Forum Moderators: open
Isn't that outrageous?
Traditional Sunday lunch in a decent pub will cost maybe £6-7. In the same hotel it's £16...
And the moral of the story is: never eat and drink in hotels unless it's all included in the price..;-)
Syzygy
Don't forget you're both in the middle of a busy city and Syzygy you were in the middle of London!
A meal for 5 (pudding, starter and drinks inclusive) would cost £50 to £60. (We live in a UK village)
Location, location, location!
Then I go and look in the estate agents window. How overpriced is the UK housing market? Prices rising far above inflation for 10 years in a row. Petrol, most expensive in Europe, the rates ( council tax) my parent pay on their house, a single ticket on London undeground. Etc.
Mind you nothing compared to cafes in Paris. We paid 30 euro for 4 coffee's a few weeks ago.
never eat and drink in hotels unless it's all included in the price..;-)
Yep. And for better prices still, head north (from what I've seen). I was astounded by how cheap meals/drinks were in Northern pubs... even for places that served *good* food.
Hotel food is a ripoff no matter where you travel, I'd bet. It's like airport food... they're banking on the fact that you don't want to (or can't) bother leaving the building to eat.
one thing I've never understood is the houses are small in the UK, cost a lot, and the weather is rubbish so we have to stay inside, how does that work? :) we should have big houses with entertainment rooms for next to nothing.
Hotel food is a ripoff no matter where you travel, I'd bet.
Yeah.... and that's if you DON'T order room service! You better be Mark Cuban for room service....
Yes, calling a cab and directing it to the next pub would have probably been cheaper - but who knows where the next pub might have been? Next time I go there, I'll be better prepared.
Another issue was: no laptop-phone connection in the room (phone was sealed and cord went directly in the wall). WiFi only in the Lobby at £3 / hour.
Last night I was with a friend to a local pub in my town. We had salad, pizza, loads of beer and two "Schnaps". We paid each 20.50 € including tips.
Here in Durham City you can get a traditional Sunday pub lunch (meat, potatoes, 3 veg, Yorkshire pud) for £3.00 - yes, three quid! - and beer is still under £2.00 a pint in some places.
I live in a 4-bedroomed detached house with a large terraced garden and a front view of Durham Cathedral. We're half an hour from the bright city lights of Newcastle, or half an hour from the sandy beaches and rugged coastline of Sunderland.... all for £250,000.
Any how debbie, as Im a soft southerner hailing form Essex, my small two bedroom flat cost £200K Sunday dinner at a pub is £6.95. I dont drink beer so I cant compare prices.
However living in the south is worth all the extra expense just so as to not have dour (unemployed) northners in flat caps and whippets wandering around going 'by eck its grim'.
Yeah, the Brits are out of their minds. I recently posted how my hosting company wants £200 to renew a Thawte cert [webmasterworld.com] when it's about £75 directly from Thawte.
Rip-offs abound everywhere. But the biggest is the tax. As a business I figure I pay about 90% of what I make in tax (17.5% VAT, 10% Emp NI, 11% Employers' NI, 40% PAYE, about 8% in rates and various other bits and peices ...from DPR fees to DTI credit licence renewals). 90 frigg*ng per cent. I must start charging my customers more.... hmm
Spent a month in Berne end of 2004, and recently returned from a trip to London....London prices for food and hotel accomodation definitely eclipsed those of Berne.....
Plus the Swiss tax laws are far less draconian than those in the uk. Most of the tax inspectors in the uk are like ravenous pit bulls, whilst the Swiss equivalent are like cuddly st Bernards :)
If I want to leave or to setup an offshore company to receive some of my dollar earnings - where do I start?
On the other side in Prague beer is 50p, my 80m2 flat with 3.5 meter ceilings by the river costs me 300 pounds a month, employees are affordable and many more. All this in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
I'm a Northerner and I don't wear a flat cap, don't have a whippet (or know anyone who does), and I've never been unemployed in my life.
The Welsh can be a bit touchy though - My brother was refused service in several rural Welsh pubs due to him being English.
Thanks to Walmart, McDonalds, Starbucks, Blockbuster and so on I can pretty much go anywhere in US or Canada and feel right at home. Although it can get kind of boring everything being pretty much the same no matter where you go, but at least my dollars work everywhere except Canada, but thats easy enough to exchange.
all of europe is a portion of the size of the US (i'm just guessing)
The European Union is about 40% of the size of the USA [en.wikipedia.org], but has about one and a half times the population [en.wikipedia.org]. The EU is the largest economy in the world [en.wikipedia.org], although the USA has a higher per-capita GDP.
You should note, however, that the EU does not contain all European countries, although it seems to cover most of the area of Europe west of Russia [upload.wikimedia.org]. (But there's a whole chunk of Russia in Europe.)
my dollars work everywhere except Canada
That means, since you're talking about the USA and Canada, that they only work in the USA :).
Back on topic:
One of the reasons for high prices in the UK is, of course, the high value of the pound.
There are a number of reasons for this, and I'm not going to get into a discussion about it at this moment. However, it should be noted that, when the euro was launched it immediately fell in value against the pound. There was much gloating about this in the euro-sceptic press in Britain, but the eurozone authorities generally did not worry about it. It gave them a sort of protective barrier against the British without them having to breach free-trade rules.
The low value of the dollar also works to make European prices high for US residents.
Here, I can get up in the morning, go to starbucks for coffee, eat breakfast at mcdonalds, buy a magazine at walmart. Get on a plane. Travel 3,000 miles away. Get off the plane. Have dinner at mcdonalds, have another coffee at starbucks and stop by walmart to pick up some pretzils. Although the irony is I would never eat at mcdonalds, drink coffee from starbucks, or shop at a walmart.
Currently housing is very expensive, private developers that I work with are offering under the table discounts of around 10% as they are now unable to sell the homes they are building. On the projects I work with that at least UK£20000 - USD$30000 for a small flat.
Reality is starting to kicking.
Many people are unable to afford to buy so rent in the private sector, which is also expensive, quite often the gov will subsidise the rent with a contribution.
Our current gov is building vast amounts of social housing at low rents which I hope will reduce house price inflation.
An example I bought a mid terrace Victorian house in '97 for £40000 it has just sold for close £120000 eight years later. Madness.
In responces to wages, No wages are not vastly higher which is causing serious problems for a lot of people.
I was lucky that I purchased my first house at a relatively good time.
But house prices are more expensive and smaller also because of population density.
It always amazes me when you do a property search on some websites they stick a propery from abroad (commonly Florida) - to tempt (?) and you see what you can get for the same price range!
I almost fell off my chair.
It does seriously make me wonderwhy I stay here as much as I like teh country.....
I live in Germany, and it is "normal" even for Middel Class to rent an apartment (or buy one). Real estate (as being the land only) prices are high, house building costs even higher since we Germans overdo it a bit with regulations on how a house is to be build, what materials to use etc.
I live in a rented 120sqm apartment with my 4-head family and we pay some 900 EUR / month (warm). And that's not high - that's standard.
You would be lucky to rent a 2 bedroom flat in Northamptonshire for that - more like 1 bedroom.
Well perhaps 2 Beds. But renting is even more expensive.
