Living essentials

First, the mail. It must - MUST - all be re-addressed to a P O Box number + a code related to the number. There is no street delivery here, and if you don't have the P O address exactly right the letter will never see the light of day again!

Friends who have visited England recently tell me that prices of groceries are about the same as they are in England. Prices of other things - cars, insurance, etc - may be wildly different. What you should do before anything else is to check out the online magazine New Resident - which is mentioned in several other threads on this site.

Thanks been reading up on that already! much appriciated.

OK. Ask away if there's anything specific.

There is one thing I should have mentioned that English migrants reckon is expensive, and that's second-hand cars. I read on other forums that such cars are pretty cheap in Britain - a few hundred dollars. The cheapest cars available here are probably around a couple of thousand bucks. (One pound equals a dollar, more or less.) My wife and I have two 1997 Toyota Windoms, and each is worth $1500-2000 on the open market. They're what we call "deportees" - cars imported from Japan, five years old at the time. One of ours has about 100,000 miles, the other 70,000; and both in excellent shape. We bought them for $4500 and $5000 ten years or so ago. Both right-hand-drive, which is nice, since we drive on the left of the road - well, most of us; tourists sometimes forget...

Thanks Gordon