Shopping in UK o Spain

[Free at Last]

Oi! Someone posted a thread from 2010. Here's one from 2012 from someone's favourite newspaper.

Food prices in Britain have risen by 32 per cent since 2007, double the EU average, according to figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA

That's the same information as in the link to the Daily Telegraph I posted in the second post on this page. I wonder why people expect us to believe all the stuff written in the press about Spanish price rises but we're expected to ignore the reports about British increases?

[Mowser]

Sorry FAL.

[Lavanda]

Extra 20% on potatoes? Thank goodness we grow our own fruit and vegetables. After the excellent Spring rains I might sell my potatoes for a profit this year and buy spaghetti instead. Would I have to declare my potatoes on my 720 next year seeing as they are going to be an asset?

[Free at Last]

I have to profess ignorance but what prey tell is McFlurry ?

Are you by any chance a retired High Court Judge?

I know they sell it at McDonalds but have no idea what it consists of!

[Mowser]

A McFlurry is a Scottish flurry.

[katy]

I link both price and quality together. When we first returned to the UK we were like kids in a sweet shop. Wasted a lot of stuff. Still buy M&S 2 for a tenner and now Waitrose do one even better value. Just put it in the freezer if not wanted. Some things are dirt cheap and common sense tells you they must be rubbish.

In Spain we did most of our fresh food shopping in Gib. Lamb joints, rack of lamb etc. and real hung steak. basics and cleaning articles I bought in Spain along with fruit and veg. Shopping was never an experience for me in Spain.

Caribbean is expensive (well worth it ). Italy we found it cheaper than Spain to eat out, better quality too. cheapest and best quality...USA

[HKM]

Our Electric bill has increased dramatically as has the price of gas, but our Internet, landline and mobile package with Movistar has decreased drastically. Collected the car tax today in 7 years it's finally had an increase from 74 E to 81 E. In 8 years our IBI has gone up 5 E..As for food I think it depends on where you shop, we shop local for meat, fruit and veg, but I do the 'fortnightly' shop at Mercadona, would never think of shopping at Eroski, I think it's over priced and under quality. We find eating out here expensive, much prefer to eat in then go out for a drink and tapas.. (which where we live is FREE and very nice!)

I haven't got anything to compare to just saying it as it is!

[gerryh]

.. better quality too. cheapest and best quality...USA

Thanks for the info.I'll catch a plane there tomorrow and enjoy a cheap meal.
Cheers
Gerry

[Lavanda]

Don't bother. My experience of eating in the USA (over ten different states) is that the food may be cheap but the quality is average and the people are, generally but usually, among the most obese in the world.

[Free at Last]

I link both price and quality together. ... Still buy M&S 2 for a tenner quality too.

Buy one, get a free beetle?

[Free at Last]

USA cheapest? Apologies if it's infra dig to quote another forum, but some of the prices people who have lived or are living there say they pay for utilities, phone, internet, property taxes, even food (and don't even get started on the co-pays and deductibles for health insurance) are truly eye-watering:-



http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=724233

[katy]

Been a googling have we or are you planning to move there. I haven't read all 18 pages but not everyone agrees. We have a house in Florida (rented) property taxes (IBI)have gone up a lot for second homers. Cable TV and internet costs about £27 pm. As for health...employers include health insurance and don't forget no NI to pay. Eating out costs about half the price in Spain and better.

Not sure what fat people has to do with prices in the USA but have you taken a look around a Spanish beach recently then there are the podgy kids who seem to live on chunks of bread with chocolate spread.

Normally that forum gets wooshed on here but I am sure that for reasons of balance it will be allowed to stay!

[frank]

Nice article in ABC today, should be appreciated by the residents here. Those damned Brits knocking Spain. After the Telegraph financial bod advised people to get their money out of Spain (the Spanish have already being doing it for some time, the money flight has been huge) saying Spain was officially insolvent, seems it has upset the Spanish. Convinced it was a dirty foreign plot to sink Spain, they invited all the top UK financial journalists to Madrid to explain to them the error of their ways, that it's not as bad as they have reported it, everything is fine. Sounds like desperation measures to me. Anyway the journalists enjoyed their freebie but hadn't changed their opinions at all.
http://www.abc.es/economia/20130514/abc ... 32149.html

[Lavanda]

It can happen to anyone ... not!

[Free at Last]

Been a googling have we

I don't know whether YOU have or not, I haven't as I read that forum practically every day (I like to see what's motivating people who want to move back to the UK and what those who are already there have to say about it). I was genuinely surprised when I first started reading how much US residents have to pay for a lot of things - and just like here, possibly even more so, how big the variations are from state to state. So sweeping generalisations like "USA is cheapest and best" are no more valid than they are about Spain, the UK or any other country.

[markwilding]

Nice article in ABC today, should be appreciated by the residents here. Those damned Brits knocking Spain. After the Telegraph financial bod advised people to get their money out of Spain (the Spanish have already being doing it for some time, the money flight has been huge) saying Spain was officially insolvent, seems it has upset the Spanish. Convinced it was a dirty foreign plot to sink Spain, they invited all the top UK financial journalists to Madrid to explain to them the error of their ways, that it's not as bad as they have reported it, everything is fine. Sounds like desperation measures to me. Anyway the journalists enjoyed their freebie but hadn't changed their opinions at all.
http://www.abc.es/economia/20130514/abc ... 32149.html

How would the Telegraph react if One of the Spanish papers advised people to get their money out of the UK?

[frank]

How would the Telegraph react if One of the Spanish papers advised people to get their money out of the UK?

Given that Spain is not in any position to advise anyone on financial matters, they'd probably just laugh. They certainly wouldn't invite them to a freebie in London. Anyway, they are preaching to the converted, the Spanish have already moved €260,000 million to other destinations. London maybe?
En los últimos 11 meses la huida de dinero alcanzó los 259.000 millones de euros, por los problemas de los bancos españoles.
Spain has a persecution complex, they've blamed the foreign press, especially the Americans for their woes, the rating agencies for talking Spain down, it's time they faced up to reality, they are where they are because of their own actions.

This is why so much rampant and endemic corruption at all levels of the Spanish political and constitutional system—from the lowliest village councillor right up to the King himself—is such a problem. and why the involvement or otherwise of other members of the royal household in the Urdangarín fraud scandal forebodes of much woe to come for Spain.

[katy]

Another large Company is pulling out of Europe after losing a fifth of it's assets with the collapse of Portugal and Spain. Anyone fancy buying a shopping mall in Zaragoza

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... -woes.html

[Lavanda]

Jeez! How ridiculous this thread is getting ... and yesterday Jeremy Warner wrote a long piece in the DT flagging up, yet again, that the UK has the highest rate of personal indebtedness of anywhere in Europe but no one gives a stuff yet the UK is CERTAINLY AND NO QUESTION going totally bankrupt pronto.

With knobs on — and if there was a smiley with a thumb up the nose and fingers waving I'd use it.

Sid, this thread is going nowhere as everyone is pulling out the selective stats to support their argument — like they are right and everyone is wrong but, guess what, we are ALL living in countries with unsustainable economic problems.

At least we'll eat. We grow veggies.

[Mowser]

Lavanda. How about ...