With Malta being a small island, local shopping is pretty limited compared to what you find abroad. This has led to the Maltese quickly getting hooked on online shopping. While a few years back only a few websites offered to ship to Malta, nowadays there are many sites that offer European-wide shipping, in some cases even offering free shipping and returns.

Here are some of my favorite sites:

• Amazon.co.uk
• Zalando.com
• Asos.com
• Aliexpress
• Banggood
• Gearbest
• House of Fraser
• BeautyBay
• Macy’s
• The Hut
• Zavvi
• Farfetch (luxury goods)

How to Buy Cheap Electronics Online in Malta

Malta has the most expensive consumer electronics in the EU. However, you don’t need to be paying the high prices at local shops for your laptops, sound equipment, hardware, etc.

The solution is, of course, to shop online.

Shopping for Electronics in Malta at Amazon

I highly recommend using Amazon for all your online shopping needs. You can not only buy books and electronics from Amazon, but pretty much anything else. Many Maltese buy clothes from Amazon too, for example. There’s much more choice than the local shops, and you can easily send the stuff you don’t like back.

Amazon has the most amazing support and customer service I ever encountered. Say for example you order a book and it’s received slightly damaged because the postman didn’t take good care of it, or it just got damaged during the shipping process. All you need to do is file an issue with Amazon and they’ll either give you a refund or send you another copy. It happened to me more than once and Amazon staff have always been super helpful in finding a resolution.

On another occasion, I ordered a piece of hardware that never got delivered, even though it was sent via courier. Again, all I had to do was contact Amazon, and it was them who dealt with the courier. In the meantime, they just sent me the hardware once again and apologised profusely for the inconvenience.

I hope that convinces you that there is absolutely no problem with shopping online at Amazon. If anything, you’ll get better support and customer service than you would at your local shop.

Which Amazon site to use

Now Amazon doesn’t have a site specifically for the Maltese islands, so you will need to choose a site dedicated to one the bigger countries in Europe. There are several options, but most people will drift to the Amazon.co.uk website, simply because it is in English and has the biggest range of products.

Beware that the prices on Amazon.co.uk are in GBP, and since the exchange rate between GBP and EUR is always fluctuating, you might not be getting a great deal. On the other hand, you might be lucky and profit from a weak British pound. The easiest way to check whether you’re losing or gaining from the exchange rate is to search for the same product on Amazon.es or Amazon.de (Spanish and German Amazon sites). It will take the same time to arrive to Malta and postage rates are the same for most products. However, since the Spanish and German sites sell their items in Euro you will be able to compare and see whether it make sense to buy in GBP from the Amazon.co.uk site or to buy in Euro from Spain or Germany.

Hope that helps. I have used Amazon for over 10 years now and I get all my electronics from there, including expensive items like photographic equipment and laptops.

If you have any questions about shopping online at Amazon just leave a question below, I’ll be happy to help out.

Visit Amazon.co.uk

🛒 A Simple Trick to Save Money When Buying From Amazon UK

When buying from Amazon UK and shipping to Malta (or any other country except the UK itself), you will be given the option to pay in GBP or your local currency (EUR in Malta’s case).

By default EUR will be selected, so make sure you switch that to GBP. Amazon uses an exchange rate that is worse than the one offered by your local bank, and you would, therefore, be losing money if you pay in EUR.

I then make the payment using my TransferWise Borderless Mastercard debit card, as it automatically takes my Euros and converts them to GBP to make the payment at the best rates. Not only that, but I can also convert Euro to GBP at any point in time and store them in the Borderless account. Then when I pay on Amazon UK it will use the funds in the GBP account I have.

See also: N26 vs Revolut

When traveling abroad you will encounter this choice when paying at shops and restaurants as well, and even in those cases, you should always pay in the currency of that country by using a card like N26 or Revolut. The amount saved really adds up over time especially if you are making larger purchases from Amazon.

Other Sites for Getting Electronics to Malta on the Cheap

Apart from Amazon, there are other sites that can be ideal for particular niches. I tend to use Amazon for any kind of purchase, be it electronics, shoes, clothes, or household goods.

When it comes to electronics, though, in addition to Amazon I also check the following websites:

• Banggood
• Gearbest

These are Chinese websites, although they have a limited supply of their stock available in European warehouses. Shipping tends to be slower than Amazon, but you can use expedited shipping to get your items within 5 business days. Note that you will usually have to pay VAT on the products’ arrival to Malta. This applies mostly to the higher-priced items; on smaller items they just let them through usually. In the case that you’ll need to pay VAT, the delivery person will collect the VAT in cash when he delivers the item to you.

These two websites are also not limited to electronics, but you won’t find the same range as Amazon. On the other hand, if you know that the product you want is manufactured in China, the chances are that you’ll find it at a lower price on Banggood or Gearbest rather than Amazon, since you’re cutting out the middleman in Europe.

I recently discovered that I’m color blind to a certain degree. There are several degrees of color blindness, and this congenital disease affects mostly males (up to 7% of the total male population).

The test you need to take at your eye clinic in order to determine whether you are color blind or not is called an Ishihara Test. You will be shown a number of slides and you will need to determine what number is shown on each slide.

If you want a free quick test to determine whether you are color blind or not, you can use the Enchroma color blindness test.

My test results put me in the mild deutan category. Here’s the description of moderate deutan color blindness:

Deutans are people with deuteranomaly, a type of red-green color blindness in which the green cone doesn’t detect enough green but is too sensitive to yellows, oranges, and reds.

As a result, greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and browns may appear similar, especially in low light. It can also be difficult to tell the difference between blues and purples, or pinks and grays

If color blindness causes you problems on a daily basis, or if you just want to experience what the world looks like to the vast majority of people, Enchrome makes special sunglasses that aim to correct color blindness. There are several videos on YouTube capturing the emotions of color blind people trying them out for the first time; they’re quite interesting.

Personally, my color blindness hasn’t significantly affected my daily life. In fact, I didn’t even know about the condition until I visited a museum that had some basic information about color blindness on display, and I realised that I couldn’t see the numbers shown, meaning that I had some degree of color blindness.

I am curious, however, to try out the Enchroma glasses, especially in a sports context. I’d love to see whether correcting my color blindness would help me in my padel play. It would also be interesting to know whether specific padel court surfaces are better and provide more contrast with the ball for a color blind person.

Anyone else tested positive for color blindness? Has it affected you in your daily life? Let me know in the comments section below!

 

One of my favorite breakfast meals is the yogurt bowl. It’s super easy to prepare and it’s a great fresh way to start your day.

Ingredients

• 1 sliced Banana
• Half a first of walnuts
• 5 to 10 berries of your choice
• 1 teaspoon of chia seeds
• Natural unsweetened Greek yogurt

Directions

Like I said, this is super easy to prepare, so just put all the ingredients in a small bowl, mix and enjoy your healthy breakfast. You can, of course, vary this in many ways so it’s never boring. At times I put strawberries instead of banana. You could also put in matcha, moringa or protein powder for an interesting mix with the yogurt.

You can also vary the nuts, I like to use hazelnuts and almonds to vary from the usual walnuts. The nice thing about walnuts is that they are very easy to break down into smaller pieces using just your hands.

Here’s another quick and easy breakfast recipe that fits right into my ideas of a healthy diet. I love simple and nutritious dishes, and this plate packs a lot of protein and healthy fats together with a great dose of fiber to keep you feeling full throughout the morning.

What we’ll be making is an open sandwich (just one slice of bread rather than two) but you could easily make it a full sandwich if you wanted. In general, I try to keep bread consumption to a minimum due to my genetic makeup. Bread and other grains that are heavy on carbs are the quickest way for me to put on weight and that’s definitely not something I’m seeking at this point.

Ingredients

All quantities are for one serving.

• 1/2 pack of smoked salmon
• 1/2 an avocado
• Olive oil
• German bread (or any wholemeal substitute of your choice)
• Pepper

Directions

Drizzle olive oil over each sandwich and use a knife to spread it evenly. Chop the avocado into small pieces and spread them over the bread. Finally, add the salmon slices and top that off with some pepper for added flavor.

A very nice variation to this dish is to add scrambled eggs and freshly cut herbs (chives work well). You can also try skipping the olive oil and using fresh lemon juice squeezed over the sandwich as the last step.

Toasting the bread is also a great variation especially in the colder months.

 

I’ve recently switched to porridge for my choice of morning fuel. Here’s the recipe I use for preparing this delicious and nutritious hot dish.

Ingredients

To cook this recipe we only need a few ingredients. For best results, use high quality organic ingredients. Below are the oats, nuts, and sultanas I use on a daily basis.

Here’s what we need for one plate of porridge:

• 60g oats
• 20g sultanas
• 10g walnuts
• pinch of salt
• 270ml of water

Directions

To get cracking, you will need a small pot and ideally a kitchen scale. I bought the Smart Weigh scale from Amazon and am very happy with it. It allows you to use the tare functionality which makes it much easier than remembering the previous weight of things and calculating the difference. Once you click the tare button it will reset to zero, so you can then add the next ingredient very easily in accordance with the recipe.

This particular scale also has several types of measurement, which is convenient as I use both grams and milliliters in this recipe.

Put all the ingredients in a small pot and set on a hob. Start off with full heat until the porridge starts simmering.

Then shift downwards and continue cooking on low heat. Wait until the texture is creamy; that’s your signal that the porridge is ready to serve. You can experiment and see what consistency you like best, then record the number of minutes it took you. You can then stick to that number of minutes in the future.

Variation: Instead of sultanas, you can also use berries or bananas. If you decide to do so just add the berries/banana around a minute before the porridge is ready to serve, instead of putting them with the oats from the start as in the case of sultanas.

Note: Different kinds of oats have varying water absorption properties, so be sure to adjust the water quantity depending on that. If you see the water drying up but the oats don’t have the required consistency yet, just add a bit more water.