My bad... I somehow was adding another zero, and had it in my mind that you were saying $10000 dollars instead of $1000. My apologies.

We were living in Germany when our two children were still living with us. At that time (90's), we were paying about 2200 Deutschmarks per month for health insurance for the family. I believe the Deutchmark at that time was worth roughly 50c on the dollar, so, yes, about $1100 dollars per month. I guess that would be normal. We currently pay just under €500 per month for the two of us, so that also seems consistent.

So, yes, I agree, the americans do have similar health coverage expenses as we do. But their employers normally pay their health insurance premiums. It should be noted that the health care in the US is reportedly the world's most advanced.

The main difference is that they pay a LOT less taxes. From what I can tell they pay about 1/3 the income taxes we do. Their petrol is about half the cost of ours, The highest VAT is under 8%, and most states are 6% or less, and some states have no VAT at all.

I currently don't live in any place that resembles New York city or Los Angeles, and quite frankly, never will, and so, I don't think I'm in danger of being forced to pay $8000 per month for a 60 square meter flat. But for a short time, we did pay €4000 per month for a nice 100 sq. mtr flat in central Munich.

Where I live now is more comparative to say, a rural location perhaps in the south of the US. Except that they can buy a 300 square meter house on an acre of land for $300K, and here, that same property would be over €1M. The people we know in Ohio certainly don't make much more than $60K per year, and they have a very beautiful, big house on several acres of land.

€50K per year? yes you can live pretty well on that here, as long as you keep your heating at an absolute minimum, keep a close watch on the utility companies and the Comunidad Autonoma to prevent them from emptying your bank account, shop at Lidl, and keep the car parked as much as possible.

You're right....

I worked out we spent 30k euros in 2011 so a lot less than 50k and I'd say we have a pretty luxurious life! And this isnt skimping, we dont live to a budget.

Shop at Hypercor, El Corte Ingles and the local markets and wherever we like
Rent a 3 bed ático, pretty much the most expensive in the area (which is still cheap)
Run a new car
Heat and air-con as much as we like
A couple of 4 days breaks in 5* hotels, plus 2 city breaks
Very happy with the state health service thank you

It really is cheap to live well in Andalucia!

In a couple of months our little one may very well go to the local nursery. It costs a grand total of 50 euros per month!

Exactly. I don't know anyone who is on the poverty line in both countries. Employment is only around 8 or 9% in both too. Bit different from Spain who saw another increase in December.(now over 30% in andalucía!) In the last 4 weeks I have been to London, Kingston, Guildford, Farnham, Portsmouth and Marbella. All the UK places have job ads in shop windows and restaurants. Queues to get in eating places. Marbella was sort of dead, although it always was in Dec. Was nice to walk in shops though and not have anyone in.

Florida, I have a place there fully rented for over 2 years. Also have relatives there, one has a business and another employed. Most decent jobs provide private medical insurance and if you are self-employed it doesn't seem a large outlay for medical as there is no national insurance equivalent. eg. when we were in business in the UK we paid 7% NI on profits up to a certain amount and from what I have read Spanish self-employed are highly taxed. It is ok. googling US stats but until you actually spend a lot of time there you realise that they have a much better lifestyle. Hear that Orlando isn't doing so good, but it's a crap place unless taking the kids to Disney. Most of the busineses there doing badly are Brit owned...they suffered from the spanish bubble.

Which might go some way to explaining...

I can't confirm or deny any of what you say..

But just one point of comparison.. If we were to run our heat at say, 20c, and same with air con, our energy costs would be roughly €1500 per month (not including Endesa overcharges and the usual extorted double-payments). My neighbour (a local who does quite well) keeps his place comfortably warm - and nicely cool - and that's about what he pays.

So, that would come to about €18K per year in energy costs alone, leaving you to live on about €12K per year. But that's based on the energy costs here. I don't know how much they charge you where you live.

Things must be outrageously cheap in Andalucia. I think we'll move there!

If I get through to December 22nd, then I shall be very happy!!

<Nostrodamus>

No we spend roughly 100 euros per month on heating/electricity. Probably because we live in a flat.

In winter, we wear a jumper and only heat the rooms we are in. Many days heating isnt needed especially if you go out for a walk and get the blood moving. July and Aug are pretty uncomfortable so we try and escape around those dates

I'm not sure I can understand the figures. We keep our place perfectly warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If we pay 1500 euro a year I would be surprised.

Well, we currently have the heat programmed to turn on from 7:00-9:00 and from 18:00-21:00, at 18c. We currently pay around €400 per month in gas bills (Endesa) for that.

We really can't afford to run the air con except on 40c days, and if we turn it on from say, 14:00-18:00, then we can expect €500 or more per month in electricity bills. And to top it off, using that much energy makes it a lot easier for Endesa to overestimate the consumo at 2x-3x actual, and to over-bill or double-bill.

Even if we had the money, the fight alone to pay only the cost of actual energy consumption isn't worth the hassle. So, as a rule, we simply don't run the air con unless we absolutely have to. But that's pretty normal around here. Even if you have it, most people just can't afford to turn on their air con, so it's considered a bit of a "luxury" around here.

We live in a badly insulated, quite large Spanish house and our heating (and cooling bills) are around 150 Euros a month. Our water bill is around 200 Euros a quarter, a bit high because of leaks we don't seem to be able to fix. Council tax and other bills are cheaper than in the UK, but everything is due to go up this year, everywhere.

I do agree that the UK media seem to be against anything European, especially German, but I do think the Euro may be unsavable, and don't suppose it will make life any easier, for anyone.

Some good news about 2012 would not go amiss, and I've searched for it, but haven't found any yet.

Am I missing something?

LITTLE ONE?????? as in Baby?

CONGRATS, TO Cricketwoman and yourself...........

Oh OK, well we have oil fired radiators on all day during the winter, and a log fire in the main room at night. The figure I was quoting was for heating, cooking, water, everything. The logs are maybe €140 a year more

Maybe you could have a look at your heating methods, I dont know .... it seems an awful lot of money.

Well, we don't have oil, we have gas, which is quite expensive, but less than electric heat.

As it turns out, my built-in calculator hasn't been working since the holidays :-). Like an idiot, my numbers aren't per month, but per billing period, which I often forget are every 2 months (although it seems we receive an outrageous energy factura about once a month). So, where I said "per month" is actually every 2 months. My apologies.

But we are paying about €400 per billing period (€200 per month) just to heat during a fraction of the day, and when we run the air con for 4 hours per day, it will be €250 per month or more... ...and again, that doesn't include the usual overcharges and double-billing that Endesa seems to feel is necessary to burden us with.

Nonetheless, the title of this thread is "a terrifying year ahead?", and for me, the answer seems clear; No specific relief in sight, and consistent with EU tradition, the current strategy seems to be to ignore it and pretend it will go away, while the politicians do their best to divert any responsibility and exhibit adversity to assuming any political risks.

Say what you will about the Americans, but at least they implemented action long ago, and now seem to have things a lot more under control (but obviously far from perfect). If you do a simple google of debt-to-GDP, the US falls way down on the list, while most of the major European economies are pretty high on the list (the UK especially, is in quite deep - followed France, Germany, and all the other "good guys").

Also, please remember, it's an election year in the US, so the political rhetoric and scare tactics are exceptionally loud at the moment, and will get worse as the year rolls on - but if you look at the facts, they aren't in anywhere as deep as the aspiring politicians would like the public to believe, and nothing remotely comparable to the pathetic state Europe is in at the moment.

Other than forced austerity measures which may ease the problem in 4-5 years, there is currently no tangible action by any EU leaders to provide any relief for Europe in the forseeable future.

It's going to get worse long before it gets any better.

But this rhetoric was never realised, was it? Do you have a point here?