Is Australia an expensive country?

[anat0l]

If you regularly buy water in a country where there is potable water from the tap then you deserve to pay exorbitant amounts.

I have my doubts as to whether the water from the tap in Australia is potable.

 

[Postcode]

I'm currently looking at options to visit Victoria for a week to ten days to catch up with rellos in February. Factor on flights which are on sale, hotel costs and I'm not intending to stay at a Hilton et al, just chain hotel/motel type places, car hire, and so on. One very ordinary hotel wanted $28 a day for wifi!! WTF? Excellent way to discourage customers. It's cheaper for me to go to Malaysia for a week which I think I will do.

I can always phone instead of go down south.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I have my doubts as to whether the water from the tap in Australia is potable.

Unlike many other parts of the world? I think that the water here is fine, no problem.
I have lived in 3 states (NSW, QLD and WA) in the past 7 years and haven't had a problem with tap water anywhere.

I thought that only in SA you weren't meant to drink tap water?


(OT; Would be better if they took out the fluoride. There has been evidence that fluoride provides no health benefits to adults, hence why some countries don't put it into the water)
Tooth Decay Trends in Fluoridated vs. Unfluoridated Countries
View attachment 1533

 

[Flashback]

If you regularly buy water in a country where there is potable water from the tap then you deserve to pay exorbitant amounts.

I have to love it when people make uninformed assumptions.

1. Regularly? I've only just arrived in a country that I've never been to before. I very rarely purchase bottled water (anat0l will attest to this re: a month in Europe).
2. When I do purchase water it's places like summer in Japan (you need a bottle nearly every 1km due to the humidity), any country in Asia (you can't always boil water on the fly can you?).
3. I don't see how I could have consumed any tap water from London once I just landed in Oslo after travelling for around 5 hours or so (including transit to/from airport).
4. It was an observation of how expensive everything is here, I didn't even buy a bottle. Much easier to compare something that is easily buyable in all countries.

Foot in mouth? That is all.

 

[cove]

Ensuring Australian water is potable is a work in progress.
Ask Sydney Water as their desal plant is too close to the sewage outfall so they are fixing the ecoli now.
Mundaring water for Perth is being upgraded now.
Water in Australia is still very cheap but it is going to double in the next few years as the cost recovery is Government Policy.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Water globally costs more than petrol, a common rule of thumb.

bTW there is nothing 'wrong' with aus water, if the taste isn't to your liking that drives the bottled water market one assumes

 

[Sprucegoose]

no!!

Just looking at Fiji duty free prices!!

 

[straitman]

no!!

Just looking at Fiji duty free prices!!

....... and :?:



Sent from my iPhone using AFF Mobile

 

[cove]

How would you like Moet at 28.99 in a special chiller metal case.
I bought another 6 today in Marina Del Rey Costco!
It is plus tax and US dollars.

 

[anat0l]

How would you like Moet at 28.99 in a special chiller metal case.
I bought another 6 today in Marina Del Rey Costco!
It is plus tax and US dollars.

Is that NV or vintage?

I'm struggling to find a Moet that actually tastes good, but all I've tasted is NV.

Moet seems to be a "cheap" champagne; no idea why. In most bars, except for the good ones that bother, that is the only champagne that is available, and it is NV and hyperinflated in price.

 

[cove]

Moet is NV
Verve was 34.99 plus tax of almost 10 percent after in store rebate.
Lots of bargains in America in retail at the moment.

 

[Postcode]

For what it's worth here the Big Mac index.

What is the Big Mac Index?

The Economist uses the price of the ubiquitous McDonald's meal to calculate the "Big Mac Index", a guide showing how far from fair value different world currencies are. The Big Mac theory (a.k.a. purchasing-power parity, or PPP) says that exchange rates should even out the prices of Big Macs sold across the world.

Big Mac Index | OANDA

No matter what the price and where I would have to be desperate.

 

[JohnK]

It's cheaper for me to go to Malaysia for a week which I think I will do.

It is actually quite sad that a 10-11 day golf trip to Thailand (sad is probably wrong word) is only marginally more expensive than a 7 day golf trip to Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin etc. I know which I would choose.

When I do purchase water it's places like summer in Japan (you need a bottle nearly every 1km due to the humidity), any country in Asia (you can't always boil water on the fly can you?).

There is no excuse for anyone going to Thailand and purchasing water from anywhere other than a supermarket or convenience store. A 600mL bottle costs ~7 baht (~AUD0.25). A 1.5L bottle is ~15 baht (~AUD0.55) - 25 baht (~AUD0.90) and sometimes there are specials for 2 for 20 baht (~AUD0.70) or 2 for 23 baht (~AUD0.80). I forget how much the 10L bottle sells for but next time I will get one of these and keep refilling 600mL bottles.

And yes the little researc I did on Norway suggested it was way too expensive.

bTW there is nothing 'wrong' with aus water, if the taste isn't to your liking that drives the bottled water market one assumes

I don't know about tap water but in Sydney my parents boil water regularly. The doctor said this is not good as we are missing out on the opportunity to build defences against certain bacteria.

And for me Homebrand 1.5L bottles at 69 cents each are great value.

 

[Ewok]

I've been living in Europe for 2 years, travel to most parts of the world often, and am back in in Australia for Christmas.

For the standard of living enjoyed here in Australia, this is a cheap place to live.

I'm moving to Holland next month, and I can get a German manufactured car about 20% cheaper here in Australia than I can in Holland - a bordering country to Germany!

US is obviously cheap, but is full of Americans so you need some trade off!

 

[Grey Traveller]

In comparison to the US I would agree to a certain extent.
Their general cost of living (food, clothing, petrol, etc) is less costly than ours, however their social support network (unemployment benefits, reasonably priced hospital & medical access, superannuation/pensions, etc) is nowhere near the level available in Australia.
In the major cities their public transportation is pretty good, but in the smaller cities it can be pretty average.

In comparison to the UK/EU, I would say our cost of living is less.
Fuel in general is about 1.5 times our price. Food, housing, etc is more costly, but cars are less expensive to buy. Depending on the country, their social support network can be of similar standard to ours. In general public transport isn't too bad.

I think where Australia really sucks is that we are over-governed and over-regulated at Federal, State and Local Council levels, and the majority of people will blindly accept more restrictive laws and regulations from increasingly conservative governments which will continue to make Australia a more expensive (and restrictive) place to live.

(But that's just my opinion )

Not having travelled in Europe but quite a lot in Asia and the USA I would agree that most of our daily cost of living (food fuel, clothing etc) in these countries is cheaper than Australia. What you really have nailed as a key issue for Australians is that amount of over Governing we suffer at the hands of some fairly average administrators. Sadly I don't know that we can do very much about this now.

 

[Prof Henry]

Living in a temperate part of Australia (Brisbane: more-or-less temperate, most-of-the-time) and having just got back from early-winter west coast Canada and USA, I focussed on two cost-features that often get overlooked.

• Tipping
• Winter -- costs of utilities, snow-tyres, separate winter and summer clothes, sporting goods, snow-shovels and windscreen ice-scrapers, etc.

Tipping affects visitors even more than residents (ie, more dependent on eating-out, taxis and the other services for which tipping is required);
Seasonal costs have more impact on year-round residents

Not having to sleep on airport floors counts for something, too.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

I think we need to look at average incomes and then compare prices to them.

I will say Sydney used to be cheap when i moved here in the mid 90s, but now with the price of housing and rent it's not so much fun.

Still, friends from Europe tell me they love sydney because it's so cheap to eat out. I'm quite happy with my $6 thai lunch in newtown. Nothing fancy, but great with some friends on the weekend.

I would say minimum wages in Australia are comparatively high, but I prefer that to the US way of life with 3 jobs for low income earners (think sicko when dubbya congratulates this poor woman for showing the american spirit because she needs to work 3 jobs).

Some things I find expensive in Australia, others not so bad. We tend to focus on the negatives and forget the positives.

Now if our wonderfully over paid and under achieving politicians would get off their flabby butts and actually do something to lower the price of building new housing, we'd all be much better off. If i win big on Dec 31 Lotto I'll start to believe this might happen

 

[froggerADL]

I found that "overall", l still paid less tax in the UK than here, including NIN (which is just like medicare really). That was 6 years ago, it might have changed now though?

I wonder if you included the VAT/GST rate difference in your tax comparison.

People often think we have high taxes in Australia, but tax as a percentage of GDP is actually quite low here.

I still think the best comparison is how many Big Macs you can buy with the average salary in any country. We still stack up OK.

I reckon it's about time we had the cheap travel. I love being able to buy 1KG tins of Quality Street for 5 quid ($8) in London. Chocolate is so cheap in England, especially at the current exchange rate. It gives me a good excuse to use my full baggage allowance.

I think we need to make the most of it while it lasts. I'm sure we will return to more normal exchange rates when the US & UK/Europe stop printing money.

 

[froggerADL]

Oh and he decided that he will no longer bulk bill me and charged me $85 for the consultation.

Well that should help to reduce the waiting time!

 

[froggerADL]

Is there any reason to jam up prices like this?

I think it's called greed.