It Truely Is A Wonderful Time To Live In...

Kintarō Hattori

It seems that food prices are soon going to be going up up up. I've been sitting at the computer the last while and had Sky News on in the background (I know I know), and they were reporting that food prices in the UK have started to increase dramatically due to energy costs.
With everything costing so much these days the one thing I could always rely on was cheap food, now I can't have that anymore (a bit dramatic I know, but it does annoy me, and I like to cook alot).

So, spiralling housing costs, dramatic increases in energy, food a basic necessity of living is now on the rise too, why the hell are these times so good again? Anyone else annoyed with the cost of living these days, or am I not really seeing a bigger picture?
Feel free to post your opinion and educate me as to why I shouldn't complain, but I would ask that you don't do it in a condescending manner, and that you keep any smart replies to yourself. It's really not hard to be pleasant.

Oh and this isn't in the food section as it is limited to just 4 sections none of which this seems to fall into. Sorry Mods if it should be somewhere else.

Pocari Sweat

Hi eo980,

I'm no expert meself, but if costs of living went up a million fold, then at the end of the day we have to live afterall, so our wages usually go up a million fold too. So it should all balance out.

I think actually, the wage versus food factor over the decades is actually weighed in the favour of more cheap food, regardless of price increases, hence fatter people nowadays.

In the 1950's it was rationed powdered egg. Now it is 12 pints of lager, severall shorts, a chicken tikka vindaloo to follow and rakes of boozy carry out for a late nighter and a few spliffs.

[Jackass]

Save up a few thousand euro then move to sunny bahamas and live like a king!!

You can also buy a beach bar and live the dream!

That's my plan anyway

(please nobody post any information and/or facts that make this impossible...please don't crush my dreams)

Black Swan

Economic projections are for another year of dynamic growth in Ireland. I think that's way so many people are coming from the Continent looking for jobs.

magpie

Anyone else annoyed with the cost of living these days

Me! (unsurprisingly). Dublin has become like London - you can't leave the house without burning through minimum €20 a day on nothing. Coffee €3? Sandwich with a bit of limp salad and some crisps €9.50? Newspaper €1.50? Couple of bus/luas trips €3.00

Of course salaries are higher here yada yada yada, but visiting the continent where coffee is €1, the bus costs .50c and the most expensive wine in the restaurant is €14 (not €279) kind of puts things in perspective.

I hear Poland is REALLY cheap though - why don't you live there?

Kintarō Hattori

magpie wrote:

I hear Poland is REALLY cheap though - why don't you live there?

Well well, I am shocked, we're in agreement for once. Indeed, the continent does seem to have a better quality of life altogether. Services are often way ahead of what we have here, for example, in France you can get a 20MB broadband line with your tv service as well for less than €30. I'm paying that just for a 2MB line.

I hate Spar's adverts on TV where they say, 'Always there for you'. Yeah always there to rob me. €1.45 in some of them for a SMALL bottle of coke, you can get it in a supermarket or even Penney's for €0.95.

Poland is a fine place, but I don't have any plans to live there just yet. Not speaking the auld lingo might be an obstacle to overcome first. Also have you ever eaten traditional polish food??? Hmnnnn, it's an acquired taste and I haven't acquired it just yet!

Archeron

I do actually think its a wonderful time in whcih to live. I've spoken in great detail to both my parents on this subject, and what life was like when they were young, and it really is a harsh contrast compared to the life a lot of us live today.

My mum for example was raised in Dublin city centre slum where 9 people lived in one room. THat room was owned by an evil landlord (sounds very typical i know) and there was absolutely no facilities bar a roof. When my grandmother provided food for her children, it was usually at the expense of not eating herself. If one was lucky enough to have a job, it was something tough like scrubbing stairs, or heavy manual labour. There were no toys, no luxuries, and entertainment was walking up to O Connell street, then walking home again.

From my point of view, even though I'm not exactly flush with cash, I am still happy with my lot. I have a job which is relatively easy (not hard labour anyway) and I can provide for myself and my family. I can afford food and entertainment and some level of luxuries. I own my own car, and my own house, and still have a couple of quid every month to save or splash on consumer rubbish. So even though prices are rising, I am still of the opinion that we live in good times.

Of course, the whole world being filled with terrorism is something I could live without, but thats another conversation. :rolleyes:

Chakar

Archeron wrote:

I do actually think its a wonderful time in whcih to live. I've spoken in great detail to both my parents on this subject, and what life was like when they were young, and it really is a harsh contrast compared to the life a lot of us live today.

My mum for example was raised in Dublin city centre slum where 9 people lived in one room. THat room was owned by an evil landlord (sounds very typical i know) and there was absolutely no facilities bar a roof. When my grandmother provided food for her children, it was usually at the expense of not eating herself. If one was lucky enough to have a job, it was something tough like scrubbing stairs, or heavy manual labour. There were no toys, no luxuries, and entertainment was walking up to O Connell street, then walking home again.

From my point of view, even though I'm not exactly flush with cash, I am still happy with my lot. I have a job which is relatively easy (not hard labour anyway) and I can provide for myself and my family. I can afford food and entertainment and some level of luxuries. I own my own car, and my own house, and still have a couple of quid every month to save or splash on consumer rubbish. So even though prices are rising, I am still of the opinion that we live in good times.

Of course, the whole world being filled with terrorism is something I could live without, but thats another conversation. :rolleyes:

Thats deep.Good post Archeron.

magpie

My mum for example was raised in Dublin city centre slum where 9 people lived in one room

"And that were luxury"

"we had to get up two hours before we went to bed, have a breakfast of cold gravel, walk 200 miles to pit and spend 26 hours digging coal with our bare hands etc etc"

in France you can get a 20MB broadband line with your tv service as well for less than €30

You can also turn it on and off at will - so you don't pay for it when you're away on holidays etc

always there to rob me

Bingo. Loaf of bread, some milk and cheese - that's €6.99 please. WHAT!!!??

have you ever eaten traditional polish food???

Not sure if its traditional, but I've been to a very nice Polish restaurant in London - borscht (sp?) is delicious, and they do amazing pastries that lower your life expectancy by about 1 month per pastry.

Ruu_Old

Come live in America, you'll have more terrorism and scare mongering than in Ireland, a crackpot president but on the plus, things are pretty cheap here.

Hellm0

I think its a fantastic time to live in. Sure theres a whole heapin helpin of annoyances(cost of living, rampant drug/alcohol abuse, car insurance costing more than the car etc..) but all in all I think life in this country is pretty damn good for most people. Terrorism doesnt really enter into the grand scheme of things for me, its mostly just media hype and polical posturing in my opinion so it has nothing to do with me personally.

by the way ruu, I'm on my way!!

mikedragon32

magpie wrote:

Me! (unsurprisingly). Dublin has become like London - you can't leave the house without burning through minimum €20 a day on nothing. Coffee €3? Sandwich with a bit of limp salad and some crisps €9.50? Newspaper €1.50? Couple of bus/luas trips €3.00

Of course salaries are higher here yada yada yada, but visiting the continent where coffee is €1, the bus costs .50c and the most expensive wine in the restaurant is €14 (not €279) kind of puts things in perspective.

I hear Poland is REALLY cheap though - why don't you live there?

What sort of a sandwich are you buying that costs almost a tenner?

fuzzywiggle

You know, I really don't think you should complain. My mam always says it's a great country and that she is happy to have seen it. She grew up in the late 40's, early 50's and things were alot different then. I'm sure you would be complaining about alot more if you had been alive then. No €3 cups of coffee or ready made sambos.

Stop whining, there's nothing you can do about it

Kintarō Hattori

fuzzywiggle wrote:

there's nothing you can do about it

Well I obviously wouldn't want to be relying on you to do something about it?

Roll over and lie down eh?

fuzzywiggle

That's right, you couldn't rely on me to change the country :rolleyes:

What do you expect people to do?

Kintarō Hattori

fuzzywiggle wrote:

That's right, you couldn't rely on me to change the country :rolleyes:

What do you expect people to do?

I think I don't need to reply to your last statement. If you have your thinking cap on, you'd have seen that there are errors in your first statement. But enough said, I'm not slagging you and this thread is not about slagging anyone.

galah

Don't forget that on the continent, labour taxes etc are higher - that is, cost of living might be lower, but after tax, you don't have all THAT much to live on either...

In Germany, VAT is going up by (I think) 3 percent this year - the Germans aren't too happy about that, and the cheap goods won't be all that cheap anymore.

In other countries, where things are really cheap, people don't have that high an income either...

So living on the continent with Irish after tax wages would be nice, otherwise you'd be as screwed as everyone else...

And yes, the cost of living here annoys me too - it's simply a joke, having to pay 4.50 for a pint of lager, or pay 1.50 Euro for a head of lettuce, or almost 1 Euro for a liter of milk...

magpie

What sort of a sandwich are you buying that costs almost a tenner?

Toastie - Stag's Head

zilog_jones

You guys should all move to Limerick - things seem to be strangely cheaper than most of the other cities in the country, and I remember seeing many comparisons of student accomodation in cities and Limerick turning out cheapest (possibly excluding Waterford).

galah wrote:

...having to pay 4.50 for a pint of lager...

€4.50, in Galway!? I'd give the barman strange looks if they charge anything over €4 here. Maybe for Erdinger or some other fancy beer, but not any normal stuff.

magpie wrote:

Bingo. Loaf of bread, some milk and cheese - that's €6.99 please. WHAT!!!??

I hope you're buying two litres of milk and some decent cheese, otherwise you're being ripped off.

magpie wrote:

...Couple of bus/luas trips €3.00...

I pay €40 for a monthly commuter ticket, which covers all Bus Éireann city bus services in Limerick. I get on average about 60 buses a month, so that's about 67c per bus (instead of the normal €1.30) or about €2 a day. Either (i) Dublin's a rip-off, or (ii) you're a spa for not getting a commuter ticket.

But yeah, the cost of living is getting pretty silly. Petrol prices seem to be increasing by about 10c per litre a year, never mind food.

And houses are crazy: In 2001 (December), we paid about €134,000 (£106,000 in real money) for a 1960s 3-bedroom semi with car-hole. A similar house in a similar area now would go for over €200,000.

But still I'd rather live in a country of overpriced shíte than a country of no money/jobs/happiness/etc. Take my mother when she finished school in the '70s for example: Lived in a crappy 2-bedroom corpo house with 2 brothers and 2 sisters, walked all the way to Raheen (about 6-8km) to work on the line in Analog to get such luxuries like a tape recorder (wow), and then she went off to England to train as a nurse.

Me, I finished school 3 years ago: Got to go to university for free (one of the reasons why we moved back to Ireland!), can avail of a (occasionally reliable) frequent bus service, have my own bedroom and my own TV, on my second hi-fi (a good €250 Sony one instead of a Matsui piece of crap I got when I was 12), have my own PC (crap Pentium III but it's something), thanks to 7 months of co-op I'll be buying a car soon - and when I get my degree next year I will be able to get a job in this country (unless the IT sector implodes).

So my conclusion, modern life + material goods + Ireland FTW.

il gatto

Still, in one of the richest economies in the world, we've managed to become one of the most divided in Europe. Few have it really bad, but too few have it good. Minimum wage in this country is not a living wage. Too many jobs pay minimum or close to it. Inflation has outstripped pay increases for most (not the civil service though). The majority of people cannnot buy a house without struggling to pay a huge mortgage. People say it's supply and demand. Everyone needs a home. You can't opt out of something like that because you object to the price. Peoples lives aren't as harsh, but there's no excuse for the gap between rich and poor, and Irish business peoples willingness to rip off their fellow citizens is astonishing, boundless and abhorrent.

Tar.Aldarion

OP, we practically live in decadence...
Look at our luxury, compared to any civilisation, ever.

Day-wanna-wonga

Archeron wrote:

My mum for example was raised in Dublin city centre slum where 9 people lived in one room. THat room was owned by an evil landlord (sounds very typical i know) and there was absolutely no facilities bar a roof. When my grandmother provided food for her children, it was usually at the expense of not eating herself. If one was lucky enough to have a job, it was something tough like scrubbing stairs, or heavy manual labour. There were no toys, no luxuries, and entertainment was walking up to O Connell street, then walking home again.

Why did she have so many kids if she couldn't even afford to feed them? Hardly a sob story, if it's totally self inflicted.

Sleipnir

I'm getting tired of people giving out about other people having lots of kids.

What do you think is driving our economy at the moment? Energy? Housing? low-tax? No, it's our POPULATION. I'm not looking forward to us all being 70 years old with one or two kids who hate us because the economy is in **** and they have to spend a huge amount in tax keeping us all in warm slippers and good drugs.

Archeron

Day-wanna-wonga wrote:

Why did she have so many kids if she couldn't even afford to feed them? Hardly a sob story, if it's totally self inflicted.

Who said they were all kids? Who said its a sob story?

Day-wanna-wonga

Archeron wrote:

Who said they were all kids? Who said its a sob story?

How many kids did your Mom have, then?

Archeron

Day-wanna-wonga wrote:

How many kids did your Mom have, then?

My grandmother (my mums mum,that family is the one i make reference to in my post) had 4 children who survived. Sadly, there were also 2 other siblings who died in their infancy, but it was 4 children who occupied the room. The other people were other adult family members. Far from ideal living conditions for anyone involved, but such was life.

My own mum had 4 kids, but we were raised in better surroundings in the 70s and 80s where thankfully, providing food and a good standard of life was not as difficult.

Terry

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

OP, we practically live in decadence...
Look at our luxury, compared to any civilisation, ever.

yep. things have never been better.
i'm piss poor and still live in relative luxury.
this country is great.