end and then after we had uh what they call natalan the digit steo with a little after dinner drink or after lunch drink uh and then we went and sat around and we played board games and it was just just so sweet and nice and no one is in a hurry so that really was the Catalyst um we eat so well here and it’s not expensive is another thing and I know inflation has gone up um you know especially incredibly in the United States but going out I kid you not you still can get a three course meal for lunch dinner will be a bit more expensive for 36 um dollars and it’s a gourmet meal I go to a lunch um little restaurant right where I work um I I manage an English Language School in tunal and um I can’t believe the quality so there is a lot of competition so that helps keep prices down um but food is a big big factor and just the lifestyle and be able to take it easy and not have to run around and really focus on friends and family and spending um quality time together the other thing that really sealed the deal was the health care um again I’ve been here since 2010 it’s still hard to wrap my head around the healthcare I didn’t access it I swear for years because I’m just not used to going to the doctor even though I had a decent insurance in California it just wasn’t a thing that I did um but Healthcare is incredibly cheap so you are 70 to 80% reimbursed on already very low cost visits to a visit to the doctor is €25 so when you get the the 70% back you’re at $9 a visit specialist visits are um about $617 there’s no age restrictions pre-existing condition limitations you don’t have to join a network um I had a really serious problem with my anle an Le and I went to see the top specialist in the country and all I did was go to a website that allows you to make appointments it’s called Doo Lee and I found his calendar I had to wait a couple months normally don’t but he’s one of the top specialists in the country and he’s in a Marseilles so it’s about a 45 minute driveway but I’m like I I’m I found a top guy I’m going and I’ve done that quite often is just researching who see who’s the best around and go see them and I just put my my information in and I got to on his calendar and I waited and I got everything topnotch high quality another really important thing to mention is that uh which is another really incredible fact if you have um a long-term illness God forbid that you um have cancer or Parkinson’s Alzheimer anything that is going to take um you know months and months of treatment even longer you’re 100% covered on the system um very important to mention is that a little sidebar French taxes I know French taxes can be very very scary good thing is that um you don’t need to pay French taxes unless you are working in France which you cannot do on a long stay Visa so if you’re coming over as a retiree I really feel like it is a paradise because France uh has a tax treaty with the United States so you cannot be double taxed so if you’re Social Security pensions or anything like that they can’t touch that at all so people who are paying into the system system like myself who are working um is coming the health care fees are coming directly out of my paycheck and just to say that um I am even not heavily taxed I don’t make a lot of money but a decent amount for France and my tax rate is 7.5% so people are getting heavily taxed are people who are quite wealthy and who are working in France so the tax question I know it’s a scary one of course if you have Investments or anything you should speak to a tax professional but that is the the Baseline for the taxes in France so uh your health care fees are figured from these uh from what you’re earning in the U in uh France and if you have any active income to declare um that was what they would base your healthc care annual fees for so I will tell you as a ballpark figure annual fees if you’re coming over as a retiree you’ll pay between $2,300 $2,700 um if you even pay that uh a year so that’s a ballpark figure you can check uh with retirees who are living here on Facebook groups like uh Americans living in a dear dream in France if you want to validate that information so that is a really really cool thing um top up insurance if you want to just cover that last uh bit of the 70 or 80% we are a family of three and for private topup insurance which would just you know Sim similar to what we have in the United States we pay $100 a month another very important thing to mention which is not the same in other European countries there is not a private system of healthare you can go on the public system I’m on the public system I’ve only done public system it is completely fine you can go to a private hospital if you like but you’re getting about the same quality of care there are no long waiting times unless of course you’re going to have maybe a procedure or something like that that’s quite normal you’re going to write like three or four months um I’ve had emergencies I’ve opened up the doct leave little schedule and I’ve seen somebody the next day for a dentist for my ankle problem of if had the flu so um choose a place where there are a lot of doctors is also important you don’t want to be in a very rural area but for example places like the south of France major cities that’s you know a very attractive Place often rated as a top system in the world and it is very very affordable this is one of the pretty Village streets of our hometown of UL I’m going to talk next about how France can be surprisingly affordable and even parts of provance you can buy Village Homes for under $120,000 okay so cost of living in France um some very exciting and interesting things to tell you about of course you can’t live everywhere in France for example you can’t live on the shamp or next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris for $2,800 a month but there are many many locations around the country where you can so the biggest savings I mentioned already Healthcare Healthcare is a huge huge saving um number two is going to be uh your housing So currently housing is on average 34% less than the United States this is according to the site numo which I cheack quite frequently so you to see any price changes and huge huge huge is rent in France currently is 49% less than the United States so this is where your savings are going to come in um our house because we’re still working and we are putting our retirement uh hopes and dreams into our our home is more expensive than a lot of people would probably think about purchasing in France so our house is about 1,500 uh square fet and in 2017 we paid $420,000 for it um we’re in amazing location I’m going to show some snapshots little clips of our home and we are in the town of urul it’s a bit of 10-minute drive from tulon why I mentioned tulon is tulon has really great deals on real estate and another cool thing is you are on the seaside so my good American friend from South Carolina she currently renting she is currently renting uh two bedroom apartment it’s about 980 square ft uh in t long she has a view of the port um and the Sea and she is paying paying about $950 a month so I think that is pretty incredible again you’re not going to be in can or niece or san CH pre for that figure you want to look for some of these off the Beaten Track places but they do still exist and you can also find these places on the international living website another place that I really enjoy is the inland area of provance called Green provance um again you’re not going to find places or Village Homes uh near us for under $125,000 but you are going to find them about a 45 minute drive from the Sea Coast and this region is called provance ver so you have Villages like cyac and lorg and cares and the nice thing about it too is that there are a lot of xat communities there so that is really south of France Countryside living uh you’re one of your cheapest spots in France which I absolutely absolutely love which I might have moved there first if I haven’t come here is the dord Donia which is just stunning with the river and the castles and there is a thriving American xot population there which isn’t the case even um 10 years ago so a lot of American expats moving to the dordon our house the size of it you can have that kind of property you might not want to might not want to go that big but just to give you um a comparison you can have that kind of property in the dordon for about $ 26270 th000 so that’s gone up since covid so you’re about I know someone who purchased is for about $218,000 um dollar before pre-co so it has gone up um but there are and that would be like a, 1500 square feet home with a garden Etc and there are deals like that all around the country you can definitely go lower than that but those are some of the examples that I like um other cost of living I got to give I got to grab my handy notes here um groceries you can expect as a couple to pay 600 um dollar $600 to $800 a month we haven’t seen the huge spikes um in inflation like the United States things have gone up but uh I like personally to shop at places like littele so I do a lot of my shopping at lle and then I I do have um customer cards that give me discounts at places like car um public transportation is cheap for example the tgv the highs speed train which I absolutely love you can get yourself um on the budget version of that which is called we go like we like yes yes we go um you can get tickets um train tickets to Paris one way for $17 if you book far enough in advance so that’s really incredible bus pass uh in your city like too long you wouldn’t need a car places like n you don’t need a car you’ve got um the Tramway um bus I mentioned you can walk most of these cities and you’ve got train travel which we don’t do a lot of train travel in the US but train travel in Europe is fantastic and an easy way to get around so you can get a p pass in t long for uh $38 a month um electricity uh last time I checked it’s uh 26% less than other European countries so France is quite low you’re about um $80 a month for electricity not all homes have gas about a third of the homes have gas um in France either wise otherwise they’re heating with electricity gas will run you about $78 um a month water is $45 a month depending on your usage um the cool thing too about cell phones are not outrageous uh outrageously priced either what we do is we do a bundle so we do our cable um TV and um it’s all it’s all one box it comes to we do our cable TV and our cell phone um bundle and it’s $39 a month and you can get at Netflix and we’ve got Amazon and I have Amazon Prime and all that stuff so you got all the modern modern stuff over here in France um as well and U that’s a quick rundown on the prices and how affordable things are I don’t make a lot of money and I am living very very well in the south of France so I hope you enjoyed this video and also learning more about why I chose beautiful France to live and what I really enjoy about being here a couple tips if you’re thinking of making the move yourself first of all make a mus have list so if climate is involved if you’re thinking City versus Village transportation is a question for you you’re thinking you don’t want to have a car you would be a place with easy Transportation access definitely get that list together and then think about if it is in the budget doing a scouting trip the nice thing is that there are a lot of expats in France and retirees American retirees have already made the leap so you can contact them ahead of time schedule meetings go on a coffee date get that boots on the ground information and they’re going to give you the good the bad in the ugly about where they live and you can really see instead of seeing it seeing it as a vacation spot what it’s like to live here really for longer term and then hop on over to the i i website international living website France page and that really has the A to Z of your checklist of where to start off um everything from getting the Visa documentation together to if you’re moving with pets to seeking short-term and long-term rentals so hoping to see you all here in Lael France very soon Mery and bour wishing you a wonderful day from the south of France [Music]