a few questions about the US

[PL4YD34D]

i live in the north of England. :cool: for those that have no vacation experience of the uk let me just say this. its ridiculously expensive.

i havent been to the states but i have friends there and relatives in Canada.

 

so i was out gettin food in town this afternoon and went into subway. got a 6" italian sub with bacon and chicken and a bottle of evian. and this came to £4.50. thats about $8. so i was wonderin, what does it cost you guys for these sorts of things.

 

(its going to be most interesting to see how prices change across different regions of the US)

 

a couple of examples to get you started.

 

dinner at subway

a new sunday suit

a full tank of petrol(gas)

 

what do you have to make a year for you to be able to buy your own place to live?

(in england to buy a house, you would need to be earning at least £25,000($40,000) per year and an apartment in the city goes for £150,000($275,000))

 

i know this isnt usual DFI talk but i dont know another way to get a better idea about the country as a whole. besides, you guys dont mind sharin information do ya? :nod:

 

thanks

 

Paul

[UncleDavid218]

A Sunday suit?

 

I left the middle ages long ago.

[PL4YD34D]

do you wear a suit to church or not?

[Guest YuKoN]

depending on the type of sub- that $8 here would get me one of their 12" specialty subs i.e. italian bmt. $10-11 will get me the sandwich, chips, and drink, including the tax.

 

A sunday suit? I wouldn't know. I work so much that I'd never wear one, so have never bought one.

 

A tank of gas? My car holds 14 gals. price right now for mid-grade is 2.43 here(this varies alot across the nation) =34.02

 

I think buying a house here depends on where you live. houses are so cheap where I live (coastal washington 20 mins from the beach) that city ppl are always buying them up for vacation houses. same house in Seattle(2.5 hours away) would be 4 times as much for example. and credit is based on history of payments, and income/debt ratio, and what the purchase is worth(as collateral). so this also varies by individual.

 

hope this helps..........

[PL4YD34D]

yeah it all helps. like i said its interesting to get a cross section of the nation.

thanks yukon.

 

hopefully a few more of you guys can let me know about where you live too

[Tylosis]

Uh, I'm from Canada and a tank of gas for my truck is about $100 (gasoline)

 

A 12" sub is about $10 (from subway )

 

Sunday suit? - wouldn't know

 

Average house where I live is about $200,000

[markinIreland]

Would you look at that 2.43 a gallon of gas/petrol :eek2:

 

Take a guess for N.Ireland? England is the same as far as I know, petrol is near £1 a litre, diesel is the same, whats that roughly $1.75 a litre of fuel.

 

Food here is the same, tonight I got a dominos, large pizza, chicken strips and 2 cokes, £19.15 , thats about $30 or more.

 

Same with clothes and s***, I wear a good bit of Ralph Lauren, your average jumper here is £60-£100, you can buy the same thing in an outlet store in the US for buttons

 

 

Anyway.... petrol is the one that gets me the most, I use about £10 a day. I see more and more people converting their petrol cars and jeeps to gas, its about 49p a litre.

[Guest Blooz1]

Well, I live in Connecticut, which is one of the "New England" states.

 

-Fast Food Our prices are about the same as what Yukon's paying.

 

- Sunday Suit Although I haven't bought a new suit in a long time, (no need for one!) it would probably run between $200-300 for something presentable. Anything with a designer label would, naturally, run much higher.

 

-Gasoline is presently around $2.50/gallon here. After the hurricanes last year, our prices jumped to over $3.00/gallon, but gradually settled down.

 

One item that is expensive here is utilities (electric/gas/heating oil) People who use oil for heat have had a very rough time this winter due to the prices of oil. Our main electric supplier recently increased their rates (state government approved!) by 24%. (This means no more leaving all my rigs on 24/7 anymore!)

 

Housing pricing is very expensive here. This is one of the top 5 "wealthiest" states when looking at national statistics, but the large incomes aren't evenly distributed throughout the state. The price of an "average" 3 bedroom/2 bath house throughout most parts of the state is somewhere around $200,000, but there's a huge amount of variance here! In some towns that will buy you a really nice house, and in others it'll only buy you a shack!

[red930]

From the Katrina devastated Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

 

Subway sub, chips and water is about $5.00USD.

 

Suit at a discount house with designer label is about $200.00USD

 

Gas is about $2.20 per gallon right now(I haven't filled up since last Monday LOL).

 

Utilities are going up at the same rate as the fuel charges. They aren't allowed to profit from the price increase which is a good thing.

 

Housing is another issue. Since the storm destroyed about 40,000 residences(homes and apartments) prices have skyrocketed. A starter house of about 1,200 sq/ft. sold for $59,000.00USD before the storm. Now the same place goes for over $90,000.00USD. Apartments have more than doubled at the same time.

 

If you make $30,000.00USD a year and have a stable employment record and decent credit you can buy a starter house when things are normal. But nothing is normal down here and won't be for several years.

[ooztuncer]

I believe there are better (more scientific/accurate) ways to compare two countries economic statistics... Before going further, for your purpose, easiest one could be the percentage of subway sandwich cost (or housing or suit or gas) against your weekly income (or annualy). But also banking system (especially accessibility to money) with saving/spending/investment trio might play a big role...

 

I.e., this afternoon I got a large chicken parm from punky's for $5.25 >> same sandwich costs $3 in Turkey - however if you look at the percentages (typically) one is 0.6% whereas other might be 3% of that person's weekly income.

 

Another example, here (in USA), you can get a personal loan in 2-5 days (might be shorter for some people) but in Turkey it might take up to couple of weeks with a really painful document preparation pre-phase. You cannot access the money easily. Likewise, there is no such thing as 0% promotional apr's!

 

Thats why economists have "baskets" (including food, gas, etc) to compare expensiveness and inflation...

 

PS: I gave examples from Turkey but I think the concept is same.

[PL4YD34D]

thanks all. seems like we get hit pretty hard for petrol. and food and clothes are slightly more expensive here but not as much as id thought. property is the most unusual tho. i thought our prices were outrageous but it seems like your cities prices are roughly the same. i wonder if maybe your suburbs prices are different considering the difference in size.

OOztuncer - an interesting way of looking at things and i see your point. Poland has become one of the biggest labour exporters to the uk over the last two years and if you take your example, a McD's costs about 12% of there weekly wage there. so good comparison(you can see why they want to work here)

 

again thanks.

 

Paul

[cjoe7]

Costs vary depending on location. London will cost more than Manchester and Manchester will cost more than Liverpool. If you live in the city center vs suburbs, your cost will vary also.

 

Likewise, major US cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, etc will cost considerably more than other cities.

 

Fast food in the UK is comparable to fast food prices in the US; however, decent to good food in the UK will literally cost you an arm + leg + your privates. For instance, a decent dinner for two in LA will cost ~$60. In the UK, a reasonably good dinner for two will cost > L70 ($125-135). Irregardless of the conversion rate, it is virtually impossible to get a reasonably good meal for a decent price.

 

LA / SF costs

 

Gas / Petrol - $2.60 / Gallon. In the UK, its probably ~ $6.00 / Gallon

3Bdrom House - $450K-$600K (Median house in California is $500K). Avg London Home ~L400 ($700K-$800K).

 

New York, Chicago and all major US cities are probably comparable.

 

London UK, Paris France and Japan are probably the most expensive places that I have ever travelled due to the conversion rates. South East Asia (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, ..etc) and China are probably the best value.

 

I've lived in Europe for over 3yrs - worked in Manchester and Brussels - and seasoned traveler.

 

cjoe