Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

seven-day-weekend

Still enjoying being here in the UK, although we have finished our Grand Designs house swap and are back in our little terraced house in the Midlands with son, girlfriend and lodger.:eek: Neither of us have any desire to book the return ferry yet.

However we have been today to IKEA and bought a load of stuff for our Spanish house. Getting it ready to (hopefully) rent when we do our six months in the UK, probably next year.

We visited some interesting people near Shrewsbury on Sunday (friends of my husband's cousin) and were showing them pictures of our little white Spanish house and I realised again how lucky we are to have it. Even if we get fed up of living full-time in it ourselves, it is still great for house swaps or rental, so we can have some good holidays in Spain or elsewhere.

Life is good.

gfplux

Sloan, Congratulations. I retired 12 years ago and I love every minute of retirement.

gfplux

As I mentioned together with a £ - € history in Post 1338 in this thread I buy my Euro's in "chunks".
Last January I managed to buy near the bottom of the market @ 1.0764. Clever me.
Well yesterday I bought another "chunk" this time @ 1.150.
So remember the rate is bound to get better from now on.

Good Luck

slopemaster

Hello
I’m on page 76 now... but got too impatient to finish reading...
What an amazing thread
I’m living in southeastern France – been here for 15 years on and off - and commuting to England doing a PhD.
Will introduce myself properly later on if thats OK, but I have a question...
I have been using the 'new' money transfers, only £8 to send it, but getting charged 16 euros a time to receive it at this end
(wheres the euro sign on a qwerty keyboard?)
So I rung the bank and said, surely some mistake? But they insisted not. Their own T&C say there is no charge for euro transfers from Single Euro Payment Area but when I point this out, they say UK is not in Single Euro Payment Area!!! (They are obviously confusing it with euro zone.)
I said. OK, send me the list then, and they said, no its an internal document, you can't see it.
Talked to them twice on the phone and got nowhere, so have now written pointing out this charge is illegal under EC Regulation 2560/2001. article 3
( For transfers in euro banks have to charge the same for a cross-border transfer as they do for an internal one.) And recommending the ECB website if they still think UK not in SEPA!

But, I wondered if anyone else had the same problem, with SocGen or any other bank?
ie is it just my branch or is it the way the whole system is set up?

(Oh but that "fonctionnaire" attitude of the bank staff does annoy me; they always think they know best.)

seven-day-weekend

Hi Slopemaster welcome to the thread!

Can't help with your query I'm afrai but hopefully someone else will be able to do so.

slopemaster

Thanks.
Nice to meet a fellow-Wulfrunian.
Not that I've been back for years - not since my grandma died, in fact.
Is that stutue of Albert on his horse still above the public toilets?

slopemaster

They are cutting the lavender here and the air is full of the scent....mmm
Too hot to sleep tho

seven-day-weekend

slopemaster wrote: »

Thanks.
Nice to meet a fellow-Wulfrunian.
Not that I've been back for years - not since my grandma died, in fact.
Is that stutue of Albert on his horse still above the public toilets?

Albert is there but the public toilets are long gone! There is a big posh fountain being built next to him at the moment and Queen Square has been pedestrianise for amny years.

What part of Wolves are you from? We're in Newbridge, in between Tettenhall and Whitmore Reans.

gfplux

Hello and welcome slopemaster,
I can not help with your Bank issue, sorry.

However the € sign on a qwerty - on mine hold down Alt Gr and press number 4
hope that helps.

sloan

Thanks for the good luck messages. Am definitely going to make the most of my retirement. Managed to get some £1 flights to Barcelona in March, so having a few days there. However, bad news - I had one of the £215 Sydney flights from BA for September, but went back and refreshed to see if I could get a flight back the day earlier and then lost it. Well, c'est la vie! It is fun looking. Am going to Cyprus next Wednesday for 5 weeks and then for a couple of monthes from October. No plans as yet (except the Barcelona week) for after Christmas. Just waiting to see what crops up. Not sure when we will go back to Cyprus after Christmas as February was really cold there last year. It was my first February, but OH has beeen there for the last six years and said it was the worst he had known.