Prices around here are getting out of hand!!!

[Colleen27]

I recently read an article about the cost of housing in NJ with regards to salaries, and even though salaries here are higher, they're not high enough to compensate for the cost of housing.

I think that's true in most very high cost of living areas. When I was a new grad I interviewed for a position in California that I thought was perfect but had to pass on it because the salary they offered was twice what I could earn in Detroit but my rent would have been at least 3-4x as much as I was paying (and that for smaller or lower quality digs) and I'd have had to work quite a ways up the ladder to even think about home ownership. And given the housing bubble that followed, I'm not sure it is something I'd ever have attained.

 

[meggiebeth]

Things are extortionate here. Especially food and petrol. (Would you call it gas?) It is just... Unaffordable... Getting higher all the time. I think prices in the US are about a third of what we pay here. Why is that? I do know that about 60% of it is tax. Maybe that is why. Seems like a lot.

Packs of butter in the supermarket went from about £0.90 pence three or four years ago to about £1.40

Even chocolate is on the rise pricewise. It's scary how high things are getting. My mother is on a payfreeze, due to government cutbacks- she works for the national health service.

Oh and the train prices are ridiculous. England has supposedly the 'worst' train service in Europe but the HIGHEST prices! and they are rising even more next year.

And let's not forget chocolate bars, some of which have doubled in price over the last half a decade.

 

[lllovell]

It everywhere. I did see that Burger King had there cones on sale for 50 cents

HA! When I pulled in to get one of those $.50 cones, the machine wasn't working. GGRRR

 

[smga1]

I live outside of Washington DC. Townhouses are in the mid 300s. A house is 700+ way out of our price range. Raises are rare with daycare and health costs increasing. Not get me started about gas prices. I coupon hard to keep my food budget under control. I try to find fun things at a low cost.

 

[PebblesMom]

The prices of everything are going up! I do feel bad for people who live in areas where there is a high cost of living! I am fortunate enough to live in an area where the cost of housing is not bad, but it still stings when everything else is going up in price.

 

[chimo2u]

Ha! You all have it easy. Around here our prices make Disney dining look cheap. A jug of milk is $5, a gallon of gas is $4.52 - and you don't even want to know what a starter home sells for in my neck of the woods. Our cars cost twice a much as yours - and you can't tell me the speedometer is worth and extra $15k. Flights to get from one end of the country to another cost $800. Our weekly grocery budget is $250 and that's bare bones - ice cream is a luxury we can't buy or we go over budget. We get meat frozen veggies and rice or potatoes each night.

If it wasn't for the horrendous politics int he US we'd move there in a minute - admittedly I don't like our politics much better - but lesser of two evils and all that.

You forgot one major thing though.....I wouldn't want to pay their horrendous health care insurance premiums!!! I think that alone negates all the things you mentioned....I'd still rather live in AB Canada than pay premiums equal to my monthly mortgage!!! crazy....
Being military family most of our life, I've lived from coast to coast of Canada, and I'd say economically, AB has it pretty good.....As a country, we
are a blessed nation

 

[angwill]

You forgot one major thing though.....I wouldn't want to pay their horrendous health care insurance premiums!!! I think that alone negates all the things you mentioned....I'd still rather live in AB Canada than pay premiums equal to my monthly mortgage!!! crazy....
Being military family most of our life, I've lived from coast to coast of Canada, and I'd say economically, AB has it pretty good.....As a country, we
are a blessed nation

I was just going to comment on the health care cost myself.

 

[angwill]

I know, it's really hard! I have an older dog and cat and bloodwork sure is getting expensive every year! We had a cat who had cancer last year and the vet was pushing us to surgery. The cat was 14 years old and had a wonderful life with us from kittenhood. We just couldn't justify spending several thousand dollars on a surgery with 50% chance of getting the cancer. We put him on prednisone, but of course it didn't do anything and eventually we had to put him to sleep.

Yes, next year's prices will be REALLY bad with the drought. Cringing to think about it.

Thanks for responding I feel less alone in it all. 14 years is a wonderfully long life for an animal to spend with a family that loves them. I do not blame you one bit and would have opted the same way. I am sorry you lost your cat though it is always hard to make those decisions.

 

[Jerseyguy's Wife]

You forgot one major thing though.....I wouldn't want to pay their horrendous health care insurance premiums!!! I think that alone negates all the things you mentioned....I'd still rather live in AB Canada than pay premiums equal to my monthly mortgage!!! crazy....
Being military family most of our life, I've lived from coast to coast of Canada, and I'd say economically, AB has it pretty good.....As a country, we
are a blessed nation

Yep. I was going to mention the healthcare premiums, too. It is insane what we pay per month. The price of health insurance has doubled in the last 8 years, and the coverage has gotten to the point where it is nearly worthless. Oh, and we have to let DH's employer into our medical records to even get that. I am due for my mandatory "voluntary" health screening. Voluntary, my butt.
And that lovely healthcare insurance is not going to pay for my husband's kidney biopsy or most of the subsequent treatment. God help us if he needs a kidney transplant.
Did I mention that we have the best health insurance his company offers? Yeah.
When you add the cost of housing, gas, and food, it's all a lot ridiculous. And it scares me to death to think it's going to get worse.

 

[nunzia]

I guess I am glad once again I live in the undesirable state of New Mexico. We paid 60 K for our house..all paid off and now worth only about 120K..1,900 sq ft. Property taxes about 500 a YEAR, gas is $3.42, about $200 month covers natural gas, electric and water. Milk is over $3.00 a gallon but can go on sale for $2.50. You can still go to the movies before 6pm for $6.50 pp (just went up). Not a whole lot of stuff do do, but the mountains are 20 minutes away and the biggest sand playground ever is 20 minutes the other way. Closest airport is 90 minutes away, closest SAMS and Target and Kohls are 60 minutes away. Pretty poor state, not too bad in comparison with costs, I suppose. My son is a cop and makes mid 30's, teachers make that and much more, I make less but we still do fine. Health Insurance..I don't get why it is so much for everyone..I guess it is true that if we could shop around across states it would be better. I have a high deductible HSA BCBS plan for my DH that costs $200 a month. We have used it for fairly big things and been happy with it. We don't have hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or much snow. Not so bad I guess

 

[Marionnette]

Philly can be just as bad, although the property taxes are less. Dh and I want to retire to the city (crazy I know but we are city folks, he is philly, born and raised, I'm NYC.) we went looking for some duds in center city.

We looked at a 3 bedroom 3 floor ROW HOME!! asking price 1.1 mil
Yikes.
More surprisingly our second choice is Charleston SC where I would have sworn prices were dead cheap. wrong. don't know about the cost of living but the south is quickly catching up.

and here I thought the real estate was supposed to be dirt cheap due to the recession.

I don't know what part of the city you were looking in, but $1.1M is not the norm for a 3 BR row home in most sections of Philly. In fact, many row homes within the city limits go for just over $100K. You just have to know where to look and be willing to compromise on the location. Of course, there are some gentrified areas that can command a high price just by virtue of where they are. But to use them as an example of Philadelphia real estate prices is misleading.

 

[Marionnette]

You forgot one major thing though.....I wouldn't want to pay their horrendous health care insurance premiums!!! I think that alone negates all the things you mentioned....I'd still rather live in AB Canada than pay premiums equal to my monthly mortgage!!! crazy....
Being military family most of our life, I've lived from coast to coast of Canada, and I'd say economically, AB has it pretty good.....As a country, we
are a blessed nation

I wouldn't want to pay the taxes that you pay in order to support your health care system. I've traveled all over the USA and would rather live here than anywhere else in the world, Canada and its free health care included.

 

[eliza61]

I don't know what part of the city you were looking in, but $1.1M is not the norm for a 3 BR row home in most sections of Philly. In fact, many row homes within the city limits go for just over $100K. You just have to know where to look and be willing to compromise on the location. Of course, there are some gentrified areas that can command a high price just by virtue of where they are. But to use them as an example of Philadelphia real estate prices is misleading.

Definitely. I actually thought that was a bit understood. I apologize, I didn't mean to imply that this was the price all over Philly, some areas you can get a town house dirt cheap. My mil lives in the cob creek section of west philly. On her block real estate is extremely cheap but I would not want to live there due to other issues. that's pretty much any city in the country.
New York you can get a row home in some areas of Harlem, where I grew up for 250K, which is cheap for Manhattan. once again you have other issues.

So the highlighted word is the magic word. what do I want to compromise? In my retirement I want safe, easy access without needing a car, availability to social things, easy access to hospitals and education unfortunately that seems to come with a hefty price tag.

 

[Colleen27]

You forgot one major thing though.....I wouldn't want to pay their horrendous health care insurance premiums!!! I think that alone negates all the things you mentioned....I'd still rather live in AB Canada than pay premiums equal to my monthly mortgage!!! crazy....
Being military family most of our life, I've lived from coast to coast of Canada, and I'd say economically, AB has it pretty good.....As a country, we
are a blessed nation

I was just going to mention that to you and to the poster from the UK... I'd take higher prices on a lot of things over the $772/mo that we pay for health insurance for our family... That would buy a lot of $5 milk! I can't wait until DH has been at his new job long enough to qualify for their coverage because for the last 3+ years our insurance has been our single largest monthly bill, more than housing, all the utilities combined, or groceries.

 

[shoney]

We live in an expensive area in Northern NJ, approx 15 miles from NYC. The median house in our town is probably $500K and I do know salaries are higher in the area as well. Yes, groceries have gone up, as well as gas and everything else but last night we visited a Dairy Queen. I had my children get a SMALL scoop (probably a scoop and a half), no toppings, $3.50 each. When ice cream goes on sale in the grocery store it's $2.00 a half gallon. For my 3 children, I spent over $10, for a little cup of ice cream. Today, we had a friend over and went bowling. The price per game for a child was $4.50, and $2.50 to rent bowling shoes. Is it me, or are these prices outrageous??? It's getting to the point where I don't want to do anything but go to the free library. It's been an expensive summer.

My ds11 had a strong urge for soft serve ice cream. I stopped at a local Carvel in a strip mall...it was $5.00 for a small cone with sprinkles!!!! I nearly hit the floor!!!

As for bowling, have you ever signed up for the free bowling.
http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/

or

https://freebowling.amf.com/


Shoes are either 4.50 or 5.00 at the one by us...I'm not sure, but that isn't bad if they bowl for free!

 

[mjkacmom]

My ds11 had a strong urge for soft serve ice cream. I stopped at a local Carvel in a strip mall...it was $5.00 for a small cone with sprinkles!!!! I nearly hit the floor!!!
!

I took the kids to carvel here in town, and don't remember how much it was for a small, but they were HUGE! From now on, we're getting the junior cone, which probably has enough ice cream for our entire family.

 

[eliza61]

I was just going to mention that to you and to the poster from the UK... I'd take higher prices on a lot of things over the $772/mo that we pay for health insurance for our family... That would buy a lot of $5 milk! I can't wait until DH has been at his new job long enough to qualify for their coverage because for the last 3+ years our insurance has been our single largest monthly bill, more than housing, all the utilities combined, or groceries.

LOL. I also think it depends on the state of your health. My dh is battling cancer and even with great health care insurance, the out of pocket is ungodly. nightly shots to bump up the immune system at 45 bucks a shot!! not to mention the copay on a gazillion different doctors. He has leukema and has to see an oncologist, cardiologist (make sure chemo is effective his heart), nephrologist (make sure his kidney don't shut down) on and on.
Believe me, lately there are days when I look at the out lay and

Truthfully it may simply be whatever system you are use to. don't want to turn this into a "my country is better than yours" debate.

 

[shoney]

I took the kids to carvel here in town, and don't remember how much it was for a small, but they were HUGE! From now on, we're getting the junior cone, which probably has enough ice cream for our entire family.

You are right! After I paid, I checked the board and saw a junior cone..I think it was 2.85. If I would have known, that is what he would have had..LOL

It was 95 degrees that day and half of it melted on the sidewalk anyway!

 

[Tinkerbelle32]

Also was going to ask the poster from England if so much of their tax is being used for their "free health care"?

 

[bigmama67]

I was also going to suggest the "Kids Bowl Free" program. We haven't gone as much as I'd hoped, but still, the kids got 2 free games each day. For DH and I to participate was $29.95 (total) for the summer. We're going today but it's maybe the 3rd time this summer - still worth it.

Awhile ago we got tired of renting shoes and just bought them - only about $20 each and of course DH and I won't outgrow ours.

Ice cream - the local small chain does deals (4 small cones for $10) which is great.