{"id":19728,"date":"2026-08-02T07:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T07:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/19728\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T07:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T07:21:08","slug":"brit-family-of-6-move-to-poland-for-house-double-the-size-and-12-dinners-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/19728\/","title":{"rendered":"Brit family of 6 move to Poland for house double the size and \u00a312 dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Twigger<\/a> Content Editor and SWNSEmilyPhillips (Emily Phillips)<\/p>\n

07:00, 02 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

\"Balinski<\/p>\n

They moved earlier this year<\/p>\n

A Brit family of six moved to Poland to live in a house more than double the size overlooking a forest – and say dinner out costs just \u00a312.60.<\/p>\n

Brittany Balinski, 35, her husband, 44, and their four kids made the move in July 2026, swapping their three-bed semi in north Warwickshire for a six-bedroom three-storey home in Gdansk.<\/p>\n

After speaking with and visiting friends who had moved abroad and were thriving, Brittany also noticed her husband’s “quality of life” declining after years of working night shifts as a HGV driver.<\/p>\n

Brittany realised with her remote job and business she could support their family wherever they were based.<\/p>\n

With her husband a Polish national, and all four children holding dual citizenship, Brittany was able to apply for D visa which means she can stay for a year, applying for residency later down the line if she would like.<\/p>\n

Selling her business \u2013 a shop – in December 2025, the couple also sold their house in North Warwickshire for \u00a3275,000 in just 24 hours.<\/p>\n

So as not to disturb their children’s school year, they rented a friend’s home for \u00a32,700 for the last 11 weeks in the UK until July when they made the move.<\/p>\n

\"Balinski<\/p>\n

Gdansk is a beautiful city<\/p>\n

Now, they pay just \u00a31,400 per month rent for the new six-bed pad.<\/p>\n

Brittany is “loving” that the home fits the size of her family and their needs, compared to their \u00a3850 mortgage in the UK.<\/p>\n

Brittany, a content creator, who does not want to share where she moved from in Warwickshire, said: “I’ve never really considered I’d make a very good immigrant.<\/p>\n

“I feel very British through and through.<\/p>\n

“My husband has worked nights the whole duration of him living in the UK.<\/p>\n

“After having our fourth child and the chaos of four kids \u2013 it’s like a creche \u2013 he was working really hard and I noticed a slight decline in his quality of life.<\/p>\n

“It was a combination of things, my husband’s declining quality of life, my friends leaving and my friend who had settled in Sweden that made me turn a corner in my own mind and think ‘this could be us’.<\/p>\n

“We visit Poland multiple times a year, at least twice if not up to five.<\/p>\n

“Our kids are nine, eight, six and nearly four and when I said ‘would you like to live in Poland?’ I didn’t even finish my sentence, and all the kids were like ‘yeah'”.<\/p>\n

In December 2025 the family took a “reccy” to Gdansk for three nights and found it “comfortable, safe and doable” as well as landing on a school all four kids loved.<\/p>\n

After selling their home in January 2026 just 24 hours after it hit the market, the family lived in a rental cottage for 11 weeks \u2013 with Brittany’s husband hiring a \u00a3500 van to transport a few of their big furniture items over to Gdansk.<\/p>\n

A family member drove the van home with Brittany’s husband following behind in a new car he had bought out there.<\/p>\n

They paid \u00a31,500 for a courier to take some other boxes, with Brittany’s husband driving to Poland in July 2026 with their eldest child and family dog, with Brittany following by taking a flight with their youngest three for \u00a3700.<\/p>\n

“We literally managed it in less than \u00a33,000,” she says.<\/p>\n

“The house we owned in the UK we had lived in for 10 years and had focused on growing and raising the children and I wasn’t very precious.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t have prized pieces of furniture which is the beauty of living in Poland now.<\/p>\n

“Even though we’re renting and the property is signed on for a year I feel already more settled and at home in this property than I ever did in my own house.<\/p>\n

“Purely because I’ve never felt more comfortable and have really made the right decision by my children is suppose.”<\/p>\n

Brittany says relatively speaking Polish wages are “lower” than in the UK, and cars can be expensive but diesel prices are around 35-40p cheaper than at home in the Midlands.<\/p>\n

\"Balinski<\/p>\n

Life is a lot cheaper in Poland<\/p>\n

“It’s swings and roundabouts really, you choose what to put your money into,” she says.<\/p>\n

“Days out are expensive.<\/p>\n

“We went to IKEA on Monday and fed six of us for \u00a312.60 at the restaurant and it’s closer to \u00a324 in the UK.<\/p>\n

“Poland is very old school and oldy-worldly with bills.<\/p>\n

“In the UK it’s ringing every company and saying ‘I live at this new address and I’m the new tenant’.<\/p>\n

“In Poland, no, the landlord physically has to take the new tenant to the office and swap over the paperwork.”<\/p>\n

Enrolling in a Polish language course at a local college, Brittany is set to attend three times a week and says that driving there will help her with driving as she says she is “frightened” at the prospect of a left hand drive on the right side of the road.<\/p>\n

Already she is “loving” the remoteness of their new home.<\/p>\n

“I’ve lived rurally all my life yet there is no road noise, no vehicle noise,” she says.<\/p>\n

“The houses are so far away from each other you can’t hear anything.<\/p>\n

“It’s overlooking a lovely patch of forest, you can see all the pine trees in the distance and you can only hear the birds, it’s lovely.<\/p>\n

“Our house at home and the garden was insanely tiny […] so it’s nice to be able to breathe in nature outside.<\/p>\n

“Yesterday we drove 20 minutes and were on the beach.<\/p>\n

“It felt like a holiday but it’s not, this is life now.<\/p>\n

“There is no long-term plan and nothing set in stone but it’s already feeling like we’ve definitely made the right decision.”<\/p>\n

Sharing updates of her move on social media, the response has been “overwhelmingly positive”.<\/p>\n

Brittany said: “A few comments turned sour in terms of politics which I’ve had to ignore as it got overwhelming.<\/p>\n

“It has nothing to do with anything going on in the world politically or culturally.<\/p>\n

“That has absolutely gobsmacked me how much traction the comments have on what our reasons and motives are.<\/p>\n

“It’s deeply personal reasons.<\/p>\n

“This move works for us and is doable purely because my husband is a Polish national.<\/p>\n

“I can imagine it’s difficult as a completely British family with no ties to Poland.<\/p>\n

“People ask ‘why Poland?’ And it’s simply because we can.<\/p>\n

“There aren’t other countries you can move to in the blink of an eye and so cheaply as well.”<\/p>\n

Cost breakdownUK<\/p>\n

Mortgage: \u00a3850 per month<\/p>\n

Council tax: \u00a3200<\/p>\n

Water: \u00a3100<\/p>\n

Gas and electric: \u00a3200<\/p>\n

Food: \u00a3230 per week<\/p>\n

Family meal out: \u00a380-\u00a3100<\/p>\n

Vet consultation and prescription: \u00a380<\/p>\n

Litre of milk: \u00a31.20<\/p>\n

Butter (100g): \u00a30.80<\/p>\n

Poland<\/p>\n

Rent: \u00a31,400<\/p>\n

Bills: TBC but estimate of \u00a3350 per month<\/p>\n

Food: \u00a3170 per week<\/p>\n

Family meal out: \u00a345-\u00a360<\/p>\n

Vet consultation and prescription: \u00a330<\/p>\n

Litre of milk: \u00a30.68<\/p>\n

Butter (100g): \u00a30.50<\/p>\n

Looking for more from MyLondon? Subscribe to our daily newsletters here<\/a> for the latest and greatest updates from across London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Twigger Content Editor and SWNSEmilyPhillips (Emily Phillips) 07:00, 02 Aug 2026 They moved earlier this year A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,3063,12443,12442,558],"class_list":["post-19728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-poland","tag-property","tag-property-prices","tag-real-life","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}