Italy on a Shoe String - Living ‘La Bella Vita’ Inexpensively

[anne2]

Originally Posted by Anastasia

Duh! Why didn't I think of that? Pressure cookers are great for the dried beans Heidi.. and cheaper cuts of meat can be used if a pressure cooker is used for stews and suchlike.

:D

Also a slow cooker. I don't know if you can buy them here, ours came from the UK and chugs away quite happily so no problems with the electrical side of things.
If you are resident and the house has been fitted with a 'telelettura' electricity meter you may be eligible for one of the cheap overnight electricity offers, there are certain restrictions, all details are given on the ENEL website and you can set up a tariff on-line.

Regards
Anne2

[Anastasia]

You know what they say about beans and marriage.. dont you Heidi?

If you put a bean in a tin every time you make love in the first year of marriage.. and then take a bean out of the tin every time you make love after the first year.. you will never empty the tin!

Tip; make sure it's a very, very big tin in the fist place! :D

[Relaxed]

Shas has made a good point about some "precious" beans costing fillet steak prices!

Same goes for olive oil - a drop of really good stuff on a salad is very worthwhile, but sauteeing your spuds in "extra virgin" is not only unnecessary, but doesn't give as good a result as using cheaper supermarket olive oils.

[nigelaxis]

My cost saving topic for today is........telephone calls.

Now once you have come to Italy you will still need to make calls home.
A) to make sure everybody knows the weather is much better and generally 'rub-it-in'
B) Organise visitors who can bring over some english products

So my topic is Skype. Skype is free software that allows you to make fre calls over the internet. You need a computer thats connected to the internet and headset or USB phone. The software is free and the headset should cost from 15euro's. You can then call other skype users for free. Ther is over 6m people active on skype while I am typing.

Now you can actually use skype to call landlines. You buy 'skype-out' credit and can then make calls to phones.

When you use skype-out the charge is a local call. I have found that when calling landlines this skype credit last for ages.

[nigelaxis]

The second part of the telephone charges post is making call from the UK to Italy. I use Telediscount http://telediscount.co.uk/index2.php and they offer call rates to most countries.

For Italian landlines, if you dial 0844 861 90 90, then the number(including the country code) you are currently getting charged 1p per minute.

They do mobile calls as well. But this is 25p per minute. 0911 209 36 36

Hopefully, somebody on this forum will have an Italian equivalent they can add.

[Heidihi58]

If you can't use skype or whatever, we have found a place in Florence which sells different International phone cards...."Connect World" costs 5 euro for 400 minutes (fixed Italian line to fixed UK line) so that's less than 1p/minute. You have a few numbers to dial first, access number, secret code then UK code etc but it's worth it! There are a number of different phone cards around and the people in the shops usually know which is best for the UK but this is the cheapest I've found so far.

[Heidihi58]

Well it's meant to be a speciality of Tuscany so I've agreed to try it....

Chestnuts are around in abundance now too, free if you know where to look. I had some boiled in water flavoured with fennel seeds...interesting. I have been given a recipe for a Chocolate cake made with cooked chestnuts instead of flour, so again, when I have made it I'll post the recipe if it's ok...although I'm told it is really "yummy".

[jackie C]

Has anyone seen slow cookers over here. We will be out skiing in February and as I use my slow cooker in the uk all the time in the winter, I thought it would be great to come back after a days skiing to lovely comfort food already cooked and ready to serve.

We are in the Abruzzo by the way.

Jackie

[anne2]

Originally Posted by jackie C

Has anyone seen slow cookers over here.
Jackie

Have never seen one over here, but ours was brought form the UK and works fine.

[Cassini]

The italian post office sells a calling card which can drastically reduce the cost of calls. Available from the counter, often there is an advertisement for it on the wall too.