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Jonzjob
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I have bought stuff in sterling (which my pension is paid in so it goes direct from my UK account) from the UK on several occasions for French friends and they pay me in Euros and save a packet.  I use the current exchange rate but if I were that way inclined I reckon I could make quite a business acting as "middle person" importing British bought stuff .  The difference in some prices is astonishing and I rarely find it works the other way around (ie cheaper in France.)
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[quote user="greyman"]I live near Vergt, the strawberry capital of France and you cant move for polytunnels. But I've just found one in UK and it's cheaper to buy and get it shipped here than source locally. Utter madness.
[/quote]

I'm not surprised by that, Greyman.  I live in the Charente but the Charentaise melons are so much dearer than in the UK that I have so far resisted buying them other than on one or two special occasions.

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[quote user="cooperlola"]I have bought stuff in sterling (which my pension is paid in so it goes direct from my UK account) from the UK on several occasions for French friends and they pay me in Euros and save a packet.  I use the current exchange rate but if I were that way inclined I reckon I could make quite a business acting as "middle person" importing British bought stuff .  The difference in some prices is astonishing and I rarely find it works the other way around (ie cheaper in France.)[/quote]

We do the same for our neighbours.  Last time we were in France we were horrified at how much prices had gone up.  We reckoned some things were three times the UK price.  A small veal joint in Intermarche was 18 euros.  Compare this to the Sunday joint of gammon we had to today.  It fed 5 very well and was less than £5. We did live very healthily the week we were there though - no eating out and no meat!!  As you said it's not just food - I went with my neighbour to the local hair salon.  She had a trim, foils and a blow dry.  In my local hair salon in the UK this would cost ~£35.  Her bill was 94 euros!!  I was dumbfounded! 

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I should really put this in the thread that I started "jaw dropping prices" but its better to let it die gracefully.

I have just returned from a metarials buying trip with a very much overloaded car and caravan combination, I hadnt planned on bringing the van just yet but it did yield a usefull volume for rolls of insulation costing £8 each, I just missed out when they were £5, nonetheless the equivalent thickness and area would cost close to €40 each here.

I brought back loads of stuff as usual but the main reason for the trip was 6 postformed (chapeau de gendarme) 1/2 hour fire doors which were going to cost €4300 in France, I picked up the lot for £120 (thankyou Ebay[:)]).

I say "going to cost me €4300" because all my enquiries were met with a shrug and a couple of offers of plain plywood ones at an equally daft price, even google.fr hardly brought up anything, I finally found a manufacturer who would of course not deal with me and then had to it seemed beg on my knees for the local merchants to contact them and get a price for me, only one could be bothered and delivery was going to be on top, and of course they couldnt tell me how much more, come back again.....................

Its not just the incredulous difference in a lot of prices but the frustration in actually trying to order something that drives me literally across the channel.

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The frustrations, ineptitude of staff and general disinterest are almost as annoying as the price scandals IMO.

A ladyfriend bought a new (used) car a few weeks back. It needed a lower suspension arm, or "triangle" as they call it here. If one is gone, the other isnt likely to be far behind so I decided to probably change both whilst at it. A 40 minute drive to town followed, where I have a choice of 3 parts factors. Entering either of them results in 5 minutes of being ignored by the staff, an eventual grunt enquiring as to what the hell I want, 30 seconds of them listening to me, then 10 minutes of pecking at a computer keyboard or flicking back and forth through a parts catalogue.

€104

Each.

HT.

Not stocked.

Its a `99 ford escort FFS, not some rare piece of Italian exotica.

Oscaro is a website advertised a lot on the radio about being a discount parts supplier in France. they want €60 ish each. plus delivery.

A quick call to a UK supplier came back with £15 each, plus VAT.

I needed them pretty quickly so had to settle for ordering from ebay germany for €70 inc delivery for the pair.

And Im just not going to start on about how we paid €1500 in the first place for a car that would cost well under £500 in uk.

I have some hedges to trim. This requires a hedge trimmer. I begrudge paying a lot for something I will only use a couple of times a year, but I failed to find a single used one ( 2 stroke engined) for under €150, and most of them looked more at home in a museum rather than a toolshed. Cheapo new ones start from around €180 for a non-branded basic job. I bought one on ebay uk for £65. brand new, non-branded but does the job, just the same as the french version at 3 times the price.

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[quote user="Scooby"]I'm still here in the UK - and it's lovely, lots of theatre, live music, wide range of restaurants, cheap food - well cheap everything!
[/quote]

Lots of traffic, salt on he roads, filthy cars all the long winter, rain, dark evenings, dark damp days and lots of nowhere to go without meeting lots of people. Oh, nearly forgot, lots of post strikes.[:-))][6]

I can still get stuff from the U.K. but it's difficult to get what we have here when you are in the U.K.[8-|][8-|]

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[quote user="dave21478"]The frustrations, ineptitude of staff and general disinterest are almost as annoying as the price scandals IMO.

[/quote]

Here is one for you Dave that I recently read

 HAVING moved to France, I re-registered my (British-bought) car, then took it to the garage to have headlights changed, which cost €450. The mechanic asked for the carte grise (registration document) to order parts using the vehicle identification number. This week, my car was refused its first contrôle technique (French MOT test) because it has British headlights! The parts were ordered using a computerised system. I have lost a lot of money.

I suppose that he/she did ask to have them changed [6]

PS what is the news on the digger and hole in bedrom fronts?


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[quote user="Chancer"]

PS what is the news on the digger and hole in bedrom fronts?

[/quote]

Well, the owner here is claiming financial problems all of a sudden, so I am left with a gaping hole in the floor, water seeping in when it rains, and have had to move my bed into the living room. I dont really give a damn about it myself - its not my house and I never used the living room anyway so the rearrangement doesnt bother me. Infact, in a way, I am glad that things have stalled as frankly I cant be bothered doing the repairs. He seems to believe that I will be able to do the work within my normal contracted hours - ie work my tits off to fix his house and he doesnt pay me any extra for my effort. I pointed out that I would be happy to do it this way, but given how much routine work the gites and land requires and the level of hours I am contracted and paid for, doing the repairs within my normal working hours after I have done everything else that needs done is likely to take well over a year to complete. Havent heard anything since then, but he owes me money for other things I have paid out for recently and there is no sign of that being paid either.

It has always been a personal policy of mine that as soon as an employer starts dicking around with my money, its time for me to leave. Not sure what else to do, really.

as for the digger, I am updating the thread in the driving section. Not exactly the results I wanted.

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