I mentioned (lamented) in my last post how we missed Costco. There are Costco warehouses in UK, just not very near where we live. Last weekend we decided to drive 30 minutes to Reading and check it out.
We first went to the membership department and showed them our US Costco card. We were told that we can use the card in UK, though we won't get 2% cashback or the Costco coupons mailed to our home. That was a little disappointing, but still a really good deal since we don't have to fork out £50 for the executive membership. Things are looking good already.
Then we got the giant Costco trolley and entered the store. To our utter amazement and unbelievable happiness, the store looked very familiar since the layout was just like Costco US store - photo, electronics and clothes in the front, fresh produce in the back, groceries on the left and personal care stuff on front left. We already knew were everything was - we went wild and started filling up our trolley. 4x6 photo prints are only 4pence, compared to 13pence everywhere else (you have to print few hundred photos to get this deal). Wife went all estatic seeing all the products you can get in US but not in UK. The young lady you saw in Costco last Saturday holding a pack of Sun-Maid raisins and crying - that was her.
As you can expect, the trolley got full pretty quick and somehow we found space for 10 more things there. Then came the shock at the checkout - the total bill was £280! Some of the stuff we bought - toilet rolls, kitchen towels, salt, sugar, margarine, surface wipes, laundry detergent, dishwashing tablets, diapers - could last till the next recession, but the amount was huge by any standard. Shellshocked, we loaded up the stuff in the car and came home.
We used to have a corner in our house in US where we stored all the big Costco items. We fondly called it "Costco corner". Our new house here has good storage space, but it still looked not enough - we may be needing a "Costco room" at this rate. Having got a lot of time to kill, we looked at the unit price of each item we bought, compared it with the price at Tesco. The results were completely unexpected. Some items were cheap (diapers, wipes, dishwasher tablets, laundry detergent), but bigger is not cheaper for toilet rolls, kitchen towels, the beloved Sun-Maid raisins, salt, sugar and many others. We have decided to return those items (Costco has a great return policy) and save ourselves logistical nightmare storing all these. We will make a trip to Costco this week just to return this. Hope we are not tempted with more goodies when we are there.
So, the moral of the story is - be careful with what you wish (or miss). You may get it and then regret it!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Things we miss from America
It's been more than four months since we moved to UK from America (that's how people refer to US here), so I thought it's a good idea to take stock of what we miss from America. We miss our dear friends the most. In addition to that, here is the list of others:
Shopping: We knew about this before, but we still can't get used to it: store hours are really short. In our town centre, all the shops close at 7 every day. It's "extended" hours Thursday - Saturday (meaning stores close at 8). The usual Sunday hours are 10-4. Call me a materialist, but I need things during weekdays. Another annoying bit is the need to bag the groceries ourselves. By the time I have successfully opened the first plastic bag after a lot of struggle, the person at the till has finished scanning all the items and just sits and has fun watching me struggle opening the other bags. There are some stores where they are kind enough to have plastic bags opened and ready for you to stuff things in, but it is not too common. We do miss our Costco and Indian grocery store (Patel Brothers) from Waltham.
Car Fuel: Aside from the fact that one litre of Petrol costs an arm and a leg, there are no credit card machines at the pump. You need to fill up the tank, note down the number above the pump, walk to the cashier inside, wait in a line for your turn and pay for the fuel. I could not believe it the first time that I went round the pump four times to make sure I have not missed a card machine that has been sneakily hidden somewhere. Nope, couldn't find anything. I really envy the guys in New Jersey where it's full service at all pumps.
Outdoors: It's really beatiful around here, but North East US was much better for outdoors. We miss it, especially Walden Pond, our famous haunt. Plus the weather was better there (at least when I was there). We have not explored much here, so hopefully there are equally good places to see.
Book stores: Wife and I miss Barnes & Noble. Before we had the boy, we used to walk into a store, get a coffee and spend hours together there. It was a great atmosphere to try out different books and catch a little sleep. Now that our boy is getting bigger, now would have been a good time to go to a store and introduce him to all the kids books there. We cannot find anything like that here.
Toll free numbers: In the US, you knew that if you call a 1-800 number (or a 1-877 or 1-888 number) from a landline, the call was free. If you use your mobile phone, you just use up your minutes. UK has something similar - 0800 numbers. But most customer service numbers are 0844 or 0845 numbers. They are neither toll free nor regular numbers. There is a per minute charge for calling these numbers - for example, we pay 6p a minute for calls from landline and 20p a minute for calls from mobile. It is the not phone company that is getting all this money, but rather the company that owns the number. What a great way to make money - offer lousy service, have your customers contact your 0845 number to complain and put them on hold for a long time.
Dunkin Donuts: In the Boston area, we were pampered with the presence of Dunkin Donuts around every corner. There are Starbucks and Costa in many places, but they are just too expensive (£3 for a coffee?). There are Burker Kings and McDonalds around, but they are few and far between. Now you could argue that national chains are evil and we should really frequent a local place. I have not seen anything good in our area and in any case, they won't be open when we want coffee. Now that I think of Dunkin, I do not see cops on the road or in fact, anywhere at all in Basingstoke, presumably because there are no DD's around. The interesting fact is that CCTV is used in all public places, for "our own personal safety and security". By some estimates there is one camera for every 10 UK residents, which sounds like an awful lot of monitoring to me.
Shopping: We knew about this before, but we still can't get used to it: store hours are really short. In our town centre, all the shops close at 7 every day. It's "extended" hours Thursday - Saturday (meaning stores close at 8). The usual Sunday hours are 10-4. Call me a materialist, but I need things during weekdays. Another annoying bit is the need to bag the groceries ourselves. By the time I have successfully opened the first plastic bag after a lot of struggle, the person at the till has finished scanning all the items and just sits and has fun watching me struggle opening the other bags. There are some stores where they are kind enough to have plastic bags opened and ready for you to stuff things in, but it is not too common. We do miss our Costco and Indian grocery store (Patel Brothers) from Waltham.
Car Fuel: Aside from the fact that one litre of Petrol costs an arm and a leg, there are no credit card machines at the pump. You need to fill up the tank, note down the number above the pump, walk to the cashier inside, wait in a line for your turn and pay for the fuel. I could not believe it the first time that I went round the pump four times to make sure I have not missed a card machine that has been sneakily hidden somewhere. Nope, couldn't find anything. I really envy the guys in New Jersey where it's full service at all pumps.
Outdoors: It's really beatiful around here, but North East US was much better for outdoors. We miss it, especially Walden Pond, our famous haunt. Plus the weather was better there (at least when I was there). We have not explored much here, so hopefully there are equally good places to see.
Book stores: Wife and I miss Barnes & Noble. Before we had the boy, we used to walk into a store, get a coffee and spend hours together there. It was a great atmosphere to try out different books and catch a little sleep. Now that our boy is getting bigger, now would have been a good time to go to a store and introduce him to all the kids books there. We cannot find anything like that here.
Toll free numbers: In the US, you knew that if you call a 1-800 number (or a 1-877 or 1-888 number) from a landline, the call was free. If you use your mobile phone, you just use up your minutes. UK has something similar - 0800 numbers. But most customer service numbers are 0844 or 0845 numbers. They are neither toll free nor regular numbers. There is a per minute charge for calling these numbers - for example, we pay 6p a minute for calls from landline and 20p a minute for calls from mobile. It is the not phone company that is getting all this money, but rather the company that owns the number. What a great way to make money - offer lousy service, have your customers contact your 0845 number to complain and put them on hold for a long time.
Dunkin Donuts: In the Boston area, we were pampered with the presence of Dunkin Donuts around every corner. There are Starbucks and Costa in many places, but they are just too expensive (£3 for a coffee?). There are Burker Kings and McDonalds around, but they are few and far between. Now you could argue that national chains are evil and we should really frequent a local place. I have not seen anything good in our area and in any case, they won't be open when we want coffee. Now that I think of Dunkin, I do not see cops on the road or in fact, anywhere at all in Basingstoke, presumably because there are no DD's around. The interesting fact is that CCTV is used in all public places, for "our own personal safety and security". By some estimates there is one camera for every 10 UK residents, which sounds like an awful lot of monitoring to me.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
How I became a home owner
Crazy, but true. We have been in UK for four months, but we would be proud home owners - first ever - as of tomorrow. It's been one adventure after another. Let me outline the whole story.
We have been staying in wife's employer provided guest house ("serviced apartment") all this while. Our plan was to rent a flat for 6 months to a year, see how we like the country and may be buy a home in some suitable place after doing a lot of research. We can stay in the guest house for three months. So we started our rental search in the beginning of August. We saw a couple of rentals in Basingstoke, which turned out to be ok. Kind of small by US standards, but definitely ok for UK. For a 2 BR flat, we would be paying close to £900 a month.
One Saturday, we visited a friend who bought a house in Basingstoke last year. It was a new construction in a small community, close to the station, built by David Wilson Homes. He happened to mention that houses were still on sale and suggested we take a look at a show home. We saw a 3BR midterrace (US townhouse) with three floors, a garden and a garage which will be available in end of September. Wife was very interested, I was excited at the prospect. The kitchen was small and the house was in three floors, but apart from that, we liked it.
We came home and did some calculation. The price of the house was £225,000 (after a little bit of negotiation). The mortgage rates were being quoted anywhere between 2.5% and 3.0% (variable rates only - UK does not have lifetime fixed rate). If we put down a good deposit and took a mortgage for 25 years, our monthly payments would be less than the rent - for a bigger house with a garden and garage. Unlike US, you don't pay property taxes - you just pay council tax of about £100-£150 a month, irrespective of whether you rent or own. The only extra cost with owning is taking building insurance, which should be less than £200 a year. This was close to the station (10 minute walk) and a new construction. The latter was a big selling point, since even tightening a loose screw is beyond me sometimes.
We debated the question of whether it is too soon to buy a house. If we ended up staying here for at least three years, we would at least break even. The terrifying prospect of being stuck in one place also crossed our minds. Well you have to make up your mind sometimes. So we put down a deposit of £250 which will hold the house for us for one month, by which time we should finalize all the details. Life is good.
After the initial euphoria subsided, reality hit us. Like getting a mortgage for example. UK is much like US - driven by credit history for all kinds of loans. We had trouble getting a mobile phone contract initially, so getting a mortgage is not going to be trivial. I started with HSBC, where we had a bank account and credit card. It sounded promising, but went nowhere since they required us to be HSBC customers for at least a year before they would give us mortgage. That's a pity because they were offering the best mortgage rate. Many other banks required us to be in UK for at least 6 months or a year before they would consider us, since we would fail their credit check.
After doing a little bit of research, we found out that Halifax is an option for us. They do not require a minimum time in UK and their rates were good. So I called their mortgage department and gave all the details. I was told we passed their internal credit check and would be eligible to apply. That was some good news, but till we got a mortgage offer, which could take 3-4 weeks, anything can happen. So we decided to take it easy, not talk about the house and just let it go.
We got an offer two weeks ago. We signed the contract through a solicitor 2-3 days later. We would be getting the keys to the house tomorrow (Sep 24). Things have worked out very well!
Halifax required us to open a current account (US - checking account) which would reduce the mortgage rate by 0.3%. That sounded like a small effort, so I went ahead and applied after getting the offer. Imagine my surprise when they rejected the application because of not enough credit score! Apparently we can be trusted with a mortgage, but not with a bank overdraft. Crazy indeed - you never know what to expect in this strange island.
We have been staying in wife's employer provided guest house ("serviced apartment") all this while. Our plan was to rent a flat for 6 months to a year, see how we like the country and may be buy a home in some suitable place after doing a lot of research. We can stay in the guest house for three months. So we started our rental search in the beginning of August. We saw a couple of rentals in Basingstoke, which turned out to be ok. Kind of small by US standards, but definitely ok for UK. For a 2 BR flat, we would be paying close to £900 a month.
One Saturday, we visited a friend who bought a house in Basingstoke last year. It was a new construction in a small community, close to the station, built by David Wilson Homes. He happened to mention that houses were still on sale and suggested we take a look at a show home. We saw a 3BR midterrace (US townhouse) with three floors, a garden and a garage which will be available in end of September. Wife was very interested, I was excited at the prospect. The kitchen was small and the house was in three floors, but apart from that, we liked it.
We came home and did some calculation. The price of the house was £225,000 (after a little bit of negotiation). The mortgage rates were being quoted anywhere between 2.5% and 3.0% (variable rates only - UK does not have lifetime fixed rate). If we put down a good deposit and took a mortgage for 25 years, our monthly payments would be less than the rent - for a bigger house with a garden and garage. Unlike US, you don't pay property taxes - you just pay council tax of about £100-£150 a month, irrespective of whether you rent or own. The only extra cost with owning is taking building insurance, which should be less than £200 a year. This was close to the station (10 minute walk) and a new construction. The latter was a big selling point, since even tightening a loose screw is beyond me sometimes.
We debated the question of whether it is too soon to buy a house. If we ended up staying here for at least three years, we would at least break even. The terrifying prospect of being stuck in one place also crossed our minds. Well you have to make up your mind sometimes. So we put down a deposit of £250 which will hold the house for us for one month, by which time we should finalize all the details. Life is good.
After the initial euphoria subsided, reality hit us. Like getting a mortgage for example. UK is much like US - driven by credit history for all kinds of loans. We had trouble getting a mobile phone contract initially, so getting a mortgage is not going to be trivial. I started with HSBC, where we had a bank account and credit card. It sounded promising, but went nowhere since they required us to be HSBC customers for at least a year before they would give us mortgage. That's a pity because they were offering the best mortgage rate. Many other banks required us to be in UK for at least 6 months or a year before they would consider us, since we would fail their credit check.
After doing a little bit of research, we found out that Halifax is an option for us. They do not require a minimum time in UK and their rates were good. So I called their mortgage department and gave all the details. I was told we passed their internal credit check and would be eligible to apply. That was some good news, but till we got a mortgage offer, which could take 3-4 weeks, anything can happen. So we decided to take it easy, not talk about the house and just let it go.
We got an offer two weeks ago. We signed the contract through a solicitor 2-3 days later. We would be getting the keys to the house tomorrow (Sep 24). Things have worked out very well!
Halifax required us to open a current account (US - checking account) which would reduce the mortgage rate by 0.3%. That sounded like a small effort, so I went ahead and applied after getting the offer. Imagine my surprise when they rejected the application because of not enough credit score! Apparently we can be trusted with a mortgage, but not with a bank overdraft. Crazy indeed - you never know what to expect in this strange island.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A busy weekend
Last weekend was a long weekend here - Monday was bank holiday. We had initially decided to drive down somewhere and stay for the weekend. We decided against it and made plans to go to places nearby all the days.
Saturday: I lived in US for 11 years, but still follow cricket online. One main attraction for us in UK is the chance to watch cricket at a stadium. Pakistan is touring England and there was a test match (5 day) going on at Lord's cricket ground, the home of cricket. A friend and I got tickets for the third day through the website Seatwave. It is a fan to fan exchange, so the tickets were a little cheaper - we paid close to £50 per ticket, while Lord's website was selling similar tickets for £80.
It turned out to be a great experience. The ground was full and we had a great view from our seats. It was an interesting day of cricket with Pakistan losing 15 wickets within the day. We experienced English weather in full glory that day. It was nice and sunny in the morning and got a little too warm. Then it got cloudy and little chilly in the afternoon. In the evening there were few showers. After reaching home, I read the story about match fixing.
Wife took the boy and went to a maize maze nearby, along with some colleagues. The maze was a little small - completed in one hour - but she had a good time there.
Sunday: We went to Windsor castle, an official residence of the queen. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation.
The town of Windsor is nice little town and there were some great views from the castle. We saw a doll house and some art collection in the castle. It was an hour drive from our place and we spent close to couple of hours there.
Monday: We went to Cotswolds and then Oxford. Cotswolds area is west of London and has a lot of small villages that still resemble they way they were 500 years ago. We went to Burford, a small town near Oxford, walked around and took pictures.
Then we spent some time in Oxford. We visited Christ Church College, one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in England. We visited its Great Hall (where the Hogwarts dining scenes in Harry Potter movies were shot), a quadrangle and an old cathedral inside the college.
As we do daytime trips, I realize how expensive it is to eat out. On Monday, we got two burgers and onion rings from Burger King and paid £8.50 for that. This was not in an airport or a mall, just a normal place somewhere near a town centre. I think we would have spent less than $8.50 in US for such a meal. We have made it a point to pack some lunch during our day trips. It costs much less and is so much faster. On the contrary, we have noticed that there are more veggie options in the restaurants here than in the US.
Saturday: I lived in US for 11 years, but still follow cricket online. One main attraction for us in UK is the chance to watch cricket at a stadium. Pakistan is touring England and there was a test match (5 day) going on at Lord's cricket ground, the home of cricket. A friend and I got tickets for the third day through the website Seatwave. It is a fan to fan exchange, so the tickets were a little cheaper - we paid close to £50 per ticket, while Lord's website was selling similar tickets for £80.
It turned out to be a great experience. The ground was full and we had a great view from our seats. It was an interesting day of cricket with Pakistan losing 15 wickets within the day. We experienced English weather in full glory that day. It was nice and sunny in the morning and got a little too warm. Then it got cloudy and little chilly in the afternoon. In the evening there were few showers. After reaching home, I read the story about match fixing.
Wife took the boy and went to a maize maze nearby, along with some colleagues. The maze was a little small - completed in one hour - but she had a good time there.
Sunday: We went to Windsor castle, an official residence of the queen. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation.
The town of Windsor is nice little town and there were some great views from the castle. We saw a doll house and some art collection in the castle. It was an hour drive from our place and we spent close to couple of hours there.
Monday: We went to Cotswolds and then Oxford. Cotswolds area is west of London and has a lot of small villages that still resemble they way they were 500 years ago. We went to Burford, a small town near Oxford, walked around and took pictures.
Then we spent some time in Oxford. We visited Christ Church College, one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in England. We visited its Great Hall (where the Hogwarts dining scenes in Harry Potter movies were shot), a quadrangle and an old cathedral inside the college. As we do daytime trips, I realize how expensive it is to eat out. On Monday, we got two burgers and onion rings from Burger King and paid £8.50 for that. This was not in an airport or a mall, just a normal place somewhere near a town centre. I think we would have spent less than $8.50 in US for such a meal. We have made it a point to pack some lunch during our day trips. It costs much less and is so much faster. On the contrary, we have noticed that there are more veggie options in the restaurants here than in the US.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Some updates
Driving: I am still getting used to driving, but feeling much more comfortable. Wife drives the car everyday to the nursery and work and she has gotten used to it too. Navigating the roundabouts is still a pain. I am the proud owner of a certificate confirming I passed the theory test for driving licence in UK! It took about two weeks of preparation - reading the "highway code", reading through practice questions, taking a mock online test and finally the test. The interesting part in the test is a "hazard perception" section, which is quite unique to UK. I had to watch a video of real driving conditions, watch out for hazards like a car turning in from a side street or a cyclist cutting in and click on the screen confirming that I perceived the hazard in advance. It seemed a novel idea, but I am not sure whether it tests anything useful in real life.
Grocery shopping experience: One major advantage of a car is the pleasure of buying one week worth of groceries and stuffing it in car trunk without worrying about carrying the bags home. We were previously restricted to a small Sainsbury's nearby and an Indian store accessible through bike. With a car, we could drive couple of miles and go to many different stores. We have tried Tesco, a bigger Sainsbury's and Morrisons. Wife likes Tesco more since she thinks they have a better availability of fruits and veggies. We both agree that the fruits and veggies are better in any of these stores than one can find in US supermarkets like Shaw's or Stop & Shop. We used to frequent a local market called Russo's in the Boston area and loved it. The supermarkets here are almost to that level. We have stopped going to the Car boot sale.
Cycling: With a 2.5 hour commute every day, I hardly get time to workout (don't ask me if I did any better with my 10 minute commute in US). The City of London has recently started a cycle rental scheme where you can rent bicycles from one of their many docking stations, ride around and return to another station anywhere in London. It is a pleasure to ride from Waterloo station to work - I pass through London Eye, cross Westminster Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament house, Buckingham Palace and St. James Park - tourist spots that I myself spent a whole day visiting not too long ago. The hire scheme works out pretty well for short journeys - rentals for 30 minute and less are free. You only have to pay an access fee - either a weekly fee of £5 or a yearly fee of £45. I tried it for a week and realized it took me the same time from London Waterloo station to reach work by cycle as it did through the tube. I would get the workout, however small it is, plus save £60 a month on Tube season ticket. There are some issues with the cycle hire scheme though: sometimes it is hard to find a cycle in Waterloo station and you have to wait for few minutes till someone returns one. Worse, the docking station closest to my work is usually full in the morning. I would have to ride around and find a station with a free slot, drop it there and walk to work, which is not very efficient. The scheme is just two weeks old and I am sure they will address this, but I am considering buying a commuter bike and using that every day.
Mobile phone: I finally ditched my prepaid phone and got a contract phone. I have a 12 month contract with O2 and pay £15 a month (including VAT) for 600 minutes of talk time and unlimited land line calls. Incoming calls are free. Wife has a mobile phone with unlimited O2 to O2 calls, so we use that for our communication. The rate is so cheap because I am on a SIM-only plan and use my own handset (the cheapest Nokia I could find). Compared to $40 + taxes and other charges in US, this sounds like a bargain. I don't even need the 600 minutes - 300 should be enough, but that was the cheapest I could find. As you may expect, there are some twists with the mobile phone rates here: calls to toll free numbers - 0800, 0845 and 0870 numbers, like 1-800 numbers in US - do not use the included minutes, but are charged at an exorbitant rates of 10-20 pence a minute. This is true with all the carriers here and makes no sense. I end up needing to call customer service from my mobile for something all the time and all I have is the "toll free" numbers. Fortunately, I was referred to a website called www.saynoto0870.com that lists the landline numbers for the toll free numbers of many companies and it has proved very useful.
Since my last post, our boy has turned one! He has come a long way and is walking and exploring all around the house. It's a pleasure to play with him and watch him giggle. Time flies!
Grocery shopping experience: One major advantage of a car is the pleasure of buying one week worth of groceries and stuffing it in car trunk without worrying about carrying the bags home. We were previously restricted to a small Sainsbury's nearby and an Indian store accessible through bike. With a car, we could drive couple of miles and go to many different stores. We have tried Tesco, a bigger Sainsbury's and Morrisons. Wife likes Tesco more since she thinks they have a better availability of fruits and veggies. We both agree that the fruits and veggies are better in any of these stores than one can find in US supermarkets like Shaw's or Stop & Shop. We used to frequent a local market called Russo's in the Boston area and loved it. The supermarkets here are almost to that level. We have stopped going to the Car boot sale.
Cycling: With a 2.5 hour commute every day, I hardly get time to workout (don't ask me if I did any better with my 10 minute commute in US). The City of London has recently started a cycle rental scheme where you can rent bicycles from one of their many docking stations, ride around and return to another station anywhere in London. It is a pleasure to ride from Waterloo station to work - I pass through London Eye, cross Westminster Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament house, Buckingham Palace and St. James Park - tourist spots that I myself spent a whole day visiting not too long ago. The hire scheme works out pretty well for short journeys - rentals for 30 minute and less are free. You only have to pay an access fee - either a weekly fee of £5 or a yearly fee of £45. I tried it for a week and realized it took me the same time from London Waterloo station to reach work by cycle as it did through the tube. I would get the workout, however small it is, plus save £60 a month on Tube season ticket. There are some issues with the cycle hire scheme though: sometimes it is hard to find a cycle in Waterloo station and you have to wait for few minutes till someone returns one. Worse, the docking station closest to my work is usually full in the morning. I would have to ride around and find a station with a free slot, drop it there and walk to work, which is not very efficient. The scheme is just two weeks old and I am sure they will address this, but I am considering buying a commuter bike and using that every day.
Mobile phone: I finally ditched my prepaid phone and got a contract phone. I have a 12 month contract with O2 and pay £15 a month (including VAT) for 600 minutes of talk time and unlimited land line calls. Incoming calls are free. Wife has a mobile phone with unlimited O2 to O2 calls, so we use that for our communication. The rate is so cheap because I am on a SIM-only plan and use my own handset (the cheapest Nokia I could find). Compared to $40 + taxes and other charges in US, this sounds like a bargain. I don't even need the 600 minutes - 300 should be enough, but that was the cheapest I could find. As you may expect, there are some twists with the mobile phone rates here: calls to toll free numbers - 0800, 0845 and 0870 numbers, like 1-800 numbers in US - do not use the included minutes, but are charged at an exorbitant rates of 10-20 pence a minute. This is true with all the carriers here and makes no sense. I end up needing to call customer service from my mobile for something all the time and all I have is the "toll free" numbers. Fortunately, I was referred to a website called www.saynoto0870.com that lists the landline numbers for the toll free numbers of many companies and it has proved very useful.
Since my last post, our boy has turned one! He has come a long way and is walking and exploring all around the house. It's a pleasure to play with him and watch him giggle. Time flies!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunglasses
I have been asking the husband to write a post on this subject, but for reasons that will become obvious, he has been resisting this. So here we go.
He is addicted to sunglasses. He wears one all the time, even if the day is cloudy. Lo and behold, if he forgot to bring one, he will be squinting his eyes all the time outdoors. Nothing wrong with this, but he has this horrible habit of misplacing and losing sunglasses (he can usually be trusted with other things). I have lost count of how many times this has happened in all the four years we have been married. Let me try to list what comes to mind. He rode back seat on a friend's car one day, dropped it there and kept looking for it everywhere. Our friend gave it back in few days. The next time he left it inside a car we were selling, kept looking for it and found it just before emptying the car before handing off the keys. He was not very lucky the next time - no idea how he lost it.
This habit was proving to be costly - these Rayban sunglasses cost at least $150. So we turned to Costco. They were selling similar Raybans for $80! Their Kirkland brand sunglasses looked pretty much like a Rayban, polarized and made in Italy. They were even cheaper - about $30! That was pretty good, especially for someone who tends to lose them. So I bought one for him and he was happy.
Just before we moved to UK, I came up with the idea of stocking up on the sunglasses, in case he loses his. So I bought two of them just in case - they are so cheap! We packed the new ones and shipped them with the other boxes (we have not received them yet). Sadly, he has not changed a bit here. He went to London for an interview one day and left the sunglass at the company. Fortunately, he went for the second round and they graciously have it back to him. On the way back, he left it in the train. Just two weeks ago,we were all travelling together by train to London. The boy was a little cranky and kept pulling my sunglass. I gave it to the husband to keep it (safely). When we got down, I asked for it back and got a blank look.
Why would anyone in their right mind entrust him with a sunglass (of all things)? That's not the point. We have lost both our sunglasses. We are waiting for our boxes - they have arrived, but we have asked them to be stored till we move to our own place. And we don't have any safety cushion anymore - no more spare sunglasses. We miss our Costco.
I have been asking him to write about this for all these days. His excuse was that these encounters are not related to our move or life here, so he cannot write about it. Here is the link: he has filed an inquiry with London Tube Department's Lost Property Office. He is eagerly waiting for an answer. There you go, husband!
He is addicted to sunglasses. He wears one all the time, even if the day is cloudy. Lo and behold, if he forgot to bring one, he will be squinting his eyes all the time outdoors. Nothing wrong with this, but he has this horrible habit of misplacing and losing sunglasses (he can usually be trusted with other things). I have lost count of how many times this has happened in all the four years we have been married. Let me try to list what comes to mind. He rode back seat on a friend's car one day, dropped it there and kept looking for it everywhere. Our friend gave it back in few days. The next time he left it inside a car we were selling, kept looking for it and found it just before emptying the car before handing off the keys. He was not very lucky the next time - no idea how he lost it.
This habit was proving to be costly - these Rayban sunglasses cost at least $150. So we turned to Costco. They were selling similar Raybans for $80! Their Kirkland brand sunglasses looked pretty much like a Rayban, polarized and made in Italy. They were even cheaper - about $30! That was pretty good, especially for someone who tends to lose them. So I bought one for him and he was happy.
Just before we moved to UK, I came up with the idea of stocking up on the sunglasses, in case he loses his. So I bought two of them just in case - they are so cheap! We packed the new ones and shipped them with the other boxes (we have not received them yet). Sadly, he has not changed a bit here. He went to London for an interview one day and left the sunglass at the company. Fortunately, he went for the second round and they graciously have it back to him. On the way back, he left it in the train. Just two weeks ago,we were all travelling together by train to London. The boy was a little cranky and kept pulling my sunglass. I gave it to the husband to keep it (safely). When we got down, I asked for it back and got a blank look.
Why would anyone in their right mind entrust him with a sunglass (of all things)? That's not the point. We have lost both our sunglasses. We are waiting for our boxes - they have arrived, but we have asked them to be stored till we move to our own place. And we don't have any safety cushion anymore - no more spare sunglasses. We miss our Costco.
I have been asking him to write about this for all these days. His excuse was that these encounters are not related to our move or life here, so he cannot write about it. Here is the link: he has filed an inquiry with London Tube Department's Lost Property Office. He is eagerly waiting for an answer. There you go, husband!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Car
We have been considering buying a car for some time and going back and forth about it. We can manage without a car, since I take a train to work, wife can walk to work and the shops are walking/biking distance from our house. The only hitch is that it does not feel right to take the boy out on a buggy (stroller) to the nursery when the weather is bad. Also, we can use the car for weekend trips - car rentals are not a great option since we will be forced to rent a car for the whole weekend. So we decided to buy a car.
What car to buy? We were set on buying a used car till to get familiar with the driving conditions here. We thought of buying a really cheap car - something between £1-2K, so that the running expenses will be minimal. Or is it? Consider the major expenses - insurance, road tax, maintenance and fuel. Trust the system here to defy all conventional wisdom.
So we decided to look for newer cars. We found many 3-4 year old cars at a Ford dealership nearby - about 10 minute walk from our house. Wife liked Ford Focus hatchbacks since they look very roomy but not too big. I saw a 2006 Ford Fusion with 28000 miles with a price of £5000. It looked smaller than a Focus, but the salesman convinced us that the leg and trunk space are the same in both the cars. It was a little cheaper, so we put a deposit for it. We took a one year insurance through Post Office. With a £100 excess (deductible), breakdown cover and legal cover, the annual premium for the two of us is £627. We had gotten letters from our insurers in US with our claim history, which needs to be sent to them - the quote includes a No Claims Discount for four years. The car feels very smooth, does not have too much power (probably about 110 hp) and has great mileage (55mpg on highway and 45 on local + highway).
I drove the car for shopping on Sunday and wife has been using the car for the last two days. It is a manual, of course, but it not too hard, since we are both used to it. The roundabouts are a pain to navigate. I thought I would do better since there are roundabouts in Boston, but these are not trivial. There are many lanes and I invariably end up in the wrong lane every time. It looks like people are much more courteous here - no honking when you make a mistake. We took a driving lesson each and feel more comfortable. We should seriously work towards getting a UK license.
What car to buy? We were set on buying a used car till to get familiar with the driving conditions here. We thought of buying a really cheap car - something between £1-2K, so that the running expenses will be minimal. Or is it? Consider the major expenses - insurance, road tax, maintenance and fuel. Trust the system here to defy all conventional wisdom.
- I got insurance quotes for the same model of a car of different ages from www.moneysupermarket.com. Believe it or not, the older a car gets, the more expensive it is to insure it (for example, a brand new Ford Focus would cost about £600 per year, 3 year old would cost £700 and 8 year old about £850). Also, comprehensive insurance is cheaper than third party (collision). It did not make any sense, but that's the way it is.
- Road tax is not based on the value of the car (as it is in the US), but on the CO2 emissions. There is not much variation here between old and new cars, but new cars will be slightly cheaper (£150 as opposed to say £200 per year)
- In general, car maintenance bill should be cheaper than US. Manufacturers recommend one service per year here. For Ford models, one of the cheaper and reliable brands, it would work out to £150-200 per year. As you can expect, newer cars have the edge here too.
- Fuel: nothing much to choose here. In general, cars are smaller, less powerful and more fuel efficient than US.
So we decided to look for newer cars. We found many 3-4 year old cars at a Ford dealership nearby - about 10 minute walk from our house. Wife liked Ford Focus hatchbacks since they look very roomy but not too big. I saw a 2006 Ford Fusion with 28000 miles with a price of £5000. It looked smaller than a Focus, but the salesman convinced us that the leg and trunk space are the same in both the cars. It was a little cheaper, so we put a deposit for it. We took a one year insurance through Post Office. With a £100 excess (deductible), breakdown cover and legal cover, the annual premium for the two of us is £627. We had gotten letters from our insurers in US with our claim history, which needs to be sent to them - the quote includes a No Claims Discount for four years. The car feels very smooth, does not have too much power (probably about 110 hp) and has great mileage (55mpg on highway and 45 on local + highway).
I drove the car for shopping on Sunday and wife has been using the car for the last two days. It is a manual, of course, but it not too hard, since we are both used to it. The roundabouts are a pain to navigate. I thought I would do better since there are roundabouts in Boston, but these are not trivial. There are many lanes and I invariably end up in the wrong lane every time. It looks like people are much more courteous here - no honking when you make a mistake. We took a driving lesson each and feel more comfortable. We should seriously work towards getting a UK license.
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