Ireland is the fourth most expensive place in the world to live and shop

manc

From Breakingnews.ie, not really a surprise though


10/12/2008 - 08:09:04
Ireland is the fourth most expensive place in the world to live and shop, according to a new international price comparison survey.

The cost comparison website PriceRunner.co.uk says Ireland was the most expensive of the 23 countries surveyed for condoms and ranked in the top five for vodka, bus tickets, Coca Cola and takeaway coffee.

China was found to be the cheapest country for a basket of basic foods and consumer goods, followed by Hungary.

GreeBo

Hopefully this will be changing over the next few months as people find that they dont have €7.50 to spend on a coffee and actually its not worth it anyway!

rubadub

More here
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1210/1228849743536.html

I would like to see all products listed. I always find flaws in these surveys, seems they go out shopping in convenience stores half the time. You also would not see own brand products in many surveys. e.g. a 2L of coke can be €2.20 in tesco, their own brand is 50cent, or 29-39cent for the muck stuff. I do not really see such vast differences in other countries.

A Nintendo Wii costs €166.71 in New York, €450.66 in Dublin and €458.41 in the dearest country, Lithuania.

Does a Wii really cost that much here? EDIT: €240 in argos probably better offers elsewhere, and I expect some countries are more prone to marketing offers than others. Every few months you can get a wii in tesco with 25% back in vouchers.

A Big Mac, used by many economists as an international barometer of prices, costs €3.30 in Ireland, according to the survey. The same product costs just €1.22 in a McDonald's in Shanghai and €3.78 in Norway

I was in Norway & hong kong & shanghai, no real eurosaver menus, for €5 I could probably get better fed in an irish mc donalds than most places.

Alun

These kinds of surveys are nearly always hugely misleading. I had the misfortune once to be in charge of a mixed bunch of employees from differnt EU countries seconded out to a location in Germany. We were constantly getting requests from them for all kinds of "cost-of-living" bonuses to compensate for the difference in cost of living between Germany and wherever they came from. Believe me when I say that whatever outcome you as an employer or they as an employee wanted to promote, then somewhere, somebody or the other had produced a report that would back that up.

The basic problem is that there is no "standard basket of goods" that's applicable over all the EU. People in different countries have different diets, buy different things and different shopping habits. For example, virtually no-one in Germany would buy a single bottle of water off a supermarket shelf, but they'd go to the local Getränkemärkt and buy a whole crate of bottles for a far lower price. Also factors like hugely different taxation regimes (not just obvious ones like income tax) and different remuneration schemes play a big role in making these (often costly) reports next to useless.

I've lived and worked in four different countries including Ireland, and to be honest when everything is taken into account I don't actually subjectively feel any worse off here than I did in the other three.

darc

"A Big Mac, used by many economists as an international barometer of prices, costs €3.30 in Ireland, according to the survey. The same product costs just €1.22 in a McDonald's in Shanghai and €3.78 in Norway "

The big mac index is indeed a barometer of costs in countries but it is done differently and based on how many miutes does the average worker on the average wage need to worjk to earn the money for a big mac.

This way Dublin is the joint 9th cheapest city in the world to live in based on salary & tax.

Ten quickest places to earn a big mac
Tokyo, Japan - 10 minutes
Los Angeles, United States - 11 minutes
Chicago, Illinois United States - 12 minutes
Miami, Florida United States - 12 minutes
New York City, New York United States - 13 minutes
Auckland, New Zealand - 14 minutes
Sydney, Australia - 14 minutes
Toronto, Canada - 14 minutes
Zürich, Switzerland - 15 minutes
Dublin, Ireland - 15 minutes

Ten slowest earned

Bogotá, Colombia - 97 minutes
Nairobi, Kenya - 91 minutes
Jakarta, Indonesia - 86 minutes
Lima, Peru - 86 minutes
Caracas, Venezuela - 85 minutes
Mexico City, Mexico - 82 minutes
Manila, Philippines - 81 minutes
Mumbai, India - 70 minutes
Sofia, Bulgaria - 69 minutes
Bucharest, Romania - 69 minutes

But why let the real figures get in the way of a bad news story?!

rubadub

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

As said above

The investment bank UBS AG has expanded the idea of the Big Mac Index to include the amount of time that an average worker in a given country must work to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. The working time-based Big Mac index might give a more realistic view of the purchasing power of the average worker, as it takes into account more factors, such as local wages.

I was in China and there is a bigger divide between rich & poor, many will go to westernised places as it is "cool" for young rich people. I was brought to a really nice restaurant, women all dressed up bowing going in, your own waiter the entire time in a private room tending to people, pouring drinks etc. The tables were loaded with food, a massive side of lovely pork was there, this was the dearest at ~€3.50, and was fit for a good 5 people. 2 miles down the road was a starbucks, €3 for a large coffee.

The Chinese people bringing me out kept thinking I did not like chinese food and trying to get me to go to KFC! the KFC was around 1/2-2/3rd the price of here, we went to an outdoor BBQ market thing and sampled loads for about €2 in total, paying each individually. My boss got a translator there for a day or 2 and gave her a €40 tip at the end and she was cyring, saying her father earns that in a month (in the remote parts, they bring english students up as translators for big events). But thats the point, he CAN live on that much.

I would like to see the "shpping basket" figures, I bet I, and most people, pay nowhere near what they said. If electronics are a rip off here, then the majority will be buying online for less. A true price index would somehow calculate the average price really paid be people, including offers and internet buying.

20goto10

rubadub wrote: »

My boss got a translator there for a day or 2 and gave her a €40 tip at the end and she was cyring, saying her father earns that in a month (in the remote parts, they bring english students up as translators for big events). But thats the point, he CAN live on that much.

Exactly. Some places are cheap for a reason. You don't see people flocking to go and live in China...or Newry even.