Things you'd expect to be cheaper

[Jakarta]

Beer, currently sat in the Irish bar in Muscat airport drinking 10 quid pints of Fosters
Trains = looked into getting train from LHR to Dorset on my arrival, cheaper to take an Uber!

[227bhp]

Toyoda said:

Laptops. Seem to have shot up in price recently. A spec that cost me £400 a couple of years ago is around £600 now.

I think they are good value for what you get, my Lenovo was about £300 and has been used every day for about 5yrs, it's a bit slow now, but been great value for money.


Have we had wine and steak in restaurants? 4 or 5 times as much as they cost is ridiculous.

[Yipper]

Ayahuasca said:

uncinqsix said:

Rostfritt said:

I currently live in New Zealand, so I could put pretty much everything on this list. Here the surprising things are lamb, beef and dairy products, which are produced in immense quantities but are actually cheaper when they end up abroad. Also craft beer, which seems to be about 4x more than you might expect in a supermarket and peppers, which I can't even consider paying about 10 times more than I would in the UK.

Nuts isn't it. I saw 500g butter for over $8 (>4 quid) in the supermarket the other day. It's because we have to pay "international market prices" apparently, but nobody's adequately explained why it's still substantially cheaper to buy the same stuff on the other side of the world.

I live in Central America. Avocados and mangoes are a lot more expensive here, where they are grown, than in the UK, where they are imported. Figure that one out.

It is mostly to do with relative economic and currency strength, as well as local taxes or import / export tariffs.

[wobert]

joshcowin said:

a said:

Wedding cakes.

There are some wedding costs that I understand... For example I know that a decent photographer charging £1,000+ is actually putting in a week's worth of work plus wear-and-tear on expensive equipment, insurance, etc.

But a cake is a cake. Even a very fancy cake goes off quite quickly so they must decorate it quickly after baking. I don't believe that it ever takes them a week to decorate a single cake. At best an intricate cake would be a full day of work. They might be very skilled, but there are loads of them so it's hardly a unique skill. How can they justify charging £1,000 for a cake? It's madness!

Cakes are not cheap, the wife bakes cakes and decorates them. They can easily cost £50-£60 in ingredients alone, these are usually one or two tier. I can imagine a wedding cake would cost £200-£300 in ingredients alone before time and profit are factored in.

I don't doubt what you are saying....but

I had this made for my son's 18th by a local Polish lady....£60 all in...

Edited by wobert on Wednesday 20th September 21:27

[Yipper]

Sheepshanks said:

Toyoda said:

Laptops. Seem to have shot up in price recently. A spec that cost me £400 a couple of years ago is around £600 now.

Easy to explain - the $/£ exchange rate and the price of memory (DRAM).

Yes, the Brexit Pound is very weak and the price of imported electronics from Asia has soared by 5-50% in the past year or two.

Also, the cost of labour in China (where most laptops are made) has gone through the roof. Someone skilled in a Shanghai factory who earnt $500 a month 10 years ago is now being paid $5000 a month, about the same as someone in the West Midlands.

[lord trumpton]

wobert said:

joshcowin said:

a said:

Wedding cakes.

There are some wedding costs that I understand... For example I know that a decent photographer charging £1,000+ is actually putting in a week's worth of work plus wear-and-tear on expensive equipment, insurance, etc.

But a cake is a cake. Even a very fancy cake goes off quite quickly so they must decorate it quickly after baking. I don't believe that it ever takes them a week to decorate a single cake. At best an intricate cake would be a full day of work. They might be very skilled, but there are loads of them so it's hardly a unique skill. How can they justify charging £1,000 for a cake? It's madness!

Cakes are not cheap, the wife bakes cakes and decorates them. They can easily cost £50-£60 in ingredients alone, these are usually one or two tier. I can imagine a wedding cake would cost £200-£300 in ingredients alone before time and profit are factored in.

I don't doubt what you are saying....but

I had this made for my son's 18th by a local Polish lady....£60 all in...

Why did you get a mermaid on a cake for your son?

[Carl_Manchester]

red_slr said:

Carl_Manchester said:

All these things I expect(ed) to be cheaper.

Car parking in Salford, Manchester @ £18 per day. Robbing a holes.

Where abouts in Salford do you need to park?

I have to park in MediaCity, the multi-story is £18 pd.

[Ayahuasca]

Yipper said:

Ayahuasca said:

uncinqsix said:

Rostfritt said:

I currently live in New Zealand, so I could put pretty much everything on this list. Here the surprising things are lamb, beef and dairy products, which are produced in immense quantities but are actually cheaper when they end up abroad. Also craft beer, which seems to be about 4x more than you might expect in a supermarket and peppers, which I can't even consider paying about 10 times more than I would in the UK.

Nuts isn't it. I saw 500g butter for over $8 (>4 quid) in the supermarket the other day. It's because we have to pay "international market prices" apparently, but nobody's adequately explained why it's still substantially cheaper to buy the same stuff on the other side of the world.

I live in Central America. Avocados and mangoes are a lot more expensive here, where they are grown, than in the UK, where they are imported. Figure that one out.

It is mostly to do with relative economic and currency strength, as well as local taxes or import / export tariffs.

Nah, we use the US dollar, which has appreciated against Sterling since Brexit, and local taxes are minimal. I think it is more to do with suppliers making excess profits.

[Carl_Manchester]

Thankyou4calling said:

Virgin Walbrook is £119 a month. Alternatively there are plenty of budget gyms in London such as Pure with amazing facilities for around £25 a month. Half the price of 15 years ago.

Gym membership is ridiculously cheap.

Thanks for info. I will give them another call. I have been a Virgin gym member since 2010, I currently pay £95pm for Bromley inc. Towels. Was quoted £230pm including towels for Walbrook plus continued usage of Bromley and Chislehurst.

[RizzoTheRat]

Beer. The price in pubs is crazy compared to what you can buy it for in bottles or direct from the breweries. As someone else has said above it's the big chains and distributers making all the money not the breweries and landlords.


Several people saying veg, but I'm always amazed at the variability of price. If I buy from the fruit and veg stand in the market I can end up with a weeks supply for a fraction of what I'd pay in the supermarket. I guess this is probably because the supermarkets stock loads of stuff that's out of season and imported at vast expense that we buy because we've got used to not thinking about what's in season,

LeoSayer said:

Ebooks on the Kindle.

Often more expensive than the paper equivalent.

VAT on e-books but not on paper books, mental isn't it.

[red_slr]

Carl_Manchester said:

red_slr said:

Carl_Manchester said:

All these things I expect(ed) to be cheaper.

Car parking in Salford, Manchester @ £18 per day. Robbing a holes.

Where abouts in Salford do you need to park?

I have to park in MediaCity, the multi-story is £18 pd.

Oh right, sorry I am a bit far, 20 min walk other wise you could park at mine no problem.

I usually just dump my car outside Booths fwiw...

[TTmonkey]

Sheepshanks said:

Bit longer ago but I remember getting a Dell laptop in late 90's and it was 2 grand. I might have this wrong but I'm sure the little Sony's our directors had were 4 grand.

VIAOs. Yes bloody expensive.

[ben5575]

Stove glass.

Having just broken mine on a log, it would appear that the 300mmx400mmx4mm sheet of 'glass' is going to set me back £50.

[droopsnoot]

RizzoTheRat said:

Beer. The price in pubs is crazy compared to what you can buy it for in bottles or direct from the breweries. As someone else has said above it's the big chains and distributers making all the money not the breweries and landlords.

I was having the opposite of this conversation the other week, with a mate who was saying it was a "rip-off" that a glorified pub could charge £4.95 for a bowl of soup compared to the 85p-odd it costs in the supermarket, but he has no problem buying beer in that same pub.

[Steamer]

After a quick read of the 'Funeral Costs - How much??' - I'll add Funerals!

Not that I ever expected them to be cheap, and thankfully still way behind wedding costs.

Are there such things as independent Funeral Planners in a similar manner to wedding planners?

[Speed 3]

Steamer said:

After a quick read of the 'Funeral Costs - How much??' - I'll add Funerals!

Not that I ever expected them to be cheap, and thankfully still way behind wedding costs.

Are there such things as independent Funeral Planners in a similar manner to wedding planners?

There is a bit of a thing going on with funeral directors. Most of the ones that appear to be independent are owned by the Co-Op and retain the old names for marketing purposes. They also centrally process corpses rather than at each site. When my Dad died last year the waiting time for a funeral was ridiculous. It's an industry that never sees its custom dry up and most customers in an emotional state won't haggle. There are much cheaper ways of doing it but it takes an amount of organisation and time. You can buy wicker and cardboard coffins on eBay.

[TTmonkey]

There's a woodland burial site just down the road from where I live. I intend getting planted there. No idea what it costs.

[eldar]

TTmonkey said:

There's a woodland burial site just down the road from where I live. I intend getting planted there. No idea what it costs.

No need for yew to pine about it, I'm sure there will be a deal available,

[schmunk]

eldar said:

TTmonkey said:

There's a woodland burial site just down the road from where I live. I intend getting planted there. No idea what it costs.

No need for yew to pine about it, I'm sure there will be a deal available,

Hey elder, this is not a topic for joaks.

[fatandwheezing]

Jakarta said:

Beer, currently sat in the Irish bar in Muscat airport drinking 10 quid pints of Fosters
Trains = looked into getting train from LHR to Dorset on my arrival, cheaper to take an Uber!

I thought the £5.50 I was paying in London was bad enough, but at least that was decent beer.
Currently in Portugal, and round the corner a bar has the local brew for 90 cents a pint.