Britwhore what kind of car is it?

Congrats on selling your house, sorry about the reduction in profit. Hope you are still enjoying life in England.

Thanks lf1. Turns out the paperwork was super confusing and the loss wasn't as huge as expected!! woohoo!! Loving being back in the UK The dogs are happy and love walking in the woods The food is ridiculously good. Telly is fun to watch again. How are you guys settling in? Enjoying being back?

fulwood it's a 2008 Mini Cooper S. I LOOOOVE him. Such a great car but he has to go.

The food! What I`ve noticed is that the quality of the ready made meals is even better than I remembered it. When I first came back and lacked cooking equipment the Tesco curries were great! Oh, and having pate for the first time in ages! Pork pies! Whats got into me? I never ate pork pies before we went to the States, so why did I get a craving for them on my return? I have to confess at also having bought lots of "under a fiver" bottles of wine, and they`ve all been drinkable. Then there`s fish and chips! It`s a good job getting the house sorted is mostly physical work, or I`d be piling on the pounds!

I hate to think how much salt is in the pork pies.

The value is a sensitive issue but depending on the mileage it could fetch $16,000 on up.

Did you already post about your experience of shipping your household goods back? Would you use the same company again? What did they charge you? Was your shipment a normal amount (I know, how long is a piece of string?)

Cloakroom, please

Oh he's absolutely worth $16k or more seeing as he has 50k miles and an extended warranty to 100k miles. The problem is loads of people want him but don't want to pay the $$!

Still waiting for my shipment to arrive so I'll wait to post about that.....

BW, How is the Peugeot working out? You have had it a month know?

That is good news that the loss was less than expected. We are enjoying being back, but I have felt a bit displaced at times. I think that could be to do with the fact that we have moved to an area where we don't have any connections. We have been made to feel very welcome by the locals, so I am sure it is just a matter of time until we find our place.

I am also loving the telly. I can't believe the number of programmes that we have recorded to watch and we only have the basic channels. I just heard yesterday that the brilliant "Foyle's War" will be returning to our screens, so I am over the moon with that news.

I have done some digging on comparethemarket.com and got £5000-£10000 . Elephant.co.uk was more reasonable at £1500, but I think if I can call in and explain my situation, I can get less. These online quotes don't take into account foreign credentials, at least to a sufficient degree. I am 23, with 6 years of no claims as an additional driver, so I don't think its fair for me to pay more than a fresh roadworthy teenager

Its funny because just out of pure interest, I priced a 2005 Aston Martin Vantage on elephant, and only got £4000 a year! Way better than any company on CTM, and that was for a 1995 Civic!!!

I can tell you that Civic is where you are going wrong - boy racer car. Even in the UK...look for something "boring" and you should get lower quotes (I say should!). There was something in the Daily Fail recently where a woman owned a £200 early 1990's Nissan Micra and her insurance was £400 a year! She wasn't in her early 20's and the car certainly wasn't anything more than a runaround for shopping and the school run. The whole insurance market has gone gaga.

So try and think outside the box as it were and you should get lower quotes.

I have read on here people getting good quotes with Honda Jazz's - very reasonably priced cars, practical and reliable. I myself was quoting on Mercedes A Class - as a driver of a Smart car, I wanted the "bigger brother" as it were! Surprisingly, even with Mercedes high repair cost, the quotes were nearly always less than for any Ford I picked and about the same as most Vauxhalls! So it seems the insurance companies make no sense!

Sounds weird considering an Aston Martin was cheaper by 1000 pounds! It's almost like these companies don't want to do business!