I am a single mother with 2 kids hoping to move to Spain.

We currently live in South Africa, where it is (relatively) easy for me to make a living and provide a decent life for them (this wouldn’t be possible in UK unless you earn big money - or depend on benefits - neither applies to me!)

It is very daunting trying to make this move by myself but have to leave SA.

So I’d really appreciate any help or advice on the following:

Schools: Can anyone recommend affordable good quality English-speaking schools (kids don’t speak Spanish yet!). This is the main concern and everything else - house, work, etc, will fall in around the school.

Work: I am a freelance editor working mainly in magazine publishing (but also academic / marketing / fiction). I have quite a nice client base but obviously will have to start all over again in Spain. Is there much work in English-language publishing over there? What are salaries like, for example for a skilled &  experienced subeditor? Ideally I will be able to work from home…

Location: I will go wherever the school and job are! But ideally of course would like to be able to afford somewhere relatively nice for my kids to live - more difficult in big cities I imagine? And long commutes etc would be a problem; obviously I have to be near the kids.

Please help, I am desperate to leave SA but very nervous about making the move by myself.

Thanks in advance 😊

Hi Sasha

Welcome to this great forum!

I’ll see if I can help on all of your points:

Schools: The private English-speaking schools tend to be quite pricey and to be honest if youre children are going to live out here then in my opinion they would be better off joining a Spanish school. Sometimes it is better to be thrown in the deep end and accordign to their ages I’m sure they will pick it up very quickly - the children tend to, its us adults who struggle! There are many free local schools all over Spain so that won’t be a problem.

Work: This one isnt so simple as jobs over here at the moment are few and far between. Funnily enough I work in publishing too; I own a magazine over here for the expat community, which I also franchise to other parts of Spain. But jobs in magazine publishing arent very easy to get. Designer jobs are easier to find than editorial ones. If you want to work from home and work in publishing then maybe you can be a freelancer for international titles, or set something up yourself. Pm me if you want some more info about what I do.

Location: There are some lovely parts of Spain away from the cities. In fact there are too many places to mention on this forum!! Do you want the good weather, do you want to be surrounded by tourists in the summer months? Do you like beach? Some things to consider…

Hope all this helps