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Jaw dropping prices but where else to go?


Chancer
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[quote user="DerekJ"]Looking through this thread I can see so many examples of high (by UK standards) French prices. Our own experiences would seem to support this view.
The most recent was the purchase of our John Deere sit-on mower where we saved over 1000 Euros by buying in the UK (and this includes the UK sellers shipping costs).

My question, though, is...   how do the French and others reliant on a French income afford to live? Does anyone know what the average French wage is?
[/quote]

The answer to the wages question Derek, is not very much compared to the UK. Remember they don't live to work and  have a reasonable working week with lots of leisure/family time, but I think you have to factor in the culture and  French mentality to materialistic things, in France there seems to be little demand for unnecessary products, so some prices are high. Near to where we live in England are newly built tiny houses, but all seem to have large "Chelsea tractors" parked in the driveways, and when you go shopping look in the average English supermarket you will find several aisles of TV meals. The French buy houses to live in  not to sell on, and I believe they don't buy on impulse as much the Brits; also they don't have the get it on credit mentality as does the younger UK generations. Most of the French  we know and mix with when we are in France;  seem to enjoy life and don't appear to go short of anything. Having said that I am always totally gob smacked when |I look at the price of paint in France.

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The French seem to spend quite a bit on food, from my observation.

Madame la Voisine who dresses like a scarecrow (and smells worse than one) was telling me recently that she bought some lamb for 50 euros!

She often gives my OH her shopping list.  He is allowed to get all the items  only at Netto's:  horrible orangina type squashes, cheap pasta, cheap cat food (dry and tinned), the cheapest Camambert and an occasional flan patissière that makes me turn up my nose just to look at it.

Then, at Christmas and fête days, they seem to buy lots of meat, oysters, etc.  She has a son living opposite and a husband who drives a Merc so I reckon she is just taking the Mick getting my OH to do her shopping.  But, my OH is endlessly accommodating so I guess that's why she does it.

Anyway, I recently said to OH, if you keep going to Netto's and buying the things on Madame's list, the people who collect food for the poor outside Netto's will be putting things IN your basket instead of accepting your contributions.

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I recently bought some lamb, for 12 euros and I still havnt got over the shock, although "trés peu" would be more accurate han some, still it was enough for a Biryani that filled a large cocotte en fonte to overflowing, fed 7 on Sunday, has been feeding me since and I still have another 1.25 kg in the freezer.

My local Netto and Lidls usually have beggars outside pretending to be S.D.F.'s asking for money for food, strange thing is the money that they ramasse they spend on cannetes of extra strength lager and they are nowhere to be seen when myself (ocassionally) and the other genuinely poor and hungry glaneurs go through the bins in the evenings, I suppose that by then they have their feet up in front of the telly.

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I am looking to buy a weber BBQ the round bottomed variety. They are so much not only more expensive in France than they UK but then the difference between the price of the compact kettle and the one touch original is much wider in France than the UK too.

PS can any weber user tell me if there is a big difference in functionality between the two types please?
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We have some french friends who constantly harped on at us for buying of the 'tinterweb rather than from local shops. However, they have just bought a garden shredder from (of all places, somewhere in Scotland), for about 200euro less than buying it in France. That included delivery and turned up in 3 days. They originaly thought it was a scam.

Other friends now look at buying car parts in the UK first rather than from the french sites.

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[quote user="AnOther"][quote user="DerekJ"]My question, though, is...   how do the French and others reliant on a French income afford to live? Does anyone know what the average French wage is? [/quote]You might be surprised

http://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Country=France/Salary/by_Employer_Type

In UK it's around £24k or €26k

[/quote]

Interesting... thanks.  The UK national average is around £24000.

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That American report disagrees with INSEE by about a factor of 2. Average monthly gross household income in Meaux (a relatively wealthy Ile town where we live) is 2400 Euros.

I think this version will come out in English www.insee.fr/fr/pdf/intfrcbref.pdf

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I needed this item today and after a bit of research I could only source it at,   "EXPERT" in Vire,Normandy,France

cost 70 euros.............

..............ouch

If I was in Germany it would have cost 9.90 euros!...(https://www.smartcard24.com/warenkorb.php)

exactly the same product by the same manufacturer ("INVERTO", based in Luxembourg).

Inverto

Quattro Red Extend Long Neck LNB 40mm 0,3

PS . It is made in China!

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Thought I might source my planned purchase of a 3D Ready TV.

Under the impression that current rate is 1.2129 euros for each pound I buy OR is it the other way round.[:)]

Working on the first premise: a TV LCD SAMSUNG LE46C750 on sale in Currys at £ 1499.......so presumably that would be equivalent to € 1818.

But in france I can get the same TV for € 1361.......so presumably that would be equivalent to £ 1122.

Are electrical consumer goods that expensive in You Kay or have I transmogrified my mathematics.[:D]

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Pachapapa

Your sums are correct with the TV however, if you can hang on until after the World Cup Footie there may be some bargains to be had.  Apparently TVs are not flying off the shelves as the retailers had expected so they will be left with a lot of stock to shift.

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No one seems to have cottoned on to the awesome price differential between energy saving light bulbs in UK and France.

I was chatting to an elderly chap in Aldi (France) last year and he was loading his trolley with these things, 'cos Aldi had them on Promo: I simply couldn't believe the prices!

Even worse in Carrefour.

I am thinking of semi-retiring and becoming M.Ampoule at local Brocantes (In our neck of the woods boot sale type thingies are called Brocantes: apparently elsewhere they're called different names).

A black beret, a striped T shirt and a Gaulloise in side of mouth; I have already developed my own version of the Gallic Shrug.[:)]

I can buy these bulbs at really cheap prices from one of our electrical wholesalers.................

 

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Compact flourescent light bulbs whilst expensive in France are sold under cost price in the UK as a means of the energy companies avoiding paying their taxes carbone.

My pal bought me 20 Edison Screw ones for £2 from B&Q not surprisingly at that price the ES were the only ones left on the rayon.

I take perverse pleasure in showing any French person that I can hijack how little things can be bought for in England, my 12cts ampoules are the coup de grace and I just love presenting my speechess victim (who might just have been a passer by) with one as a leaving present.

I recently saw loads of them on sale at €1 each at a rédérie, they were unmistakeably from England as they had Homebase or perhaps it was Wickes written all over them so I started chatting to the seller, he got very wary when he realised that I knew their provenance and claimed to have bought them from a grossiste. What was surprising is that they were not flying off the stand, most French people seemed circumspect and with the English writing on the label thought it was too good to be true and must be an arnaque, he would have been better off doubling the price.

I commended him on his enterpeneurial spirit, to have done anything otherwise would have been hypocritical as that exact same day I had delivered 22 rolls of B&Q knauf insulation that I had sold on Leboncoin, the exact same product sells for €47 in the negôce materiauxs and has been sold for as little as 89 pence a roll in B&Q with the British Gas subvention, sadly I paid a little more than that but not much more.

When I was researching the price to sell it for I found at least two other British sellers on E-bay.fr.

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  • 6 months later...

These: http://www.socamont.com/boutique/fiche_produit.cfm?ref=54153&type=626&code_lg=lg_fr&num=0 

must be the biggest rip off I have ever seen in France and I have seen a few in my time.

The list price in the UK is £7.82 per 100 and I know you can get a massive discount on that, I doubt that they cost more than 1p each.

I have never actually ever paid for them before, I just wait untill I see a BT van and ask the guy for a couple of boxes of nibs, I had thousands of them but lent the sack to a French guy to use whichever type he wanted and as normal never got them back. 

Here in France €230HT per hundred = €275 ttc = €2.75 each [:-))]

They are smaller than my little finger nail.

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I suspect it may be a mistake.

Look at the last item http://www.socamont.com/boutique/fiche_produit.cfm?ref=54151&type=626&code_lg=lg_fr&num=33 which is priced @ €173.70 (inc. TVA & Carriage) then here http://www.3mselect.co.uk/p-1503-scotchlok-u1r-idc-connector-100-pk.aspx where the same item is £113.79 (without special discount). Still a bit of a rip off but not of the order of the other item.

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  • 1 month later...
A work colleague has this crazy idea for a gate that requires around 300 coach bolts - no I don't know how it will look either but he gets these notions.....

Anyway, he gave up on it when he found that a big well-known French DIY store (no name, no shame [;-)] ) want  €4.40 for a pack of 4 !!!! that's €1.10 each!

So yours truly introduces him to Screwfix where the same item works out at just under 10 pence each.   Guess what I'm bringing back for him after Easter?  Along with a load of other stuff I suspect [:-))]

EDIT:  And talking of Screwfix, Sweets, For future reference, G9 bulbs are £2.54 each or 5 for £13.57.  Still a lot but not as much as you paid

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