another bloody yank

Sure there are. The hippies manage to keep themselves "alive" and semi functional on a diet of bean curd and wheatgrass. I would call those alternatives to food.

Englishtart

Rabbit food!

radion

Interesting that, I lived on Fishermead estate for 9yrs and when I moved there it was still a farming town, seen the city centre built and N1cky you are so wrong, Milton Keynes is one of the most expensive places to live, my family still live there and they are always saying how expensive the council tax is and also food prices etc etc.
I go up there to visit and Petrol there is 8 pence more than on the M1 motorway..
You would need to have a bloody good job up there to be able to enjoy yourself.
My niece and hubby need to have second jobs just so they can pay the rent and cloth the kids and food...sorry you are wong

Jerseygirl

Makes me smile when Brits moan about council/property tax.

another bloody yank

No kidding! I think we pay about $700/yr property tax!

N1cky

I still disagree. I've never paid more for petrol than on the M1 motorway, I used to drive to Hemel 2-3 times a week for work and would always make sure I had enough petrol to get me there and back as it was so much more heading South. According to the website below MK lowest petrol price 101.9, same as nearly all the places I looked up apart from Northampton 104.9

http://www.petrolprices.com/search.h...ch=northampton

I agree council tax is on the expensive side, however it was less than what we would have paid for a same band house than when we lived in West Yorkshire and is still below the English average.

http://www.upmystreet.com/local/coun...on-keynes.html

Food was no more in MK than we paid in Yorkshire, and certainly a lot less than what we pay in LA.

Not sure what you would call a bloody good job. Both me and my husband worked and earned a reasonable amount, but not in the six figures. We managed to pay our mortgage, clothe our kid, pay for food, pay school fees and still go out fairly often.

Different peoples perspectives aren't always wrong you know.

palsha2000

Well, yes and no. I am thinking of moving back to the UK after moving to the US when I was 7. I am now 36. In many ways the US is a wonderful country but it has gone downhill in the last eight years. Then 80's and 90's were quite good but then came Bush and well everything went to ___. Not that it was all his fault. The country was headed that way anyway. I am very grateful for the educational opportunities that I had here and the country itself is beautiful with so many different cultures and climates.
But healthcare is simply scary. My mother moved back to England after my father divorced her. She then developed lung caner. Thank GOD she had moved back to England where she received the care that she needed. Here, without healthcare she would have simply died and spent her last days worried about the incredible amount of debt she was passing on to her family. She had none of those worries in England. My friend recently had emergency surgery it cost $176,000! How can she pay that? She will be paying for the rest of her life. You live in constant worry about losing your job because your healthcare is tied to your job. Purchasing healthcare on your own is insanely expensive (about $800 a month per persone) and if you have any preexisting conditions forget it. I am what they call "uninsurable". No company would insure me as an individual and limits on numbers of vists and caps on yearly costs hamper and real health care.
I miss England for its beauty, history and the genuineness of the English people. Here, I just can never seem to trust anyone.
But the poor in America are the true blood of the country. The average blue collar worker makes this country great and I hope that it is those individuals who bring the country back.
Good luck!

Englishtart

You are lucky, mine went up last month to over $3.500

Jerseygirl

Per month?

Englishtart

Good lord no! per year it's still pretty high I think, don't you?

fatbrit

Non -federal government spending comes from a variety of sources and you need to add them ALL up to see what you're spending since different places vary in the way they distribute them:
sales taxes
income taxes
property taxes
vehicle taxes - on tags and gasoline
and then the puritanical ones like tax on smokes, alcohol and gambling.

Bob

That all depends, most get it through work, and depends on age, if you have family, any pre-existing conditions etc.

You could be looking to pay nothing if your employer pays it all, or paying a couple grand a month. Most people are probably paying between $200-600 a month though for healthy, sub 40's couple.

chartreuse

It's funny because it's true.

Jerseygirl

If you think that's high you should move to NJ.

Bob

That's not that bad....it's around $8-20K here for anything half habitable and not a rabbit hutch.