Is the UK really that expensive?

[nicky munchkin]

I say no.

A while ago on BBC1 there was a program where they gathered some regular household items from 12 different countries (things such as washing up liquid etc.).

Guess where the cheapest place was to get it all from?

*Drumrole*

The United Kingdom.

Its only really places like London that can be expensive but a lot of areas are quite reasonable.

Look at the facts- we are better of as a nation than ever before. How would we be able to afford the systems in our ego boosting sigs if we were all skint.

We imagine we are skint because we look up to countries such as the states where things such as cars are dead cheap. Our neigbours- France, Spain, and Belgium appear cheap as they sell fags and booze cheaper than us (although they get tax in other ways). We are certainly expensive for some things (housing), and yes London is the second most expensive city in the world. But we are certainly not as bad as some countries, when I went to NYC for example I remember thinking "Damn I can get that for much cheaper" etc.

Our Prime Minister may be an idiot, but I wouldn't move for the world :).

Discuss...

[burgi]

I say no.

A while ago on BBC1 there was a program where they gathered some regular household items from 12 different countries (things such as washing up liquid etc.).

Guess where the cheapest place was to get it all from?

*Drumrole*

The United Kingdom.

Its only really places like London that can be expensive but a lot of areas are quite reasonable.

Look at the facts- we are better of as a nation than ever before.
Show us some facts then. If housing is much more expensive here (which it is) then cheap washing-up liquid isn't really going to balance things up, is it? Oh no! A tiny flat costs £150,000. Never mind though, Fairy Liquid is only 20p. Huzzah! I shall construct a shelter out of old plastic bottles.

How would we be able to afford the systems in our ego boosting sigs if we were all skint.

This might, just might, have something to do with this being an internet forum hosted by a shop that sells top-end computer equipment. There's certainly a paucity of posts from people with no computer.

We imagine we are skint because we look up to countries such as the states where things such as cars are dead cheap. Our neigbours- France, Spain, and Belgium appear cheap as they sell fags and booze cheaper than us (although they get tax in other ways). We are certainly expensive for some things (housing), and yes London is the second most expensive city in the world. But we are certainly not as bad as some countries, when I went to NYC for example I remember thinking "Damn I can get that for much cheaper" etc.


Did you remember to convert $s into £s? :p

[nicky munchkin]

And notice your location^^^ London.

As I said, London is the second most expensive city in the world. I was generalising the UK as a whole.

Yes I did remember to convert $ to £. NYC being a major city (more important than the capital really) is going to be much more expensive than where I live. The main tourist attraction of a country always is.

Edit: If you really don't like it, move away from London. Over where I live (Southend) you can pick up a 2 bed semi for 150 grand. You can even keep the same job that you have as the train to London is about 50minutes. Actually house prices around here are rising- and for that reason :( .

I certainly would not consider my house good (we live in a 2 bed semi which is worth around 160 grand :D), my parents are not rich, but we make a nice profit somehow :\ probably cause the mortgage is paid off. I have just managed to get my hands on a lovely little conroe system for 479 inc. VAT (brand new, 22" wide, E4300) as a temp for when I build later next year.

Look at the other thread from sickjoda who lives in Canada. Those prices are much more than we pay here.

[burgi]

And notice your location^^^ London.

As I said, London is the second most expensive city in the world. I was generalising the UK as a whole.

Yes I did remember to convert $ to £. NYC being a major city (more important than the capital really) is going to be much more expensive than where I live. The main tourist attraction of a country always is.

My location being London isn't really relevant. Sure it's only London where you'll find a tiny flat at £150,000 but then Fairy Liquid costs considerably more than 20p so both my example figures were made up. The point is that finding a dozen products that are cheaper in Britain tells you nothing about the cost of living here, it's a bit more complicated than that.

As for NY prices, what stuff are you talking about exactly? Having been recently I know that CDs, computer equipment, consumer electronics in general, petrol, clothes and food are all cheaper in the US, including NY. You certainly find really expensive restaurants in NY but that's the same anywhere. Any town in Britain will offer food from £1 up to £50 depending on whether you have a bag of chips or a 5 course meal in a s****y place.

[burgi]

I'm laughing hard at the swear filters treatment of S W A N K Y :D

[nicky munchkin]

I think your comparing NYC to London not say... Ayr.

Things such as computing parts are cheaper because nation wide stores (I believe there equivalent of our PCWorld is CompUSA) charge the same price in each store (or people would be peed off if the CompUSA in washington was charging $200 for something available for $149 in the Utah CompUSA for example).

Ive been charged a quid for a can of coke in London before, wheras here I can get one for 25p (although more around 50p in a regular shop).

I also admit I have yet to buy a house so am unaware of the financial struggle that comes with it. This is just merely my POV :).

[nicky munchkin]

Basically the jist of this thread is that although we all think it... we are not the most expensive country in the world.

In fact, I just searched google, clicked the first result- we are the 16th most expensive country in the world, the USA being more than us :eek:.

My source http://www.aneki.com/expensive.html

[burgi]

Basically the jist of this thread is that although we all think it... we are not the most expensive country in the world.

In fact, I just searched google, clicked the first result- we are the 16th most expensive country in the world, the USA being more than us :eek:.

My source http://www.aneki.com/expensive.html

But that's just a list on the internet. How was it constructed? What does it take into account? It's obvious from a quick glance that it is not solely based on the price of things. China, Venezuela and the Ivory Coast more expensive than the UK? I think not.

[Fat Jez]

But that's just a list on the internet. How was it constructed? What does it take into account? It's obvious from a quick glance that it is not solely based on the price of things. China, Venezuela and the Ivory Coast more expensive than the UK? I think not.

Depends on whether it is done on disposable income or not. If you do it on the basis that their salaries are far lower, then yes, they are much more expensive. Same with the States, their salaries seem to be done on the same basis - £1=$1, so to them things aren't that cheap, only to us when we look at the price and the exchange rate.

Cheers,
Stephen

[nicky munchkin]

But that's just a list on the internet. How was it constructed? What does it take into account? It's obvious from a quick glance that it is not solely based on the price of things. China, Venezuela and the Ivory Coast more expensive than the UK? I think not.
Don't shoot the messenger ;)

Edit: Technically the United States GDP per capita is higher than ours, but I think thats because of the "American Dream", ie. they have the most millionaires and billionaires in the world. I'm (probably naively) guessing that most regular people earn less than we do.

[burgi]

Depends on whether it is done on disposable income or not. If you do it on the basis that their salaries are far lower, then yes, they are much more expensive. Same with the States, their salaries seem to be done on the same basis - £1=$1, so to them things aren't that cheap, only to us when we look at the price and the exchange rate.

Cheers,
Stephen

The disposable income line is the key one here.

I suspect the average disposable income in the Ivory Coast is approximately zero pounds so everything will be out of reach for the average person, indeed most of the stuff we take for granted probably isn't available there outside of tourist hotels. This is not the same as the Ivory Coast being more expensive.

It also illustrates how difficult it is to make these kind of comparisons. If it's based on disposable income I'd say it completely discredits the data. How can you rate how expensive it is to live somewhere if you disregard the cost of accommodation, food, water and heating?

Either way, it's a bit of a nonsense to try and compare the UK and the Ivory Coast in these terms. You might get some sense out of comparing broadly similar countries.

Nicky - I don't mean to shoot the messenger - just the message. I'm not suggesting the UK is the most expensive country on the planet (my personal experience would tell me somewhere like Switzerland) just that these things are extremely complicated and there are powerful vested interests at play here - big companies in the UK (I'm looking at you Tesco's, Sainsbury's) spend a great deal of time and effort trying to convince you that everything's fine and dandy. Even the dear old, state-funded, BBC are not above this.

[Tom]

It's not the cheapest place to live, or the most expensive, but we get things a little sweet here to be honest. I'd not emigrate if you paid me*.

I'd just prefer it if I there was some sort cull of chavs, and some tighter restrictions on spongers. We'd be much better off :) But hey, no-where's perfect, right?

*Well, the equivellant of £100,000/year might move me :p

[PJ Matthews]

I'm sorry but its house prices that make the UK such a problematic place to live. Since Labours origina refusal to use green field sites house prices reached incredible levels and it may be another 10-15 years before enough homes can be built to meet demand.

As for goods, electrical goods are the most expensive in the Uk across the WHOLE of Europe and Northern America. Another factor is the price of petrol and road tax which is high compared to much *but not all* of Europe. Its competition between the supermarkets which has driven down prices so much for regular goods which is a somewhat unique situation in the UK.

[Cable Monkey]

Pre Iraq I filled my car up in a US gas station for $18, around £13 at the time. The locals (on a US air base) were complaining about how expensive it was! The UK is not the most expensive place in Europe to live, but in those places where it is more expensive, wages are higher. It is that comparison between wages and cost of living which is relevant, and the ratio that embarrases the UK. Having visited the US, I can tell you the cost of living can be significantly lower than here. Food, accomodation, transport and other essentials are cheaper. However home ownership is less common and more expensive, and mortgages can be brutal if you are not wealthy.

I am an Anglophile, I have been to a few other places in the world. Some were nice, others not so nice. I have seen opulence and wealth, turned 180 degrees on the spot to see disease and pestulence (quite literally during a visit to Kenya). What our country does well is strike a balance between enabling wealth and providing for the less well off. Even our poorest people are well off compared to some unfortunate souls I have met elsewhere in the world.

[Tami]

I was born and spent 42 years in the US.
I have been living in the UK for over 15 years.
My wife (English) is severely disabled now and if we had stayed in the US we would be living in a box under a bridge.
It is easy to compare prices untill you carry someone barely breathing into a hospital and get told to drive 60 miles to a clinic.
Yes the US is a lot cheaper to live in and you can make more money but do NOT get ill!

[liadbacklad]

I agree with Tami, we may be taxed alot, and thus have a higher cost of living, but hell, how many thousands of people in the US have gone from well off to scraping the barrel because they suddenly lost their job, or fell seriously ill, Tami's wife for example.

[ArTizan]

It is a difficult one. I don't mind paying extra for certain products, because I demand a spot on service, and if I don't get it for my money, then you usually get something sorted out - though in my experience service in this country is pretty good.

I think house prices are annoying as hell, hence why I'm still renting, but I do believe if you look hard enough you can find things cheap as hell, like the washing up liquid.

You could probably cut your weekly shop by over a half if you switched from Sainsburys to Lidl, for example - we have some things which are very expensive, but are also very cheap if you look!

The prices of things exactly the same as other countires ticks me off, such as the ps3, consoles, dvd's etc - there' really little need for these to be highly overpriced as they are. It just feels like companies are cashing in on us sometimes.

[BUFF]

Having visited the US, I can tell you the cost of living can be significantly lower than here. Food, accomodation, transport and other essentials are cheaper.
Even that isn't entirely true.
Take food for example -on my visits to supermarkets in the US things like soft drinks were dirt cheap but milk & bread was expensive (& the bread was crap).

& as Tami has said you also have to consider things other than pure material goods.
I'm a dual national & often get asked why I don't go to the 'States - my answer is usually it's a nice place to visit but I don't know that I want to live there ...

Scotland isn't perfect but there sure are worse places.

[FlyingHaggis]

Well, we do have the NHS.. Musn't grumble. And to be honest we have got it good. The fact that we're sat here on computers for one thing shows that we are most fortunate compared to people who live in India, for example, who have never seen/used computers, yet my parents recently came back from a trip to India saying how cheap everything was... It may be cheap, but only to us. It is expensive to them.

So try not to complain. :P

[jesush++]

Well, we do have the NHS.. Musn't grumble. And to be honest we have got it good. The fact that we're sat here on computers for one thing shows that we are most fortunate compared to people who live in India, for example, who have never seen/used computers, yet my parents recently came back from a trip to India saying how cheap everything was... It may be cheap, but only to us. It is expensive to them.

So try not to complain. :P

Try telling a software engineer that people in India have never seen a computer before. In the UK or US, when you grow up, you want to be a sports star, or an astronaut, but in India, they want to be software engineers.

[nicky munchkin]

We use LIDL :D

Actually according to WHICH magazine (mum gets it :() LIDL and ALDI have much better quality of service, and customer treatment than all the top 4 supermarkets (morrison, sainsburys, asda, tesco). They also had a much better quality for price ratio than the main supermarkets. In fact they were only beaten by M&S and Waitrose :eek:

Sorry for the off topic bit there.

But yeah we do have it a lot better than others here. I remember my foreign English teacher (just moved over here) harping on about how much his rent was and how expensive the place was... till his wife fell ill.

I do however feel that London has got way out of hand recently, having earlier today while visiting there, paid £4 for a one way single on the tube :mad:. The London Underground is now the most expensive subway system in the world.

[iggy]

I think your comparing NYC to London not say... Ayr.

why the hell would you compare NYC to ayr?

thats like comparing London to Umtata (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=umtata&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl)

you cant compare massive cities to small towns. its a completely flawed analysis.

[FlyingHaggis]

Which Umtata did you mean? South Africa or one of several in the UK?

Try telling a software engineer that people in India have never seen a computer before. In the UK or US, when you grow up, you want to be a sports star, or an astronaut, but in India, they want to be software engineers.

My point was, that we can afford them.

[SiLvEr_SnAkE]

Which Umtata did you mean? South Africa or one of several in the UK?
I thought that lol.

Umtata
Naphill Common
Naphill, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP14 :rolleyes:

[nicky munchkin]

13" standard MacBook = 1049 EUR (France and other Euro countries) = £712
13" standard MacBook = £699 here

And a load of other stuff which I can't be bothered to list as its late.

Night, Nick :)

[robdos]

For me, the one thing that ticks me off with this country is how my cost of living is increasing, with no obvious increase in the services I receive or any real reflection of the increase in my salary.

I am happy to pay to live in this country, but sometimes I wonder where all the tax I pay goes.

Did you know that the average person has to work until the first of June each year just to pay their tax bill?

On that note....roll on tomorrow!

[Lucio]

That's easy :) Your tax money is steadily disappearing to finance the Gnomes of Zurich's ambitious take over plans and formation of the World Government. By stealing as little as £1 per £100,000 spent, they are expected to reach their goal in 2012.

Ahem :)


More seriously though, the UK is expensive if you compare costs in isolation. The one thing our government does work hard on is ensuring that many people are kept above their poverty line figures, which is also another reason why many everyday items are relatively cheap but luxury items are expensive.

What does make things more difficult is the growing disparity between different parts of the UK. The goods themselves tend to stay the same costs regardless where in the country you purchase them, but someone in London might be earning £25,000 a year but someone doing the exact same job in Manchester might only earn £18,000 a year. On average you'd expect a similar % left of their income that's disposable giving the person in London more purchasing power. This imbalance is what often leads to a perception of "Rip-Off Britain", the fact that prices are often normalised around someone living down South, rather than up North.

[saltynay]

our country is crippled as all the systems of health, transport, etc.... are old and need constant maintenance costs the train system now actually has an average speed lower then a hundred years ago when we were using steam trains the reason why is because the tracks are so old that is the top speed they can go at and because of health and safety you never want to run your systems to the max then they're sure to break. I think all of our tax money is being stored for massive refurbishments which they will probably fail at doing like the NHS