To be depressed about how expensive but shyt the UK is

[OptimismvsRealism]

God it's expensive God it's shit

Please regale me with examples of how other places are also shit and it's not just here

Sorry to hear you had that experience, that's awful! My Mum had something similar. She almost died in an A&E corridor as she kept being fobbed off and of course when she finally did go to A&E they just left her in the corridor for ages as they were unfortunately really overrun. I'm not at all blaming the NHS staff for the record, I am one myself and most of us are just doing are best, but the system is not fit for purpose.

My Gran also unfortunately died from being fobbed off. By the time they actually listened, she had stage 4 bowel cancer.

I think the misinformation in this post is damning, no foreign doctor, whether NHS trained or Outer Mongolia can practise in the USA until they have passed the USMLE exams.

Its so bad there are so many loop holes. Like when they promise to build schools or doctors surgeries. Funny how developers always say they are wrapping up before reaching the number at which they have to provide what ever promise they made or council's back down and reduce the number of affordable homes as they have near you. It doesn't fix anything just rips up the country side for rich people to get richer

The Brits have dug themselves into a big, deep hole by always going for short-term gain. When north sea oil was first excavated, the Norwegians saw it as an opportunity to save money for their citizens, so they could support their elderly. Thatcher saw it as an opportunity for tax cuts and sell-offs. Now Norwegians enjoy big, fat pensions, and we can't afford a small winter uplift for ours. Thatcher also sold off our national industries; so now we pay a fortune for our trains and electricity, whilst the European parents companies (eg EDF) use profits from the UK to subsidise services in their home nations. Then she sold off our housing stock and imbed a culture of must buy property - lots off it. Now homes are seen as investment opportunities and not places where people can live. And people under 30 (or 40 in London) cannot afford to buy even the tiniest of flats and nobody is having babies because they can't afford to. This is creating a population crisis. And this has ot been helped by Brexit. Before the EU exit, we had hundreds of thousands of fit, well, young Europeans working in this country, paying taxes, spending money and not using our health service because they were fit and healthy (and so much better to get their dental work done back home). Now, we have an imbalance of pensioners over working people. And also, our trade has nose-dived with our biggest and closest (geographically and culturally) trading partner because of Brexit rules and our extortionate food goes off in 2 days after buying it because it has sat for 5 days in customs. And our young people are denied working abroad unless their granny has an Irish passport, so none of the fun summer jobs which I enjoyed are available to Brits any more. And I could go on like this for days. Yes, other countries have problems too, but are they of their own making like ours?

So sorry for your loss.

yes, the vast majority of us are doing our best but the system is broken, and I don’t know what the answer is.

So many people complaining ,so few emigrating! No where is a "Utopia " sadly My friend in Canada has a long term health issue.The health insurance pay a share, however my chum has to pay a considerable sum as well.I have just completed 6 rounds of Chemo, and the cost around 30k for all 6! It is a wonderful hospital and my treatment is 1st class.Lucky I am clear ATM. I realise my experience is not the same as everyone ,but we are about!

She rather implied it.

I'm not sure what you can say to people with these views. They'll have to find out for themselves.

It's all relative though people always seem to forget to factor in local pay when comparing the cost of things in foreign countries to here.

I've just come back from Spain and thought the same about food prices but then remembered the average salary in Spain is €27,000 vs £36,000 in the UK (equivalent to €43,000).

So that cheap meal probably doesn't seem all that cheap to a local.

Ah yes, the much loved MN solution to all crappy weather: take the kids to splash in puddles and then snuggle with a hot chocolate. Failing that, baking, crafts or building a den in the front room.

The weather here really does have a big impact on so much. If you enjoy 1 day of sunshine on a week long U.K. holiday you can consider yourself ‘blessed’. Never mind that it would have cost you ££££ for the privilege of staying anywhere remotely popular here. There are few things more depressing than a holiday in a U.K. seaside town when it’s tipping down but the “no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing” crew will never accept this.

What copayment for health care? i haven´t paid a cent towards appointments or tests ever, and I am 50.
I got quite a bit of older baby stuff and other hand me downs from a couple of neighbours and I handed them to another neighbour for someone she knew. Same for toys, I donate my daughter´s to neighbours and church.
Quite a few people buy from Vinted, Wallapop etc etc My daughter´s bike came from Wallapop.
I took a quite a few items to a charity shop linked to a Cancer charity. Huge place. But charity shops aren´t on every corner, no.

@LifeExperience Our doctors are among the very best in the world and in fact, doctors trained by the NHS are not allowed to practice in the US. Great we'll keep them. A friend needed surgery and care following diagnosis of a brain tumour. We did some online research and it was clear, in our UK northern backwater, that she was following the same plan as would have been offered at the Mayo clinic. Officially cancer free now.
Also see prescribed opiod crisis in USA.

I had a chat with a Ukrainian refugee a couple of weeks ago, they are rather surprised by the low quality of life in the UK.

It is now £90.50. I am getting it. It pays for nothing.

All benefits are terrible in Britain. I was on ESA for a while and it was eye opening. Without DH's earnings and mortgage being paid off we would have been in big trouble.

@Katiesaidthat Spainish public healthcare system has copays. You have just needed treatment that requires it. You copay if you have surgery or need to stay in hospital. So if you only have minor issues then no copays. But for anyone with more serious health problems you may have lots of copays.

This.

Expensive yes. Shit not at all.
I've had good NHS care as have my children (one has MS). We can get appointments same day (been with three different GPs as we've moved around). Have had some issues with hospital appointments being cancelled without notice but probably true anywhere.
Education has been very good. Transport excellent (I live in London I do understand it is not the same everywhere). In fact I think London is the best place in the world - and I've lived in NY, Boston, Paris and Spain.

The average annual salary in Czech Republic is about £18,000. Their working hours are amongst the highest in Europe- many people do 2nd jobs on top of full time. I guess like the UK but more so.

Despite the lower salary many goods cost the same as the UK ie electronics that come from abroad.

The Czech Republic ranks second to last among all European countries in the affordability of owning a home, and it costs on average more than 13 gross annual salaries to buy a property there.

However I do think it's a beautiful place, uni is cheaper and the food is better.

I agree on healthcare.. its really worrying.

The issue that I found was the UK was becoming increasingly expensive with the tax burden significant particularly over 100K.

We've moved to/back to Singapore, it's definitely more expensive, but everything actually works and our salaries are significantly higher so we have a significantly improved quality of life.

The UK seems to have fallen into this awful combination of awful public services, high taxes and relatively low wages.

I was driving along today feeling grateful I live somewhere peaceful and relatively safe with an NHS, free education, regular bin collections, a functioning democracy and all the other things we usually take for granted in this country.

Food is much more expensive in France than it is here

Not another post whingeing about the UK 🙄

Are Russian bots infiltrating MN and trying to make us all feel depressed?

I have seriously wondered about exactly this recently!