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price envy or is it?

January 28th, 2019 at 12:55 am

I love to see what others spend on things like groceries, home decorations etc...and yes sometimes it makes me so envious...you have so many choices to buy in the US and prices for groceries are quite a bit cheaper than over here (aust) same with movie tickets we pay the cheapest $11 a ticket (on special deals) for one person...buying a econd hand car over here starts at $10,000 for a half way decent one...but then I think of our healthcare where we don't pay for surgeries (or we don't pay a lot) or scans etc...which is great when you have chronic illnesses and see doctors at least every couple of weeks...and our wages are much higher..my daughter worked in a grocery store while studying she was on $22ph...plus had sick days and annual leave paid for. so although I am envious of some of the things that you have I am also envious of some of the things we have and think of how much better some of you would be financially if you had our health system over there....I know if we were healthy and lived over there we woud have a much better life, we would have our own house, newer car and a lot more savings...but since I'm not healthy I would rather stay here...what do you think about the differences?

7 Responses to “price envy or is it?”

  1. Carol Says:
    1548637224

    Maybe it's that old saying, " East/ West. Home's best. "

  2. Smallsteps Says:
    1548640064

    I think in general it is comparing apples and oranges. I really think the healthcare issue simply is more complex with a nation this size versus Australia population.

    So many issues to address with it the difference is in the details.

  3. mumof2 Says:
    1548641667

    small steps I agree...we only have 26 million in total in our country....so a lot easier...but I think each country has a lot of pros and cons but so much easier to buy a house over there...than over here that is one thing I love...

  4. SavingBucks Says:
    1548647592

    Pros and cons of both places. My niece is in Melbourne and would love to live in Australia permanently! Her family here in the US is very well off and she has finished a bachelor's degree. She studied there abroad in her junior year and fell in love (with the country, that is). Currently working part-time and attending local university for a master's degree AND her father is paying a fortune for that! I asked her why and her answer was simple -- the pace of life is slower and people are nicer.................. Of course, there are places in the US with a slower pace of life and there are lots of nice people.....

  5. livingalmostlarge Says:
    1548696287

    things are easier in countries with socialized medicine i think for people with less income. If you have lots of money in the US it's great. Usually it goes hand in hand with good insurance. So it's compounded in the US.

  6. MonkeyMama Says:
    1548767800

    I think it's not apples to apples, as mentioned above. & the US is so vast, experiences vary in different parts of the country. I grew up in San Francisco and we will never afford a house there.

    Also, 22% of my income this year is going to healthcare. It's been our biggest expense (bigger than our California mortgage) for several years. I don't blog much about it any more because we have moved well past that. Was very prominent in my early blog years (was really throwing me for a loop, when our health insurance went up 1,000% in a very short time). But my husband has a serious medical condition and I know we are getting more out of it than we put in, so that also helps. In another situation, we'd probably "work for health insurance" or accept something lesser and cheaper.

    I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but two people close to me went to Australia and never came home. I've not talked to them about the reasons, but sounds like it had been more cultural than anything. But now that I think about it, I do think in their cases they are significantly better off financially there than they would be here.

  7. mumof2 Says:
    1548810201

    Australia is an awesome place to live but like a lot of places in America it depends on what your job is to where you cn afford to live...house prices are going way up and each state/territory has big differences in their pay scales...so what happens here is people in sydney can't afford the million dollar houses over there so they look at the cheaper states and buy several houses as they are so much cheaper and then rent them out at really high prices so they can pay off sooner and buy a house in sydney...in the meantime the people can't afford the houses as they are on much lower wages and when paying rent its hard to save and pay rent for example to buy a $300,000 house (which doesn't give you a great house) but is about the average price for a 3% deposit (most banks want 5) you have to save $30,000 that can be hard to do when you paying 1400 plus rent a month...does that make sense

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