Q. I am a retired dentist living in France. Owing to the decline in the value of the £ against the Euro my pension is severely devalued.
What can I do about this?
A. Thanks for the question.
No doubt youve been racking your brain about this!
Obviously, your problem is that your income is in sterling, and there is nothing you can do to change that. All your expenditure, however, will be in Euros, which again you cant change if you continue living in France.
Your options are:
- move back to England, matching the currency of your expenditure to that of your income. Presumably you may make a tidy profit on selling a property sold in Euros and converting that back to buy one now in Sterling after a somewhat savage property slump in the UK (I appreciate this option is probably a non-starter!)
- wait until GB joins the Euro, but that would likely be at the lower levels as you have experienced
- if you have investments or savings then you could make sure all those are invested in Euros, which again match your expenditure. This could include any unsecured pension plan if applicable, which could possibly even be transferred to France, but any NHS pension would only ever be in sterling.
Im sorry we cant be of any more help, but I do think your options are limited, without taking too much risk.
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