Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

mjdh1957

Hi everyone!

I'm not planning on living abroad, but next year I'm going to be living on the beautiful island of Lipari (off the coast of Sicily) for three months.

I work for myself in book publishing as an indexer, and so can work anywhere. And as I'm 50 next year I thought it would be a great present to myself to take my laptop and work somewhere with spectacular views and a warm climate.

I'm renting a holiday apartment up in the hills for the months of April, May and June. I've got a big discount as I'm renting for such a long period. I intend to work four days a week (enough to pay the bills and spending money) and treat it like an extended holiday. I've got a couple of friends who will be coming out and spending a couple of weeks.

I'm really looking forward to it!

Mrs_pbradley936

Hello,

You might like it so much you want to stay! Most of us start be going on holiday and falling in love with the place. That and the lower cost of living, better climate, friendly people etc. Then you come back here to the cold weather, high taxes, hospital waiting lists, hoodies and their asbos - well I could go on but you get the idea.

EdInvestor

mjdh1957 wrote:

I'm not planning on living abroad, but next year I'm going to be living on the beautiful island of Lipari (off the coast of Sicily) for three months.I'm renting a holiday apartment up in the hills for the months of April, May and June. I've got a big discount as I'm renting for such a long period.

Sounds great: )

More spring than winter, but if anyone has any good websites or other pointers to finding good cheap long-stay deals in nice places, please add them to the Escaping the winter thread.

It's about time we got the Euro snowbird situation sorted

fatnan

Hi!
Sorry have just had chance to get back on to thread after a few days. To answer (belatedly) Seven-Day-Weekend´s question, I live in Murcia -Province, not City. It is not the fact that the locals round here speak some complicated dialect, it is more that I rarely have chance to practise my Spanish. We have only a handful of neighbours, who are all English speaking. It is when we go shopping (about every 2 weeks) or I try to talk to somebody on the phone that I think I will never be able to understand Spanish. Do you think that the MT disks go a bit beyond what is necessary for day-to-day communication, or is it me just being thick? I´m not usually too bad with languages. I cope very well with French and can do a bit of German, so maybe it´s Anno Domini that´s the trouble! Sorry folks, I seem to have gone off the topic a bit.

seven-day-weekend

Hi again, I have found that if I don't use it I lose it. Luckily we have mainly Spanish-speaking neighbours so we have to at least try and manage.

The phone is difficult because you are unable to see body language, we do try to avoid speaking Spanish on the phone if at all possible; but if we do have to use it, we always apologise for our lack of Spanish and then speak by asking questions which can be answered with yes or no. I know that is not always possible, but if you can do it it's much easier.

JenIttels

To wearside and pbradley (and anyone else!)

Do you transfer money to America often? I need to do a one of transaction of around £15k in January but I don't have a bank account out there yet.

Any ideas how I could do it without a US account?

Or I could be allowed to use a friend's US account in which case I need to figure out the best way to move the money. I've read Martin's article about moving money but would appreciate your own opinions on the companies to go with.

Thanks a lot

wearside_2

JenIttels wrote:

To wearside and pbradley (and anyone else!)

Do you transfer money to America often? I need to do a one of transaction of around £15k in January but I don't have a bank account out there yet.

Any ideas how I could do it without a US account?

Or I could be allowed to use a friend's US account in which case I need to figure out the best way to move the money. I've read Martin's article about moving money but would appreciate your own opinions on the companies to go with.

Thanks a lot

Hi Jen

I have an account at Citibank which although is in US$ I cannot transfer money from it. When I come to the states I have to write out a cheque from that account and pay it into my US bank account. Providing there are sufficient funds in the account I can withdraw immediately.

With regards to your question, I suppose that you could arrange to have it paid into your friends US account, the same way that we can transfer money in the UK to someone elses account. Perhaps Pbradley can advise further when he reads your post and my reply.

Mrs_pbradley936

Hello,

Sorry I have not viewed this thread for a while. I have a bank account in the US which I have had for years . Now it is much harder to get one but anyway I usually just arrange a wire transfer via Barclays Bank. I just say that I want to change 20K Stirling into dollars and leave them to it. If you do less than 20K Stirling you get the tourist rate which is not so good.

wearside_2

I can transfer any amount from my sterling Citibank accounts to my US$ Citibank account and receive the appropriate bank rate, not the tourist rate:j

martyn4764

droopsnout wrote:

Meantime, we troll along with our UK-registered right-hand-drive car, now 11 years old ... Perhaps it's us who are daft!

I assume you mean 'originally bought in the UK', rather than UK-registered?

You have re-registered it on French plates, surely?