Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

sleepless_saver

Pozidrive wrote:

The reason for checking out this thread, was to find out the best way of transferring my monthly paid pension to a Spanish Bank account. Is there a cheaper option to my Lloyds bank account? How do you get your pension to Spain?

If you have your pension paid into an HBOS current account it looks like you could do it for free - see extrac tbelow from Halifax website. I don't know what exchange rate they use though.

BANCO HALIFAX HISPANIA
If you're already in Spain or planning to live there permanently, or even divide your time between the two countries, Banco Halifax Hispania offers a range of financial services specifically designed for you.... with a current account that allows free telegraphic transfers from Halifax plc, Banco Halifax is certainly the Spanish bank for customers from the UK.
I

missile

seven-day-weekend wrote:

I'm afraid we did that too!:o

But we would not have been able to afford a Seat Alhambra in Spain. Second-hand cars for some reason, are much more expensive than in the UK. It was worth the 1000 euros to import it!QUOTE]

Buy a left hand drive in the UK, where they are much cheaper. There are several dealers specialising in same, search the net or I can forward details :j

missile

seven-day-weekend wrote:

I have been quoted 250 euros to buy a 1.25m satellite dish which is apparently what we need to be able to receive English channels on our system as we are fed up of just being able to watch Sky News and BBC World.

Is this reasonable? I know nothing at all about them.

Make sure the price includes installation and you get some guarantee of the channels you will get. You will need a digibox, Sky card and MUCH larger dish to receive more channels. You can also stream TV over the net with Sky and download soap and films Pear to Pear, but you need high speed broadband which you are unlikely to get in your location.

missile

Some programs, like working lunch can be viewed on line @ BBC.con. Another option would be to get your relatives in the UK to record your favourites to DVD / video.

seven-day-weekend

Missile, thanks for your reply!

We already have a box and actually have a satellite system installed, but it's only an 80cm dish and we can only get European/North African channels apart from Sky News, CNN, a business channel and BBC World. (The whole thing was only 90 euros from Lidl).

We know the other box we have can receive British channels with a bigger dish as we have seen it working in someone else's house (they have just upgraded). It won't receive Channels 4 or 5 but we don't mind that as it will get BBC1, 2 ITV and a few others. My husband rang up a bloke who has a business selling all the bits; he said the 1.25 meter dish should be OK but if we want to have 4 & 5 we will have to have a bigger dish.

It does not include installation as it is all installed; all we need to do is change the box and dish.

Broadband? ?Que es esta?? We have Muleband here!

missile

Well sans installation €250 seems expensive to me. The dish is not hard to install but you need a signal meter to allign the dish properly. You are well outside the footprint for the Astral satellite and need to allign it carefully to get a good signal. With a 1.9 dish you will get most of the free to air channels.

Hey but you did not come to Spain to watch TV, salga y goce del esquí en el sierra Nevada.

seven-day-weekend

LOL, no I did not come to Spain to watch TV and we are still debating whether to buy this dish or not. The dish we have now (80cms) is aligned to Astra and we get a decent signal. We do have a signal meter with the 90 euro setup. We've been here 2.5 years and only thought of this because we were given a box. A 1.9 m dish would be bigger than my house! Probably won't bother!

But thanks for your excellent advice.

Don't like ski-ing - too cold and wet!! We are on the southern side of the Sierra Nevada, the Sol y Nieve ski slopes are on the north.

missile

I guess you may already know, but the Northern side gets more rain and consequently the scenery is much greener.

We were on holiday in a beautiful little village near you three years ago.

seven-day-weekend

Which village would that be then?

missile

I just new you would ask me that, having a senior moment and can't remember but it was near Trevelas