How so? Fruit and veggies are they same as in Canada. Milk, cheese, more so, bread, about the same. A decent hotel costs more here than back home. A meal in a decent restaurant the same or more. Wine, beer, spirits.
Cars more here. Apartments more. Computers and most electronics the same.
Public transport is cheap, yes. Gas much more here.[/quote]
I also disagree.
General groceries are slightly cheaper here than in Canada (a lot cheaper if you’re not fixated on western staples), eating out is much cheaper here (especially with no tipping), alcohol (all types) are cheaper. Cars may be more here, I wouldn’t know. Aparments here (in Kaohsiung anyway) are WAY cheaper than in Canada (in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto anyway). Electronics used to be about the same but with the falling TWD I think they’re cheaper here now too. Gas? It’s over a buck in most parts of Canada and it’s not NT$ 34 a litre here yet (besides that the commutes are generally shorter here and if you ride a scooter you save even more on gas). Don’t even get me started on the various insurance costs and interest rates in Canada compared to here.
I think it’s either been awhile since you’ve been back in Canada, or have not noticed the rising CAD dollar, or are from Hicksville, Saskatchewan.
An average pub meal at a pokies club (where everything is cross subsidized by the machines) costs about 600nt before drinks. That’s about 1.5 times you’d expect to pay at Carnegies and people bitch about the prices there.
A decent restaurant meal costs about 1750nt/head before drinks.
Buy a coke in a store and it will cost you 60 to 80nt.
Buy a bag of crisps 90 to 100nt.
Buy a pack of smokes: 290 NT.
Buy a liter of fuel for your car: 38nt/l
Buy any cup of coffee: 120nt
Buy a beer in a pub 300nt for a locally made beer 250ml glass.
Buy the median priced house in Sydney: 16,000,000nt
God, you’re scaring me Fox. I’m heading down to Oz for a long vacation at the end of the year. I’m going to feel like a pauper.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the weakening of the NT as a major part of the rising costs here. As I have said before, I’m too poor to go home.
I guess it depends. Last night I was at Geant, which caters, I would dare to say, to a less affluent crowd. As I picked my organic pork -Thank Goodness it’s back-- I noticed a woman next to me carefully choosing and calculating against the contents of her basket. She looked like the usual office lady, not an amma. This made me pay attention to other people, many of whom who were also in a bind as to how much their salary would stretch. Actually, most people at the check out counter were working class guys, buying foodstuff. These were the ones who picked the vegetable bins clean, except tomatoes, which were like 30 Nts each -not organic.
From today’s China Post: Taiwan’s vegetable prices set record after typhoon
The average wholesale vegetable price in Taipei climbed to NT$53.63 a kilogram Sunday, the highest since Dec. 1, 1974, when the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co. started recording vegetable prices,
It is certainly not the fill the cart with what little Lin wants crowd. This store, as well as Lien He whatever supermarket, is a bare essential, no frills kind of shop. Obviously, the working class is obviously feeling the pain of the pinch in earnings. Costco crowd can still push the credit limit. Furthermore, weekend crowds are the leisure, waste time, take the kids out of the house type.[/quote]
working class that would be me. Yup I always have a mental idea of what the stuff in my basket is gonna cost before I get up to the register. Well at least the working class is better then those that cant get a job? The NON working but NEED to be working class.
Australia is expensive because it’s an island … everything has to be shipped in … or they think they can charge what they want because they’re at the end of the world …
If the given prices are right … then who wants to move to Australia … it’s even more expensive than Belgium …
An average pub meal at a pokies club (where everything is cross subsidized by the machines) costs about 600nt before drinks. That’s about 1.5 times you’d expect to pay at Carnegies and people bitch about the prices there.
A decent restaurant meal costs about 1750nt/head before drinks.
Buy a coke in a store and it will cost you 60 to 80nt.
Buy a bag of crisps 90 to 100nt.
Buy a pack of smokes: 290 NT.
Buy a liter of fuel for your car: 38nt/l
Buy any cup of coffee: 120nt
Buy a beer in a pub 300nt for a locally made beer 250ml glass.
Buy the median priced house in Sydney: 16,000,000nt
It’s expensive.
Taiwan hasn’t kept up. It is thankfully cheap.[/quote]
Don’t know if expensive or cheap are the right words for this. Cost of individual items isn’t omparative between countries cause you got to factor in a lot of things.
cigarettes here are 60NTD and Ireland NTD400… but this does this mean that salarys are 6 times higher… ok the fags may not be a good comparison since they are not necessities to live (for most people anyways)… but you get my point
Perhaps it better to look at cost of goods in terms of the trend (increase month on month or year on year) than the absolute cost or in terms of comparing it to other places.
Not only that, but once it’s there it has to be transported by expensive freight between population centers which are very far apart. It’s not just that imported goods cost a lot, locally produced goods are also expensive. Someone in Western Australia buying bananas from Queensland is going to pay through the nose for fruit which has had to make a journey of at least week or more by truck.
Those prices are right. I don’t want to move to Australia, despite the fact that it’s where I was born.
I thought of this thread-- at least the bit about the typhoon prices-- when I noticed the obvious omission of most of my favorite vegies from the local 自助餐. I guess they either have to leave out local grown produce or raise their prices. Damn.
Yeah, I noticed the expensive veggies as well and the quality is crap on a lot of stuff, most likely as it’s too expensive, so it rots on the shelfs instead, great going… not!
Sometimes it’ll just be people trying to cash in because they have stock of something that there’s a shortage off and that’s not always a clever thing to do with food stuff.
At least they don’t pay 25% sales tax here or 12.5% as it is on all food in Sweden…
How so? Fruit and veggies are they same as in Canada. Milk, cheese, more so, bread, about the same. A decent hotel costs more here than back home. A meal in a decent restaurant the same or more. Wine, beer, spirits.
Cars more here. Apartments more. Computers and most electronics the same.
Public transport is cheap, yes. Gas much more here.[/quote]
I also disagree.
General groceries are slightly cheaper here than in Canada (a lot cheaper if you’re not fixated on western staples), eating out is much cheaper here (especially with no tipping), alcohol (all types) are cheaper. Cars may be more here, I wouldn’t know. Aparments here (in Kaohsiung anyway) are WAY cheaper than in Canada (in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto anyway). Electronics used to be about the same but with the falling TWD I think they’re cheaper here now too. Gas? It’s over a buck in most parts of Canada and it’s not NT$ 34 a litre here yet (besides that the commutes are generally shorter here and if you ride a scooter you save even more on gas). Don’t even get me started on the various insurance costs and interest rates in Canada compared to here.
I think it’s either been awhile since you’ve been back in Canada, or have not noticed the rising CAD dollar, or are from Hicksville, Saskatchewan.[/quote]
Beaver Creek, YT, actually.
But looks like I need to go back home soon (if I can afford it) and see for myself. Yeah, not really thinking about the rise in the dollar.
I find food items here on the whole the same or cheaper in price than what I found this past summer in Canada. But most of what I saw in grocery stores was quite different than what I see here and in many cases of better quality.
Overall the cost of living is still cheaper here than in Canada but the salaries remain at least a third of what would be expected at home. With a family of 4 the increase in price of just about everything we buy hurts us allot.
It certainly was slim pickings at RT mart tonight. They had very little and what they had was way out of our budget.
I don’t get how a marginal increase in grocery prices and gas prices can have such a profound effect on people’s lives - at least well-paid foreigners.
Groceries getting you down? Try going to the cheap and delicious local hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant for some fried rice and stir fried beef for the family. A big and delicious dinner can be easily had for less than 400NT for four people, or 100NT if you’re on your own.
Gas prices getting you down? Try doing what everyone else does and drive a scooter. I drive my car knowing that I’m getting screwed on fuel, but if the 8000NT a month(minimum) in gas and parking gets to be too much, I’ll suck up my pride and switch back to a scooter. Buy a decent one for 10000NT and you’ll get by on 600NT a month in fuel.
[quote=“wudjamahuh”]I don’t get how a marginal increase in grocery prices and gas prices can have such a profound effect on people’s lives - at least well-paid foreigners.
Groceries getting you down? Try going to the cheap and delicious local hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant for some fried rice and stir fried beef for the family. A big and delicious dinner can be easily had for less than 400NT for four people, or 100NT if you’re on your own.
Gas prices getting you down? Try doing what everyone else does and drive a scooter. I drive my car knowing that I’m getting screwed on fuel, but if the 8000NT a month(minimum) in gas and parking gets to be too much, I’ll suck up my pride and switch back to a scooter. Buy a decent one for 10000NT and you’ll get by on 600NT a month in fuel.[/quote]
What if you are a badly/underpaid foreigner, and you do those things already?
All that being said, I guess unless we make a LOT of money, we will somehow feel the impact sooner or later.
I can really notice the general grim mood that’s been in the air since last typhoon…
Does this rising living cost thing add up to your list of “cons” about the place?
Do you think it can have an impact on you keeping on living here?
IMO, I think those of us that were already thinking of moving to a greener pasture will probably see this as one more reason to make the move.
I can already feel the weight of that factor in the con side of the balance… It is a heavy chunk of con…
About cost of living here VS Canada… Our salaries here are significantly lower, even when you factor in income and sales taxes. If you are married to a local, his/her salary is most probably a lot lower than what he/she would be making back there. But here, living with 1 car per household is totally feasible, and you don’t really need a lot of stuff you would have to have back home!!! (Canucks, think of all the winter stuff we need to buy all the time… ouch!!!)
On this last point, in my company, we’ve hired (on paper) overly qualified individuals for staff positions (i.e. non-management grade positions). These individuals are deemed overly qualified in my book because their tertiary education credentials are North American or Australian degrees. In other words, individuals whose credentials are much higher than your English buxiban teacher but who makes at least 1/3 to 1/2 less.
This isn’t anything new for growing and maturing economies like the tiger economies. But what is difficult is that the educational system produces individuals who are unlikely to successfully cope with the sea change experienced by these tiger economies/countries. The gap between haves and have-nots will continue to accelerate stressing political and economic stability.
I don’t believe that 105,000 of 250,000 graduates can not find a job. Many just don’t choose to. Their are jobs available here but the expectations of many of those graduates are clearly not realistic. Last week we put an advertisement for workers at our restaurant in one of the major newspapers. Not one person actually turned up for an interview (OK, one called and we rejected him on the phone because he was underage and we serve alcohol). Several others called but did not even bother to come and we are paying above the minimum wage.
I can’t help that think Taiwan’s economy will continue to go no where as the “strawberry generationers” are much more lazy than their parents who are often happy to subsidize their existance for now.
Because of the current exchange rate of the NT relative to a number of other currencies like the Euro, Aust$ etc things here are relatively cheap compared to say 10 years ago. That said anyone who owns a restaurant here will have been tearing their hair out or changing their menu in response to the price of things like tomatos or red/green/yellow peppers lately.
Yellow Cartman, I really liked that article. So much, I printed it out for my boss, who has been complaining about the Govt’s inaction and etc. on prices -usual who’s to blame-, hoping for some intelligent discussion. Result:
“You foreigners do not understand, only we Chinese understand what goes on here, etc…”:blah:
(without having looked at the thing, not even who wrote it).
My fault. Paisei.
The consensus in this office is that you-know who is to blame. Going a bit off -topic on how people blame this on politics, my other coworker used to enlighten me on how when the KMT comes into power our economy will soar and our salaries will increase because they know how to treat furriners right and have lots of resources. Now the song has changed and he says the DPP has deploited all resources so the KMT cannot fix the economy -wasn’t it that they were the richest party?
Of course, it is Chen’s fault beacuse his grankid has a Blackberry, …:blah:
Never mind that as far as I can see, for the typical man on the street working 12 hours a day, no vacations, in a major Taiwan corporation is the norm. Never mind new employees only get one year contracts, no benefits. Never mind spiraling debts over luxury bags and fancy shoes leave no money for emergencies. Never mind there are accusations of both pan blue/greeen politicians manipulating produce prices. Never mind, because that is not on the only paper we read, then it cannot be true.:blah:
I know the economy is not good, but does anyone have a job offer? :loco:
Oh, and I definetively agree with Naguoning that the job opportunities are there, but this generation does not quite “get” it.
The NON working but NEED to be working class.