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Cost of Living

SLA said:
I think it depends on your situation. If you have a secure and adequate income, an affordable housing situation and relatively good health, the UK is fine. Plenty of things to be cross about but you can live your life in relative comfort. If you are challenged in any of those areas, then it's an unforgiving, hard place to be now. 14 years of the systematic and deliberate shredding of the post-war social settlement, backed up by a mass media with a clear agenda, has made life precarious for many.

We found Greece very hard to settle in. Very bureaucratic and complicated to navigate without good native contacts and a knowledge of the language.
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My parents had a villa in Cyprus for a while. When it came to selling it, the process was unbelievably convoluted and inefficient (think of every conveyancing etc nightmare you've had in the UK and multiply it by a million), and you can do far more business in English there than I imagine you can in mainland Greece.

You *could* live in Hamburg without speaking much/any German but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. In Germany as a whole outside of the major cities then you absolutely do need to speak the language to a competent level. They also bloody love filling in forms, so get used to wasting a chunk of your time on that.
 
Dire Wolf said:
We've discussed Canada, Greece, Portugal and Malta as potential destinations. I like the idea of Canada, apart from the unbearable cold for 5-6 months of the year.
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My wife lived and worked in both Calgary and Vancouver with a view to emigrating permanently years ago. Both had huge draws, but essentially Calgary is far too cold for most of the year, and Vancouver is very expensive. BC is the place to be but if you want to live the Canadian life you thought you wanted in Vancouver, well, you’ll need the kind of resources you’d need to have a very nice life in London. Doing it on the cheap and you’d end up in a ropey suburb with high mortgage/rent/insurance/taxes and a ball-ache of an expensive commute into downtown Van for work or every time you wanted to enjoy its amenities.

I’ve been on holiday to Vancouver twice in the last couple of years and would say as much as I loved it, the experience’s even as a tourist were much the same.

Last thing, my nephew is marrying a Canadian (BC) girl this August and they are planning on living here.
The cost of Canada and the next-level culture wars playing out there are putting them off, which I thought was quite telling.
 
SLA said:
I think it depends on your situation. If you have a secure and adequate income, an affordable housing situation and relatively good health, the UK is fine. Plenty of things to be cross about but you can live your life in relative comfort. If you are challenged in any of those areas, then it's an unforgiving, hard place to be now. 14 years of the systematic and deliberate shredding of the post-war social settlement, backed up by a mass media with a clear agenda, has made life precarious for many.

We found Greece very hard to settle in. Very bureaucratic and complicated to navigate without good native contacts and a knowledge of the language.
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I think this is fair.
Are there many countries where its easier to live if you are challenged in the circumstances you mention? Maybe the Nordic countries?
While the UK has quite a few issues which make me angry, aew we in danger of thinking the 'grass is greener' Must admit I've never lived anywhere else so it's difficult to judge.
 
Deutsch Wolf said:
My parents had a villa in Cyprus for a while. When it came to selling it, the process was unbelievably convoluted and inefficient (think of every conveyancing etc nightmare you've had in the UK and multiply it by a million), and you can do far more business in English there than I imagine you can in mainland Greece.

You *could* live in Hamburg without speaking much/any German but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. In Germany as a whole outside of the major cities then you absolutely do need to speak the language to a competent level. They also bloody love filling in forms, so get used to wasting a chunk of your time on that.
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My F-i-L has lived in a village in Crete for the last 25 years (doesn't speak a word of Greek, is basically a hermit and is going blind - fun!). He'll be leaving his house and some land to my wife when he pops off in the next decade or so, which in theory is great, but it's going to a bureaucratic nightmare.

I've recently got my Irish passport which means we could live elsewhere in Europe, but I think that time has past.
 
Dublin Drummer Wolf said:
I lived in Vancouver for a year and it wasn't cold. Seasonal weather, similar to the UK, lot of rain in winter and some decent sun in summer.
It's an amazing city, was voted Most Liveable City in the World while I was there.
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Vancouver's climate is very similar to the UK's. Great if you like outdoorsy stuff too, so much nature within a short drive of the city. However its housing crisis is absolutely horrendous (worse than the UK's arguably) and it felt very limited in terms of culture and nightlife - much preferred both Seattle and Portland of the three big PNW cities for that reason.
 
SLA said:
I think it depends on your situation. If you have a secure and adequate income, an affordable housing situation and relatively good health, the UK is fine. Plenty of things to be cross about but you can live your life in relative comfort. If you are challenged in any of those areas, then it's an unforgiving, hard place to be now. 14 years of the systematic and deliberate shredding of the post-war social settlement, backed up by a mass media with a clear agenda, has made life precarious for many.

We found Greece very hard to settle in. Very bureaucratic and complicated to navigate without good native contacts and a knowledge of the language.
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Greece is a decent place to live, but the big cities are no better or worse than city life anywhere else.
Don't come here looking for work, certainly not out of the big cities, and be prepared for paperwork that would baffle an entire university.
This certainly is a country where you can get by on a smaller regular income, but the word regular says it all.
Oh and without speaking a decent chunk of the language, or having some good english speaking greek contacts close by, well, i wouldn't bother.
I was very much "feint heart never fucked a pig" mentality when i came, but that just won't cut it now, especially after brexit.
 
SLA said:
My F-i-L has lived in a village in Crete for the last 25 years (doesn't speak a word of Greek, is basically a hermit and is going blind - fun!). He'll be leaving his house and some land to my wife when he pops off in the next decade or so, which in theory is great, but it's going to a bureaucratic nightmare.

I've recently got my Irish passport which means we could live elsewhere in Europe, but I think that time has past.
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The irish passport is worth it's weight in gold here since brexit.
 
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pr0sl0 said:
Vancouver's climate is very similar to the UK's. Great if you like outdoorsy stuff too, so much nature within a short drive of the city. However its housing crisis is absolutely horrendous (worse than the UK's arguably) and it felt very limited in terms of culture and nightlife - much preferred both Seattle and Portland of the three big PNW cities for that reason.
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Funnily enough going to Vancouver and up to Anchorage in July, and a stop-off on the way back for a few days in Seattle seemed like a good idea. Jesus, that Seattle add-on is woundingly expensive. You’d struggle to get a hotel room in a good location for less than say, £250 a night. In retrospect would’ve aborted that bit if known beforehand.

Have been quite shocked at just how expensive Canada and America has become in recent years. Don’t get me wrong it’s a nice problem to have, but it does serve as a reminder that the grass certainly isn’t always greener.
 
Also it's got that same thing New Zealand and Australia have - looks like it'd be easy to just pop across from one to the other if you're already "in the neighbourhood" and want to make the most of already having travelled such a long way, but in reality they're still surprisingly far apart (2-3 hours driving Van <> Seattle, four hour flight between NZ and Sydney).

Don't think I could live in NZ in particular for that reason. As incredible a place as it is in terms of nature etc., it feels so isolated.
 
I'd much rather they make the right decision to be honest, though I get why some want rate cuts asap.
Rates around 0.5 which we had for a decade aren't the norm tho.
 
All the mortgage lenders are putting their rates up anyway regardless of what the BOE does
 
Lupo said:
All the mortgage lenders are putting their rates up anyway regardless of what the BOE does
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They'd go down if the BoE rate went down.
They went down with the expectation that it might drop, because it hasn't and doesn't look as though it will, they've gone back up.
 
lemonjelly said:
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Rates around 0.5 which we had for a decade aren't the norm tho.
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The base rate hasn't been as high as this since 2001.

That's all my adult life and I'm 42. So it's the "norm" for a hell of a lot of people.

For the majority of the 90s it wasn't much higher than this either.
 
Lamont was chancellor until 1993.

I said for the majority of the 90s the base rate wasn't much higher than it is now (5.25%)

And it wasn't.

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So you are disregarding the first 3 years of the decade? The 2 years after the BOE took control of rates are also significantly higher. It's still not true.
 
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