HarryTheSpider

Excellent list. Cheers for that. Will let better half have a look!!

AddyLaddy

No problem, hope it helps - it's amazing just how much stuff we've ending up buying even though our 40" container arrived a day after we did!

Hubcaps

Bloody hell, that's a lot of stuff. Off the top of my head we bought a toaster, a coffee maker and a hoover and bought the cheapest we could find (Target).
We did end up buying a new microwave as we couldn't work out the Japanese one our landlord left us but that was $49 in Sears (should have been $299 but it had no box and was end of the line).
I can't believe you've bought so much British food

AddyLaddy

Hi Hubcaps - I am hoping to bill the company for the electrical items and I'd like to do that all in one go. I also picked up a nice 5 handset Panasonic answer phone in Costco and a cheap coffee machine in Target. And I still need to hit them for a 55" LED TV too ;-)
But yes, everyone of those items we gave away the equivalent of in the UK!

Admittedly, I do now have a surplus of Marmite - can I donate a couple of jars to you?

Having FedEx deliver Baked beans to my door is fantastic though :-)

Hubcaps

Haha, I'll pass on the Marmite. I haven't even used the 1 box of Oxo cubes I was so pleased to find.
We're sacking off the house phones - with 2 mobiles there doesn't seem any point in paying for a phone we never use.
We bought a Sony LCD in Coscto but the best bargain was the plasma with we got in Fred Meyer for less than $500. We gave everything away in the UK (just remembered I did buy a hairdryer here) but I quite like not having all that stuff anymore and I haven't missed any of it.

traceym

Almost every Indian supermarket sell PG Tea Bags and Heinz Beans at a fraction of the price on line.

AddyLaddy

We're still on PAYG mobiles and I hate having to pay 33c a minute to receive calls! I now use my home phone for Google voice. I just ask it to call me and then it connects me through to the UK for 2c a minute.

Hubcaps

Ah there's the difference, I don't call the UK very often (I.E never) and use Skype if my Dad needs to get hold of me. My inlaws are with Sky and have it set up with the US as a "free calls" country if by some strange reason Skype has been turned off *cough*

meauxna

Kaffy Mintcake

That's just amazing when you think about it. When I lived in Europe as a student about 12 years ago it cost me $1/minute to call home.

1chumly

Do you mind explaining how this works? I have a landline but AT &T want to charge 8c a min to the UK after paying $5 a month for the privilege! I have been using Skype to call but want friends in the UK without Skype to be able to call me easily.

HarryTheSpider

There's a thread within a thread developing here that had me thinking of www.truphone.com

I've started another thread around this skype + normal handset concept.

Find it here http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=693286

Cheers

Harry

AddyLaddy

Ok, I've answered the question about Google Voice in that new thread.

meauxna

I know! Your post made me start thinking about back in the day.. I'm sure it was over $2/min to call Central America when I was there. We only had one phone in the village and had to take turns. If you got a call in and weren't there for it, some little kid would come running down the path to get you while your caller waited. You might not get through again so easily!

Mexico, forget it. I never did figure out the payphones there. But they had a great long distance telephone office, with all the little booths..

Going even further back, when my whole family expat'd to Spain, you had to call the operator and order a long distance/transatlantic call, and then wait up to 5 or 6 hours for a line! When we moved on that trip, we were gonnnnne as far as the rest of the family was concerned.

Burn1911

Haaaaa I remember when my Auntie moved to Australia - and we used to only call at Christmas and special occasions and we had to call the Operator too.... and got cut off quite alot also!!

It was back in the day when you could only talk for about 2 mins as it as SO EXPENSIVE!!!! Australia really was a world away from us in the UK!