Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

Savvy_Sue

droopsnout wrote: »

Have never fancied being marooned on an island. The thought of spending six months of every year stuck there does nothing for me at all. Very different from the odd fortnight.

I personally wouldn't want to spend more than the odd fortnight there either, but I can't see that an island would be any worse than anywhere else, as long as there were regular escape routes going elsewhere, which there seem to be.

Let's face it, I'm not likely to retire abroad at all. I do like my milk fresh in tea.

donny-gal wrote: »

Just out of interest Tenerife had some horrendous storms during that time with much flooding as did parts of Andalucia.

Indeed, on our previous visit to Fuerteventura we had an absolutely torrential thunderstorm and rain all day, for which they are really not geared up at all! No gutters on roads, for example, they just turn into small streams ... And on this visit there was no electricity in the Fishing Museum, because the wind turbines which power it had been storm damaged.

WaxiesDargle wrote: »

I think the best way would be to test a few places by staying there for short periods and get the feel of it...

That is ESSENTIAL, and as DS says, at different seasons. And the other thing I would say is to learn as much of the language as you can before you go out there, and keep learning afterwards. Even if you prefer mixing with expats, you never know when it could be useful.

DH and I have mastered "dos cafes con leche por favor" (excuse my spelling, I got it from a cassette) and I can also find the toilets and report a lack of loo paper. But every time we go to the best cake shop on Fuerteventura, I wish I had more of the language.

droopsnout

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I do like my milk fresh in tea.

No shortage of fresh milk in France, Sue. Red top or blue top? (Full milk, or semi-skilled?) Also organic milk. Goat's milk. Soya milk. Coconut milk. And Lord knows what other kinds, too.

droopsnout

So, Sue ... You opted out of publishing the tights, then?

Savvy_Sue

droopsnout wrote: »

No shortage of fresh milk in France, Sue. Red top or blue top? (Full milk, or semi-skilled?) Also organic milk. Goat's milk. Soya milk. Coconut milk. And Lord knows what other kinds, too.

We found fresh milk in Spain and the Canaries too, but found it went off almost before we could get it home, even if it was well within date.

Savvy_Sue

droopsnout wrote: »

So, Sue ... You opted out of publishing the tights, then?

It's still an option, should you step out of line again. :rotfl:

droopsnout

I actually thought you'd do it anyway. And if you scroll back to when I said something about the refined people on this thread, and highlight all my message, you'll see that I thought so at the time!

seven-day-weekend

Well. I am delighted.

Our little satellite system for the TV was only broadcasting about three things in English and they were all international news. We put up with it, as it was a cheap system from Lidl and only had an 80cm dish, so we thought that was it. Plus we know nothing about satellite TV and when the gadget that came with it tuned in to a satellite, we assumed that was it.

Two very helpful guys on an expat forum have today held my hand (no need for the tights SS!) and explained how to tune it into another satellite so that we can get more English-speaking channels.Thank you Fred and Guy.

To our delight we now have 'proper' English channels like BBC News and Sky News, various sports channels and even two Movie channels! (Also various shopping channels but we don't bother with those). We have even got S4C (Channel 4 in Welsh). We were delighted to see that awful advert for GO Compare and at one point I saw Jeremy Paxman interviewing somebody!

We can't get ordinary BBC and ITV, to do that we will need a much bigger dish, but we are thrilled with our new set-up.

And we have learned a bit more about how to install Satellite TV.

Delighted!

Savvy_Sue

droopsnout wrote: »

I actually thought you'd do it anyway. And if you scroll back to when I said something about the refined people on this thread, and highlight all my message, you'll see that I thought so at the time!

:rotfl: Sorry DS, you are too devious for me, I usually don't bother highlighting the whole of the message in case there is something hidden within!

Anyway, I never did see PICTURES of you in tights (is one allowed to call the Pigsback thread "plebby", I wonder?) Although I generally respond better to words anyway. What IS it with this insistence on using pictures and objects and touchy feely stuff in teambuilding exercises at work these days? Off topic, so in invisible ink ...

seven-day-weekend

Oh! Forgot to say, when re-tuning our satellite, we also got all the BBC Radio channels. Oh the bliss of Radio 4!

de1amo

i live in the Aegian area of Turkey and can get lots of channels both american and british--bbc entertainment!--thankfully i cant get bbc and itv lol--i can switch all films to original language--weather is sunny year round and life is relatively cheap outside the euro--