Tips on what household items to bring from the uk rather than buy in Spain? - Page 3

Hi Fay, personally I would go for either John Lewis or M&S for bedding, towels, pillows, cushions and covers and even duvets. JL for saucepans etc. I like quality over quantity. I’ve been using two sets of flat sheets from JL for the last five years, still as good and still as white. Stay away from the cheap Chinese shops, you know what they say buy cheap buy twice.  Both JL and M&S deliver to Spain. Good luck 😎

Very many thanks for all the suggestions.  I definitely took note of many of the things people said.

I actually started this thread a year or more ago, and it has been so interesting to see what people have advised.  We arrived in January 2017 and took ownership of a holiday home, not a permanent move.

In the end we did buy a mixture of linens from M and S and brought them over in our car. But then two of the beds were single Spanish sized and we bought quilts from the Yorkshire Linen company in Orihuela. I wanted polycotton quilt covers so they didn't need ironing......not a job I want to do much! ..........so far all have been excellent. Our pillows were from JL in UK and a wonderful buy. Memory foam. 

We brought a Dyson vacuum with us. It's brilliant. I bought pans in Ikea Murcia, but have found them too large for us so I ended up using Carrefour vouchers and part buying smaller pans that were easier to use. Most of the time there are just two of us. Big pans were a mistake. I am pleased with the quality of the Carrefour purchases.  Maybe I'll have to advertise the pans!  Our crockery (and cutlery) was a set from Carrefour. Not expensive but colourful!

I bring over Heinz Salad Cream and certain easy packet mixes to make life easy when cooking. My Spanish is not brilliant, so labels are tiresome.

Anyway, I really enjoy reading all the information people out on the Forum. It has been a great help to me.

So very many thanks, and long may life be enjoyable on the Cost Blanca, and especially after Brexit!

Unlike Ray, we do use English shops, although in the main we use Mercadona and Aldi. Some of the things we can't source from Spanish shops include soft brown sugar, caster sugar, vanilla essence, oatmeal, semolina, mixed peel, currants, ginger ale, sage & onion stuffing, stock pots, Worcester sauce, etc etc. If you like cooking and baking, there just aren't acceptable Spanish alternatives. Also Margaret brings Kenko Milikano back with her when visiting the UK, proper oak-smoked haddock (not the rubbish that Iceland sell), and venison. We also buy tea bags from Iceland, as we both think té rojo is far too floral. I could name other things we can't source here, but hope I've got my message across.

We also buy English bedding. I in particular don't like the smaller Spanish beds so we brought our English ones with us. OK, that put up the transport cost, but at the time there weren't suppliers of English beds in our area.

I can't say I've ever noticed the road between Catral and Dolores being furniture road - to us, that is the road leading out of Almoradí towards Dolores.

You also need to find a good butcher. Nearly all Spanish butchers put meat on sale shortly after it's been slaughtered rather than hanging it first. It took me quite a while to find a butcher who sells good meat - unfortunately he's in Torrevieja, but I travel down there two or three times a year to stock up the freezer. Just look in a typical Spanish butcher at the beef - it's bright red, and therefore tough and lacking in flavour. When we go to Casa Harry in San Felipe Neri, we always have a laugh if we hear Harry banging away in the kitchen - that mean's someone has ordered a beef steak, and Harry's bashing away at it to try and tenderise it.

I like Ray's point about Amazon.de - I'll be following up on that one.

As a final point, make sure that any visitors come to you with a suitcase packed with goodies you can't get here.

Give me some sources please Ray, starting with mixed peel and currants.

Your mention of hanging meat reminds me of our former butcher in Bedale. When he took up with a new lady friend, she only wanted beef that was bright red and fresh. Mark did a taste test on her. One piece of bright red and shiny beef, and another that was really dark and dull. He reported that she agreed with him that matured beef was much tastier (because it's had time to mature, like cheese) and much more tender.

If we run out of steak and I can't face going down to Torre, I get some from the franchise butcher (Carnes del Bierzo) in Lidl in Almoradí. If they're quiet I ask them to vac pack it; otherwise I do that myself. Then I bung it in the fridge for three weeks. Try it yourself and see what you think.

I got some UK-size pillows in Jysk.  Bought others in Yorkshire Linen.  Like both and they were similar prices.