Lion in Winter

I don't move in her circles. Although I was once weighed (as a child) in the scales that sit in the front of the Berry Bros shop in St James's.

I'll keep an eye out for the wine.

robin1234

In England, I usually get my wine delivered, from the Wine Society. My first case is scheduled for delivery tomorrow, so the Tesco bottle will hold me over till then.

The Wine Society has some very decent table wines in the £6.50 to £9 range.

In general, I see little or no increases in wine prices in the UK in the last 2 or 3 years. Maybe it’s just that wine has a significantly longer supply chain price lag than fresh food etc.

durham_lad

Our daughter is buying a house here, contracts signed, due to close in a couple of weeks, and her solicitor advised that now is a good time to get home insurance to start for the day of closing. I sat with her while she went through the "compare the market" process and she was just blown away with the low cost. I had told her that we paid £112/year with Axa last year for our 4 bed, 2 bath house about a mile from where she is buying hers. Her house is much larger and more expensive, and includes 3 bathrooms, and one of the best quotes came up from Aviva at £118. She signed up with Aviva knowing that she will be looking for car insurance soon and Aviva accepts US car insurance no claims records so maybe already being a customer will also help.

As well as incredibly low cost compared to what she is used to in LA there is also no additional earthquake or flood insurance required.

tdrinker

Heating that big house on the other hand ....

durham_lad

It will be interesting to see how it goes. It has a boiler less than a year old, a Hive thermostat, and Hive thermostats on most of the radiators. In fact when we first viewed the house on her behalf last October I immediately ordered a pack of 5 Hive thermostat radiator valves for ourselves (Cost £200 for the pack of 5). They were very simple to fit as we already had the basic non-programmable thermostat valves on our radiators and already have a Hive thermostat in our hallway. We love them, all can have differing schedules, at a glance on my phone or iPad I can see the temperature and status in every room from a single screen.

Pulaski

I buy a case of wine for my mother several times a year, from Majestic as they do free delivery and have helpful customer service when my US credit cards weren't accepted by their web site because it didn't use to accept a US billing address. With the same issue with the major supermarkets' websites, you're just SOL. Anyway the problem is now resolved.

So, Majestic's prices seem to have edged up in the past 3-4 years, although a precise like-for-like comparison isn't possible without keeping a price history for each wine, but the number of wines in the £5-£6 and £6-£7 range has certainly declined, and I find myself buying more wines in the £8-£10 range. This effect is significantly offset by Majestic offering more "half case +" discounts, which knocks as much as $3 off a bottle, though in practice that often leads me to buying a discounted £12 bottle for £9 instead of a £7 bottle discounted to £6. .... But look how much more I saved!

And all of my purchases are helped by me buying GBP for $1.20 compared to the $1.60 I was paying ten years ago. .... Which has led to me buying wine more often, and more likely to be a full case than a half.

robin1234

I used to order groceries for my mother from Tesco, she died in 2006 so I think it was 2001 - 2005 that I managed that for her, from my home in NY. At that time, there was no problem with paying with my US credit card. I never did manage to explain to my mother (she had dementia,) that I was paying for all her groceries so maybe she could reimburse me … ? She seemed to think the tooth fairy, or the Tesco fairy, was keeping her pantry and fridge stocked.

My son lived in Paris back then. When he visited his grandmother, he often had to climb in through the window, as she’d forgotten how to open the front door.

But yes, Majestic has an excellent catalog and, I’ve heard, has very good services despite the change in ownership a few years ago. Plenty of people I chat to on the Wine Society forums get wine from Majestic too.

Steerpike

Wine is probably one of the most subjective consumables out there, so I wouldn't put too much into wine price comparisons. We aren't wine connoisseurs by any stretch but we are perfectly happy with wines from Trader Joe's in the $5-$10 range. Premium coffee is definitely going to cost $10/lb or more, though - Peet's coffee is $10/lb even at Costco. But my g/f prefers 'Kirkland Signature' blend coffee beans, which costs $19 for 2.5lbs - which is about $7.60/lb, or $4.50 for 275 grams. Still almost double the UK price. I bet tea works out even cheaper in the UK

chattscot

Interesting discussion. I moved to Tennessee from Scotland last year and found the cost of renting a home had shot up during the pandemic. I had a £600-a-month mortgage in Scotland - now I pay $1,200 a month to rent a modest two-bedroom home. But I don't have property taxes or maintenance costs to consider.
I'm self-employed (working part-time/semi-retired from home) and find my taxes are about the same as they were in the UK. It obviously helps that Tennessee has no state tax.
Other than that, I find I pay much more for wifi - about $80 compared to about $35 and about the same for my phone ($38).
As a new immigrant with no history here, my car insurance is much higher but has come down twice at the end of six-month periods and is now $110 a month - about three times what I paid in the UK.
Luckily, I qualify for ACA and have just reduced my health insurance payments this year to $280 a month.
The cost of heat and air is an interesting one. I had the air conditioning on continuously throughout the summer but find that for most of the rest of the year (excluding cold snaps) I don't use it at all. So my bills across the year worked out at about $80 a month.
One thing I have noticed is that I'm always surprised by how much my food shopping costs.

robin1234

Trader Joe’s is an interesting case, it’s probably the only truly national wine “brick and mortar” retailer in America. (Of course, some states like NY they don’t sell wine because of restrictive liquor laws.) I’ve stopped buying wine there, it’s just too chancy. My experience is, at least 25% of their wine is undrinkable bilge. For instance, a nice looking 2018 claret for $8, that really should have been drunk in 2020 and is now barely fit to cook with. Yeah, two-buck chuck is consistent & good value, I’m talking more about the “finds” they have in stock, and I’d concede that sometimes they have a staff person who can steer you towards the better quality wines.

Tea, yes, you can compare the same product, PG Tips, Yorkshire Gold, Barrys etc. A box of 40 bags, £1.50 vs. $5.50. Quite a mark-up. I’ll not mention American brands of black tea, I wouldn’t waste the boiling water on them.

porkedpie

Very interesting discussion.
Adding a data point - moving from central London to Manhattan, and rent increased around 2x, but our salaries only about 60%. Groceries are also about 2x. Income taxes are working out very similar, maybe slightly higher, although will be better next year when we file married.

Really what I worry about is retirement expenses especially from property tax and healthcare (although I am still many years off retirement).
Fiancee's family is in NJ where the property tax is insane. In London once you finally pay off your house, council tax is not much, whereas a similar priced property in NJ could break $10k or $20k per year in property tax without a sweat. It also is somewhat out of your control as the property market evolves.
From a social perspective I am a bit torn. Nudging people to downsize in retirement to free up housing for families makes sense, and the situation in the UK, especially SE England is a mess, but no one likes the idea that they can't just buy their forever home and stick in it.
Likewise it increases the total tax burden significantly, for which I think we get somewhat less in return (depending significantly how much value you place on DoD spending).

durham_lad

We moved into our "forever home" in 2017 and have no plans to downsize despite it being much larger than we actually need. Short walk to shops and doctors, bus stop at the end of the street etc.

Pulaski

It's the same on Long Island, in Westchester County, and western Connecticut. $1,000+/mth property taxes was one of the reasons why we bailed fairly quickly on working in NYC, and putting down roots in the burbs, though we had no family tying us to the area. It took us about six months to reach the conclusion that we needed to leave; and taking that decision, despite being the only time in my life I quit a job without having one to go to, was a huge relief.

ddsrph

Cost of living on East coast is why Tennessee and the Carolina’s and other SE states are over run with retirees escaping places like NJ and Connecticut. Property taxes alone can make it worthwhile to move.

Steerpike

This is true, but a bit over-simplistic ... states that don't have a state income tax typically have higher property taxes, and/or higher sales taxes; they have to find 'some' way to fund the various state/local projects.
I'm in a similar situation; I'm almost fully retired, and manage to keep my taxable income under $50k, and as a result, get a $10,000 annual subsidy from the government on my ACA-based health insurance premiums, so I pay just over $200/mo for a 'silver' plan. I could have opted for a 'bronze' plan and paid nothing (net of the subsidy). I'll be turning 65 soon, and thus eligible for Medicare, which means I will end up paying anywhere from $0 to $200 for much better coverage and without any subsidy.
Apparently, Costco is the nations biggest wine retailer, and has great wine prices. But they focus on the 'better' stuff, so even though they offer great value, they don't dwell in the sub-$10 bracket. We're just not that picky I guess, and are quite happy with the Trader Joe's stuff!
I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but until very recently property taxes (and state income taxes) were fully deductible against federal income taxes. Removing that deduction significantly impacted the high-property-tax states. In CA, our property tax on a small, 2 bed/2 bath home is almost $10k, and that's benefitting from 'Prop 13', which limits property taxes in various ways.