Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

droopsnout

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Still loathed by most sensible women, rather in the way that you hate "mate" and "pal"!

I think most "sensible" women are able to differentiate between patronising or condescending use of these endearments, and friendly usage.

It seems to me, though, that people who like to use them should check first (through listening and observing) whether they would be badly received, and, if using them would cause offence to the other party, refrain from using them.

I also think that our Australian cousins sometimes do demonstrate just how far up our own backsides we Brits can sometimes be!

gfplux

Firstly, I have to say I am a little intimidated by all you clever people who know your grammar. Please forgive my mistakes I always try my best. When at school my greatest (or is that biggest?) problem was spelling. When we had spelling tests in primary school I was "lucky" to get as many as 10 out of 100. In secondary school although loving English literature I always did poorly in exams as my spelling always let me down. In fact that blighted all my work as I would lose marks for spelling in all subjects (late 50's and early 60's). How lucky I was that in business very few people cared about spelling, it was all about the product and the profit.
Today I am so grateful for spell checkers, in fact up to now I have had my checker highlight over 7 mistakes that have now been corrected.
On another matter. As it is a Sunday morning I have just returned with my Sunday Times from an "English" shop called Little Britain. http://www.littlebritain.lu/
On the way I bought some bread and in the queue my thoughts turned to bread prices (very sad) Today 500g of 6 corn loaf was €2.26 and normal brown loaf €1.89. It costs an extra €0.15 to have it cut into slices in the shop. How do those prices compare with where you are?

seven-day-weekend

1.20E for a HUGE sliced loaf in Carrefour. 1E for a smaller brown one in Mercadona.

65 centimos for a baguette from our village panaderia, but it goes stale in a day. I suppose though that Spaniards (and French) are used to buying fresh bread every day, they don't expect it to last several days.

droopsnout

Depends where you buy it. In the Intermarche supermarket, a baguette is 0,45 euro and a flûte is 1,65 euro. At the "proper" baker's, you can add around 30% to that. I've never asked for a loaf to be cut, but I've seen others, and it seems to be done free.

If you want a British-style loaf, tough! Nearest thing is "pain de mie", but it's more American in style, and relatively expensive.

There is a much wider choice of loaves in the UK, most of which seem to be stodge, but some are really good.

Merrywidow

Hi gang -I had just finished my weekly Tesco order before tuning in to here. I always have their Farmhouse Oatmeal batch bread, 800grms for £1.15. It is delicious - and has a short life. However, it goes blue with mould before it ever dries out. I freeze the slices in plastic bags and they last me a week. The birds love the old stuff too. For something entirely different - Hooray, the frogspawn have arrived in my pond - sure sign of Spring. Sun is trying hard too - seems much brighter and warmer.

donny-gal

Out here, the supermarkets seem to be fighting and offering a small baguette for 0.45, English Bread is available but often almost or over 2€. I got a sliced brown loaf from our local Aldi for 0.75 while the slice are not quite a large as a UK, it was I think a little longer. I split it into 3 and put two of the thirds into the freezer, as we don't eat a large amount of bread and I find it does not help the diet:rolleyes: .

At home, we bought ourselves to a Pansonic Breadmaker, the one with the additional component which allows you to add seeds or fruit at the appropriate time. We much prefer this to the shop bought and usually make a 5 seeded loaf, DH is quite good at it. We have noticed how much longer it lasts than shop bought bread. Son also noticed the same, as he ends up taking a loaf back with him when he visits, over Xmas he and the GF even made some while we were away. I tried the electricity usage meter on it, and found it only cost 5p in electricity. We keep thinking about one here, but they are not cheap, and the kitchen is small, and the cheaper Lidl/Aldi versions do not seem to have as good a reputation for the quality of the bread they produce.

Supermarkets out here seem to be fighting for business.

DG

gallygirl

donny-gal wrote: »

Supermarkets out here seem to be fighting for business.

DG

That's good to hear DG - can you remind me whereabouts in Spain you are?

OH and I always have a 'game' of spot the cheapest supermarket when we go away. In Jan we went to Lanzarote & felt prices had risen a lot, over and above the € rate change. We didn't cost bread though - just essentials like wine & lemons . We're off to our place in Almeria at Easter so will be taking the Lanzarote prices with us & comparing (we know how to party when we're on holiday )

Our local baker's in Spain delivers every morning, I think it's 75 centimos for a baguette. Can't comment on staleness as rarely gets cold let alone stale

donny-gal

gallygirl, we're on the Orihuela Costa.

Carrefour had some low fat yohurts for 1€, together with loads of other things packaged up for a euro, various frozen veg. etc., unfortunately the leaftlet has been thrown out now. I tend to use Lidl & Aldi a lot too.

DG

seven-day-weekend

We use mainly Lidl and Mercadona, but a couple of Carrefours have opened last year and we do like them a LOT, so we use them too.

(We got our Christmas meat from there - BOGOF Aberdeen Angus steak....yum!).

donny-gal

As I may have said before, we are spoilt for choice of supermarkets where we are, within a 20 minutes walk, we have

Consum (like our Co-operative)
Gama (Jjumera?) a cross between a Spanish/German/English Supermarket
Eroski
Carrefour
Supercor
Lidl
Aldi
Masymas
Mercadona

Let alone various "English Supermarkets"

DG