England is so expensive.

[Mooshamoo]

I just flew over from Ireland to England for a couple of days.

Jesus everything is so expensive in England! I felt like I burned through money.

I thought Ireland was pricy enough, but England is way more expensive.

I've come home, looked at my bank account and cried a little haha.

For example I got a train in Ireland before I left. It was 14 euro.

I got a train for the same distance in England. It was 40 pounds. It didn't even travel that far. And the guy in the train station told me that this was the best deal ticket "it was off peak"

Everything in the UK supermarket was so pricy.

I was just a little shocked. How are you all coping with it

Yeah cos things are looking great in France right now aren't they

Yeah cos things are looking great in France right now aren't they

Strikes and protests, very isolated. No difference from UK (more sectors striking in the UK just more politely and Britishly) 🤷‍♀️

11 euro? LOL. Mine is 17e and thats well out in the sticks. I ahven't seen 11e for 5 years.

France are striking because their state pension age is rising to 64. They also have a higher state pension than us.

@somewhereovertherain the statistics are based on the percentage of income spent on food. America spends the least amount of its income if food, less that 10% on average. Significantly lower than most of the world.

I shall be interested in all of the above, as I have just finished booking a trip to Spain and Portugal which includes hotels and self catering accommodation. Last year I thought Spain was quite good value for lunches and supermarkets and coffees (and we were in an upmarket part of the Costa Brava). We ate less well in France at the same price point but didn't buy much grocery stuff. We're exploring another area this year, so I am reading along with interest.

I think that is a very selective fact. VAT may have been low but the standard rate of income tax was 38.75% in 1972. In 1971 the top rate of income tax was 75%!

I think that multinational companies became very adept at dodging taxes, as did people with their one man contracting companies etc so tax tends to be levied at the point of consumption instead of the point of production.

Govt tax receipts as a % of GDP is pretty much the same as it was in 1972 (35/6%).

@gogohmm food in America is the cheapest in the world relative to income.

in 2021 American household just 6.6% of their total annual expenditure on food. So whilst a country like Kenya has ‘cheaper’ food, the average Kenyan family spent 56% of their income of food in 2021.

You can find the data here, it’s quite fascinating - https://ourworldindata.org/food-prices

Not as expensive as Australia.

No I have to argue with that as on most pub menus in my county in England £15 is around the normal price now for burger and chips - going by the last 5 times I’ve seen it listed on a restaurant menu recently.

Interesting to hear! Were you in London? Down South is more pricey than up North, but it does feel ridiculous everywhere at the moment. Train travel is crazily expensive, can get cheaper flights.

It must be relative to where you grow up, came from etc

I live in Scotland and am blessed with free prescriptions and uni tuition but would find the prices of going into Edinburgh for drinks really expensive, I'm imagining.

I'm sure everyday stuff or petrol is cheaper in other parts of the world but healthcare is more expensive or the air is more polluted or the crime rates are higher.

Grass is always greener, insert platitudes here, so on and so forth.

This is so true!
Plus travelling between many towns and cities in England by train (and even by coach to a lesser extent) is these days impossible to do direct, usually requiring several unreliable connections and an even more extortionate ticket price (even with some kind of rail card) for this time-consuming inconvenience.

I am amazed at how expensive trains are. Its so much cheaper to drive most of the time which doesn't really help any environmental issue. Trains should be so much cheaper.

Trains in this country are a national disgrace. We INVENTED the train, how did we get so bad about running them properly? Why haven't we got Bullet Trains like the Japanese do?

Just got back from a trip to London and I thought the prices in London were pretty good compared to the west coast of Ireland, where I live. 😳🤔

I stocked up on cheap paracetamol whilst I was there, too. 😂

I went to Bristol

Here is the menu of the restaurant near me in Ireland.

and to give context . It's not a takeaway chippers.
It's a nice sit down restaurant. You can get a burger there for 11.95.

London is expensive compared to elsewhere in the UK. Recently for 5 adults 1 teen and a 2 year old including drinks £145ish pounds south Wales (not Cardiff) expensive but not too bad for 7.

Have not been to London in a while but agree op its got costly in Ireland for anything food etc.

Guildford is one of the most expensive areas. I grew up there and then we moved 10 miles out and the difference is shocking.

I remember being in a salad bar in Dublin in 2016 on a hen do and filled a take away salad bowl up thinking it would be no more than €10, got to the till and it was €27. I nearly fainted 😂

These are all silly, tho amusing comparisons!

You need to compare apples with apples.

And even then, you're comparing Pippins with Golden Delicious.

How is 'average wage' measured? Mean, mode or median?

Which measure of spending power? Which price index?

If an apple costs 35p and you earn £1 a day, that's extortionate. If an apple costs £5 and you earn £500, Whatevs.

Relativity.

Personally, anecdotally, I'm finding my weekly shop is costing 50-100% more than it did 5 years ago. Luckily, I can afford to absorb the '£2.50' mince now costing £4. But I know many can't.

£7 for a coffee. But if your average, middle of the road job pays say £21 ph equivalent, 1/3 of an hour's wage?

But if your average, MOR job pays £11...?

That's the comparison.

Indeed. Unfortunately, I don’t come from a tax haven so even with a salary more than twice the national average the ratio between coffee and hourly take home wasn’t a comfortable one.

I got 10 coffee capsules and 500ml double cream for about £11 and made do with that.