So besides bikes ............

[pugsly]

i shoot guns go muddin hunt fish

[Motorcycle Forum]

[inspiron]

Inspiron, what is the trip from Germany to work going to be like?

and why the move to Germany, anyway?

The commute from the new house to the Swiss border is about 20 minutes, so for me, my daily commute will go from about 20 minutes to about 35 to 40 minutes.

Why move back to Germany? Several reasons - my wife, who is German, would like to return to Germany, as she hasn't had much luck finding friends here. She has, on the other hand, already met all of our new neighbors and is really looking forward to moving. (We bought the property a few months back, and our house exists only on paper at the moment. Our current plan is that we'll be moving in September/October 2012).

The other reasons are mostly financial - the cost of living in Switzerland is just too damn high. I've mentioned this in other threads - the cost of land where I live now is 4 to 5 times higher than the cost of land in Germany (20 miles away). The cost of everything else is equally high. An example - yesterday I was in Constance (near Lake Constance, Germany) to do some shopping. In one store, a factory outlet, they had their international pricetag hanging on the jeans - the German/Austrian/French price was EUR 89.90. The price in Belgium and some other countries was EUR 99.90. The MSRP for Switzerland was CHF 189.00. Now, keep in mind that, for a long time (almost 10 years) the exchange rate was around 1.55 to 1, meaning that 1 Euro cost CHF 1.55. A "fair" price for a pair of jeans that cost 90 Euros would be about 140 Swiss Francs. In the past few months, with the Euro crisis, the exchange rate dropped - at one point the Swiss Franc and the Euro were almost 1:1, before the Swiss national bank stepped in and set a miniumum exchange rate of 1.20 to 1. This means that a pair of jeans that sells for EUR 90 shouldn't cost more than about 110 CHF. But since Switzerland has a "single importer" model (every article which is imported into Switzerland goes through an exclusive dealer), there is no pressure for the importers to lower their prices - they laugh all the way to the bank.

So, I'm going to move back to Germany and continue to work in Switzerland - so I earn Swiss Francs and transfer my "pocket money" to Euros. (I plan on keeping most of my mortgage in Swiss francs, so that I have a lower exchange rate risk. Also, Swiss Franc mortgages are much cheaper than Euro mortgages - for the property, we're paying 2.3% APR, fixed for the next 3 years).

[300winmag]

I'm with Colonel Sanders on this one, the market will lead to the death of us all... and it is slowly but surely.

Hiking, Camping, Shooting, Guardian Angels, Scuba Diving, Sitting on my butt in front of a computer.

Good luck on your new house inspiron and if the gov goes MIA you should move to Canada, it's the perfect place for a family.

[omegajim]

$100 for pants, good grief.

Remember back a few years when the old man said "I liked it before blue jeans became all the rage in the schools; pants were $3 - $4 a pair, then the kids all started wearing them and the price just kept going up......"

[buster]

Travelling, Anne and I do loads of travelling - all over the place, when we don't get abroad we hook up the trailer tent and go and explore more of Scotland, other hobby is reading, we both read loads.

[Danthedawgfan]

Hmm where to start...
Becca (the boss) and I do a lot of traveling, and that hasn't slowed down since Grayson was born last year. Somehow I lucked up enough to find a girl that likes or at least pretends to like sports as much as I. We go to a lot of sporting events (mostly baseball), we do a lot of spur of the moment road trips. I hunt a bit during the winter months, and I spend a lot of time all year 'round grilling and smoking. I play a little golf, work out when there is nothing else to do, and watch far too much tv...