Shopping in UK o Spain

[Lavanda]

Our house in the campo has internet connetion by Movistar Wi-Fi and we can run five gadgets with unlimited 24/7 access. Of course we use SKYPE. We don't have a land line, satellite, TV or any of that stuff. We pay, IVA included, 53 euros per month and as far as we are concerned it's cheap BECAUSE IT WORKS all day and night and every day and night. Sometimes who the heck cares how cheap something can be?

[janda_grant2]

OMG I've just paid £2/12/6 for 4 pints of milk and 6 rolls! haven't prices changes since decimalisation!

Glad to see broadband prices have come down - we really did pay aabout 88€ per month - it was about 55€ if I remember rightly just to have a telefonica land line.

[Lavanda]

"OMG I've just paid £2/12/6 for 4 pints of milk and 6 rolls! haven't prices changed since decimalisation!"

[ajtg1952]

At least if you buy a property in the UK you know that a lawyer will check that it is free of debt, will be allowed to be there, and will not have a demolition order placed on it.

This statement is not true. What you should have said is that in the "majority of cases", and I think this is true in Spain as well!

[BENIDORM]

All of these price comparisons are useful and quite entertaining, however they really should only be used as a Guide.
It really doesn't matter what other people think about living in Spain or UK...if you are happy with your situation wherever you are then that should be all that matters !..

Live your Life to the Full, you never know what is around the corner !....

Regards,
Gordon.

[Mowser]

In 1973 I paid 39p for a gallon of petrol.
A pint of beer was 15p. (On a Sunday in Scotland only hotels were opened and a pint cost 19p).
Cigarettes were around 30p for 20.

Then again I think my first pay was £100 a month.

[markwilding]

You were lucky. £10.70 a week
I used to go out to the local Top Rank disco with a pound in my pocket.
50p to get in, 20p a pint of lager and 10p for a hamburger, bought from a food van.

[Mowser]

Saw this ...

Granddad was reminiscing about the good old days...

"When I were a boy, Mum would sent me down to t'corner store wif' a pound and I'd come back wi' five pounds o' potatoes, two loaves o' bread, three pints o' milk, a pound o' cheese, a packet o' tea, an' 'alf a dozen eggs.

You can't do that now.

Too many security cameras.

[swerve]

Monty python.


FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!
He he he

[katy]

Well I am so envious I may go back now Mowser has proved onions are a few cents cheaper We paid around €80 in Spain for internet and still pay less for our electric bill in the uk than In Spain.

[IreneD]

I think, Mark, you just need to let some posters 'contributions' glide over you. Regulars on here know that some people trot out the same old Anti-Spanish / Pro-British mantra every time and it's all quite predictable and boring and, in many cases, wrong.

There are problems with that though, first they drive people away from the forum. I know of at least one person who was really upset when they rounded on her and became quite offensive, luckily shes still posts.There are others who don't post any more and they have made their feelings felt in their last post.

For me it's water of a ducks back but at the same time I'm not going to let them get away with being rude without saying anything.

I was very nearly driven away myself and in fact, my timid post earlier in the thread was written and deleted several times before I plucked up courage to post. Big sigh of relief not to have been 'jumped on'! I am still in touch with two of the people you refer to Mark - really nice people. (Well, I think they might be the same people, no doubt there are others I'm not so aware of) You do need a tough skin to join in with some of the debates, I usually stick to the more innocuous threads, I'm a bit of a chicken

[Mowser]

I may go back now Mowser has proved onions are a few cents cheaper

Glad to be of assistance. The point I was making was that they chose a couple of supermarkets and did a comparison. I simply showed - by mentioning a few items - that the comparison was faulty. There are UK comparison sites that are of interest A weekly shopping can differ by quite a lot. Click on the "change store" and compare.

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/shelves/ ... burys.html

ps ... Katy ... the difference in the price of onions is astonishing!

[Free at Last]

As the thread has been widened to include the cost of other bills eg utilities, I checked how much mine have gone up (in total) since the start of 2007 and it comes to 50% (that's IBI, electricity, gas, water, house insurance and mobile phones). I factored in the rise in butano to €17.49 which takes effect today, although I probably won't have to buy any for a few months, and this year's rise in IBI which won't be payable until August. I left out the health insurance costs and broadband as we didn't have those in 2007.

I don't find a 50% rise over 6 years all that remarkable, is it dramatically different to how much costs have increased in the UK over a similar period?

[frank]

At least if you buy a property in the UK you know that a lawyer will check that it is free of debt, will be allowed to be there, and will not have a demolition order placed on it.

This statement is not true. What you should have said is that in the "majority of cases", and I think this is true in Spain as well!

If that's the case, it suggests someone isn't doing their job correctly, there are reckoned to be over a million illegal houses in Spain. Unfortunately, lots of Brits have ended up with one, not connected to services etc.
http://www.elaguijon.es/content/m%C3%A1 ... espa%C3%B1

[Lavanda]

"lots of Brits"

[katy]

Interesting link Frank At least posters can't dismiss it as DM scaremongering. Some friends of ours are caught up in the Coín fiasco.

[Mowser]

I noticed the link was from 2010. I wonder if there are more houses now than the million quoted.

[katy]

I noticed the link was from 2010. I wonder if there are more houses now than the million quoted.

Less, Brits have bought 20 of them

Mowser, see the pound has dropped a bit to 1.175. Survey was based on 1,187 ...does that mean those onions aren't as cheap now

[frank]

I noticed the link was from 2010. I wonder if there are more houses now than the million quoted.

Yes, I did notice that, but I didn't think anything has changed, certainly not got any better, maybe as you say, a few more. There's supposedly 11,000 in the Axarquia region alone, there's a lot of Brits living there. The ex mayor of Cómpeta was one dishing out illegal licences. There's been much rhetoric about legalising all these properties but I don't think any have been.

[frank]

Interesting link Frank At least posters can't dismiss it as DM scaremongering. Some friends of ours are caught up in the Coín fiasco.

I find the Spanish themselves don't have a problem discussing these things, telling it like it is, it's the Brits that seem to want to deny it's all happening. Reading today (Spanish not Daily Mail!) food has gone up, potatoes over 20%, but I expect that's wrong.

Por rúbricas, destacan las subidas anuales de los medicamentos y material terapéutico (26,3%), la educación universitaria (22,3%), aceites y grasas (21,3%) y las patatas y sus preparados (20,6%).