Hi Debs! What Gywn said! I commented on the other post where you asked about visas before seeing this.
Your dream sounds wonderful! It's not impossible to live on a very low income in the country, plenty of Bulgarian pensioners do it. But it's unlikely to be an easy life without money! If you are willing to work hard on your land to grow food and live very very simply, it can be done, but it's pretty much a full time job doing that. In our village many of the elderly people have no choice but to keep working hard growing food well into their seventies and eighties, because their pension is so low. What one gets back can also be very dependent on outside factors like weather no matter how hard someone works. One of the things I loved about my village house when I first saw it was the peach tree at the front gate, dripping with delicious peaches. But last year, the tree had very little fruit, and this year the hard winter seems to have killed it completely. No plums this year either, the winter killed the fruit buds, and very few cherries. It's been a spring with no blossom. If I was relying on the garden to eat, that means no fruit until autumn, when hopefully there will be some grapes, and the quince, inedible unless cooked but always reliable, is ripe enough to use.
For the question about food prices, have a look at some of the supermarket sites like or . Some things are cheaper, some things are not a lot different to the UK. To live on a budget, shopping at the market and buying what is cheap and in season rather than the supermarket, and eating as little processed food as possible lowers costs. Buying up on store cupboard things when the supermarkets do loss leader sales also helps -- my neighbour gets all the brochures so she can plan what to buy in bulk that week.
Other costs -- council tax is likely to be dramatically less in a village house, probably less than the equivalent of 50GBP a year depending on the village. Water may well be cheaper, and there won't be a sewage cost because most village houses aren't connected, they have a septic tank or cess pit. You will need water to grow those veggies, and that can add to the cost if the house doesn't have a water well. Electricity is a bit cheaper but maybe not a lot less, depending on the region. Gas is not available in most villages, except for Calor gas. I'm told the price of firewood for heating has risen steeply, but that varies by region. too.
Unfortunately 100,000 GBP may not last you as long as you would like. The village house is very likely to need repairs, and furniture and appliances shown in agents' listings may well be broken or not work. You'll need tools to make that veggie garden. So when the costs of making the house liveable and moving there are factored in, you probably will have quite a bit less than 100,000 GBP left to live on. It make the money last longer, you're probably going to need some other form of income. It's unlikely you'll be able to get a permit to work there and if you do, wages there are low. Some sort of remote work might be an option.
We intend to move permanently to Bulgaria to do a very similar "simple village living" thing once I reach retirement age, but we'll have my UK pension and also some other regular income coming in, as well as what we have left over from selling our little UK house. Even though by the time we move our village house should be renovated and fully furnished, I wouldn't want to try moving there with just what we'll have from our house sale and no income. OTOH, I'm older now, when I was 48, I probably would have jumped in and given ot a go! But it's wise to consider some long term planning -- what you'll do when the money runs out, how you'll ensure you have some retirement income, etc. It does change the planning rather a lot if you do just want to do this till the money runs out and then return to the UK vs living in Bulgaria for the rest of your life.
Rather than money, the biggest immediate issue if you want to move full-time rather than just have a summer home will be qualifying for residency. Not to be completely discouraging, but it's not as easy as it used to be to move, no matter what the estate agents ads say. First step is to apply for a D visa, then with that, one can apply for residency, initially annually for five years and then one can get permanent residency. But getting that D visa to begin with is a challenge. This is the same link I shared on the other post, where an immigration lawyer clearly sets out the grounds to get a D visa, and the steps in the process: Before making more plans, look carefully at this and think about how you will qualify for that visa. If you can't see your route to getting the visa, the other option is to buy a village house and just spend summers there; or half time there, half time in the UK working. Brits can stay 90 days per 180 without needing a visa.
I hope that helps!
