isgraham

I earn a bit less that I did in Australia if you convert at the current exchange rate and I am still far better off. IT salaries in the City certainly do not seem to be going down from what I can see and the market is very healthy at the moment.

BadgeIsBack

Wol - at least you know where to look. It seems to me that anecdotally this last year a lot of people are waking up to cheaper online prices - thank God multiples of 6 and 10 is not the norm! And plenty of people have been online for years. Think we might be seeing the start of change.

Wol

I don't often use this sort of language but that's pathetic.

You evidently have no understanding of pensions. Once you are in receipt of one you can't "send it abroad" - for obvious actuarial reasons.

As for your second "point" (my quotes) you make the incorrect assumption that I, or anyone else, "expected" the exchange rate to be constant and then imply that we are therefore stupid. No, no-one expects that. The thread is about relative costs of living and my own post started by saying that not everyone *must* only compare by using the local income - some are legitimately using ££s as a comparison because that's what their income comes in.

Geddit?

Wol

I would dearly like to share the confidence, Badge. But people seem to be brainwashed into accepting the status quo, and the "big country, small population" thing still gets accepted despite being able to Google worldwide sites. The way that distributors are able to operate in defiance of logical market forces - and get away with it - defies belief.

She'll be right

Amazulu

I agree with most of what you have written but I am increasingly finding that a lot of stuff is cheaper here, or at least the same as UK/USA.

This week bought a 320Gb WD USB HD:
Officeworks: AUD48
UK online: GBP45
US online: USD50

The 65" Samsung LED that I was looking at recently was cheaper in Australia compared to the UK - radically so, in the order of $1000 so.

My rough and ready price difference between UK/Aus - which I am sticking to:
Groceries cheaper in the UK
Durable goods about the same or cheaper here

USA will always be cheaper than here, but it is compared to the UK too

MarkMC

how often do you buy a 65" tv?
how often do you buy groceries?

EDIT - UK does not have the market for 65" tv's, not that many people have a room big enough.

Amazulu

The market for them is small here too - they are not common. I used these 2 items as an example. I have bought/looked at other things too and found prices to be similar or lower here. The strong AUD and weak GBP has got to be having an effect on the price of goods sourced from Korea, Japan and China.

I'm sticking to my viewpoint that durable goods cost about the same overall.

Wol

I think you are right when talking about the major international companies, who do their own importing.

The smaller companies who carve up the market and just set "try it on" pricing are the ones that make things ludicrously expensive. Unfortunately there are lots and lots of *them*.

roaringmouse

If it's the one I just found on the Officeworks website for $48 (which I notice is advertised as a clearance item), you can get it in the UK for £34 - not quite so much of a difference.

Amazulu

I agree

Amazulu

So roughly the same then

Check out the WD TV Live media player - $98 in Officeworks today (same price as I paid a month ago)

moneypenny20

That's what he just said....

roaringmouse

What about it?

Amazulu

Cheaper here

roaringmouse

$98 in Officeworks you said? £77 on Amazon UK (about $115, which is the advertised price for JB HiFi).