Divorced American Stays In France Because Her $900 Pension Goes Further There

Karen Anderson, 57, originally worked as a 911 dispatcher for a California police department before meeting the English man who became her husband. They married in 2011 and moved to the United Kingdom, later splitting their time between the UK and France. In 2016, the couple bought a house in a small French village for €45,000, or about $50,450, closing on the property despite being handed more than 100 pages of paperwork in a language Anderson didn't fully understand, according to Business Insider.

After the couple divorced, Anderson chose to stay in France rather than return to the US. In 2021, she went back to the US to care for her mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer, and was diagnosed with cancer herself after getting screened. Anderson says she'd like to move back to the US but considers it unrealistic given the higher cost of living there. Living on a $900 pension in her small northwestern France village, she says affordable housing and healthcare have made her finances far less stressful than they would be stateside.