Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

gfplux

Another (expensive?) bread story from Luxembourg.
Yesterday I bought from the supermarket baker my favourite bread. This is a 550gram Multicereales (bakers spelling). It is in a twisted shape with a topping of sunflower seeds. The cost €2.40 plus 12 cents to have it sliced in the shop.
I know there are cheaper breads and I will have a look for them. However many of these more expensive breads are so yummy you could eat them on there own.

To balance the bread prices there is a Portuguese festival at the supermarket at the moment. I bought some Mateus Rose for €2.80 a bottle which I thought was quite a good price.
It reminded me of my early wine drinking in England in the early 60's. In my late teens I had been introduced to "Spanish" Sauternes. Then a little later if my memory serves me correctly Mateus Rose became a fashionable drink. Am I right, does anyone remember that?

seven-day-weekend

I remeber Mateus Rose.

One thing that is very cheap here is wine.

We have a contest with some young friends to see who can find the cheapest, drinkable wine.

Got a nice red for 99 centimos from Lidl although the wine we drank yesterday (which our friends provided) was 1.40 euros, muy caro!

You can buy it here from as little as 60 centimos for a litre carton, it is just about drinkable, but is perfectly OK for cooking.

And of course we are always getting the village wine given to us in plastic coke bottles, many of the villagers make wine, it is a bit like a medium sherry, they call it malaga here.

gfplux

Wow great price for wine seven-day-weekend.

gfplux

I have to mention a great film that I saw with my Wife last night at out local cinema in Luxembourg

THE READER, what a powerful film. When you see the film you can understand why Kate Winslet got the Best Actress Oscar. We went to the 7 pm performance. Luckily we had reserved as it was a sell out. It is one of those films where the whole audience sits in silent awe of the story and the acting, no coughing, no whispered comments, perhaps just a few sobs and sniffs. When it ends only a few people stand up to leave, the rest sit in shocked wonderment.
It also stars Ralph Fiennes and David Kross.
Do go and see it if you can. As always these types of films are best seen on the large screen but if you can not do that do rent the DVD when it comes out.

seven-day-weekend

Hopefully we can see it in the UK in June.

Get two-for-one Cinema tickets using the Orange Wednesdays!

mioliere

Thanks for the welcome, lovely Donny-gal! We're starting to pack - I have loads and loads of books and, as happens every time we move, DH is moaning about them all! I can't live without my books, so they're coming with me and that's that! I have weeded some out, though, but it's very difficult.

Oldernotwiser - that's a fantastic link, thanks. I've just registered and found loads of people in my part of France, and I've also emailed the link to DH's two brothers who live out there. I'm sure they'll find it useful, too. Many thanks!

Kathy

Carmen

Hi Mioliere,
Good luck on your move.
You may also find this site helpful?

http://france.angloinfo.com/

Carmen x

droopsnout

Hi, Mioliere.

I've just got back home to France after three weeks visiting family and friends in the UK.

Good luck with the move to France. There are, in fact, lots of forums where help and advice can be exchanged, but do be careful: in my experience, almost as much WRONG info is given out by well-meaning but misinformed people. Read the forums regularly and carefully, compare what you read to what you find out for yourself, and you'll soon learn which posters you can trust. I've now given up reading them, but certainly when you are in the throes of moving, and during the first year or two, the boards can be helpful, if judiciously used.

One little bit of advice to start with: the different French counties, and other bodies like county health authorities, all seem to have their own ways of doing things, and the advice that one person may give regarding her/his county may be perfectly accurate there, but wholly inappropriate for another county. The best advice is to take the bull by the horns and make the enquiries yourself from your own county's staff. If you speak some French, chances are you'll be met with courtesy and interest.

Of course, carrots and I, living in France already, will be pleased to help out when we can. You only have to ask!

Best wishes to you and your family, and welcome to this thread!

mioliere

Thanks to Carmen and Droopsnout for the welcome and the advice.

We've had our property in France for four years now so have some experience of dealing with certain aspects, such as the utilities and so on. We already have a phone connection but not the internet, so that will be one of the first considerations. We have friends and family there, too, and they have been a mine of information. One couple regularly checks our property for us, chucks the bacteria sachets into the loo for the fosse, and will arrange to be there for deliveries of heating oil and so on, so we're very lucky there. We had to have the fosse installed three years ago (£7,000!!) and we also had a new central heating boiler installed, the radiators upgraded and the electricity rewired. We have installed a new kitchen (we took it to France from the UK, on top of the motorhome we had at the time!), and upgraded the bathroom. We opened up the attic and put stairs in - the only way up there before that was a rickety outside staircase! The house is big but only half-renovated; at the moment it is ideal as a holiday home but, for living in, we need to renovate the rest of it or we'll go stir-crazy! We have lots of land with beautiful views over farmland and countryside and very sociable neighbours - all French in our hamlet at the moment. They have been very welcoming and hospitable to us; a neighbouring farmer even cuts our grass for us and all he'll take in return is a bottle of Whisky and choccies for his wife! Our local Mairie is great; he's been happy for us to turn some of our land into three building plots, one of which we sold a couple of years ago, the other two we have just had the planning consent approved for, and they will be sold asap - to help fund the rest of the renovations and to give us some cash in the bank. This is land to the side of the property, so we don't lose any of our garden. The Mairie is keen to encourage newcomers to his area, which is great because we hear from others that some Mairies are not so welcoming. We have good notaires nearby, too. So far, all the services and tradesmen we have used have been very very good. Besides the house, once we'd made the purchase, we found that we owned the road running alongside it and outbuildings opposite! The Mairie is upgrading all the roads in the commune and wants to buy ours plus a small strip of the land to widen the road at that point, too. We have a long winding wall to the side of the property and his plans would have meant removing the wall. The wall is so beautiful it was one of the things that sold the house to us; we told the Mairie we'd rather keep it, so he altered his plans for us!

So, as you can see, we are moving into an area that we are already familiar and comfortable with (the only drawback to the whole plan is that I can't take my mum, our children and our grandchildren with us!). Obviously, living there is a far cry from spending a couple of weeks out there, so I'm expecting some trials and tribulations! Fortunately, my husband renovates property for a living and is excellent at what he does - I would not have taken the house on if he wasn't! He has been offered work locally, and my freelance writing can be done from there as easily as it is from here, so we hope to have an income of sorts but, as the house is paid for and the cost of living is lower, we should manage quite well.

Anyway, Donny-gal will tell you that I can waffle for England (and soon will for France!); on the OS board they even call it 'mioliering'! La Mioliere is the name of our hamlet, hence my forum name.

Thank you for the welcome; I know I will be on this thread often and promise I won't always write such long posts!

Kathy

donny-gal

Welcome back Droopsnout, and Hi again M.

Well my internet provider has decided that "because of mis-use" there is now a restriction to the 24-7 dial-up internet connection, it seems some people have been connected 24-7 , so now have a 30 hour restriction for 15€ a month. Only here for most of March, and then not back until September and will switch it off at the end of March, so will need to investigate before I come back and decide it I bite the bullet and go BB. it is 1.5c a minute over the 30 hours, but being a Yorkshire lass I'm tight IYKWIM:rolleyes: .
So if my visits here and to OS are thin, you know I have run out of hours. Outrageous costs compared to the UK, technology is dear here.

I am sure some little "gems" of his visit will be forthcoming from Droopsnout as the days pass.
Take care. DG