This is absolute rubbish !

[idun]

I buy economically depending on what it is, and I don't waste food.

I always said that mustard and booze are cheap in France, and I am sure that they still are. Still I don't mind paying extra for mustard and we don't drink much at home, and british pubs, well, still get a pint for £1.30 or £1.85 depending on which we go to and we get the company too, drinking at home, what a lonely sport that is.

We are financially better off in the UK. We noticed it as soon as we moved back.We are lucky that we don't have to pay rent or have a mortgage, but we didn't before we left France either, so I can compare.

And happiness, what is it with people and such a thing in France, IF I am not happy where I am, I move on. I am as capable of being happy anywhere. I am perfectly happy in the UK. I was perfectly happy in France and I understand that nowhere is perfect, so as with everything in life, there are ups and downs, but generally, happy.

[richard51]

By jove Idun you really can find a bargain. Is it the local farmers subsidized bar?

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/pint-beer-cost-uk/

This reference also illustrates why individual experiences can widely differ. Hence opening posts paper taken as very much an average.

[idun]

I am not saying that we cannot pay more for drinks in pubs, but as a general rule we do not pay more. It means that we can have a decent social life as friends also appreciate reasonable prices and it is not drinking at home. In fact my OH rarely drinks at home these days.

( We went to York last weekend and paid £10 for a pint and a soft drink[:-))], so we know what prices can be like.)

Me, soft drinks usually or a pot of tea or coffee. I must have had all of five units of alcohol this year, so not tee total.

I never was a drinker, but simply, I rarely fancy a drink these days. If I fancy one, I do have one, but usually a half lager or stout never more and never wine, I can sip a little with a meal about twice a year, but just drinking it... beurk! And spirits, even worse than beurk, beurk, beurk!!!............

............ just thought back, and I used to be told I was a cheap date in my young days!!!!!! I suppose I was!!!! And always the driver[:D]

[idun]

Just looked at that beer price list and it is nothing like that where we go. sure I could find pubs in the area with all those prices......... but why would we?

Ah well, just goes to show.

[Patf]

Noisette - re cat food.

I used to buy 25kg sacks of cat croquettes from the agri-coop. Can't remember the name, (Cocktail?) but one sack costed 20-30 euro and lasted a few months. Once a week she had a treat - a pate pour chat. She kept healthy on that, still there with the new owners at age about 14.

I agree about the wine though, [smile].

[Noisette]

Hi Pat, gosh that compares well with the price of Friskies! They eat both sachet food and biscuits, as well as controlling the local rodent population! Will check out the co-operative. Thanks.

Quite why it's assumed that we 'drink at home' and don't have a social life, I can't imagine, but we've always found that a glass of wine with a meal enhances both. :-)

[BritinBretagne]

I suppose it all depends on how you spend your money but I could not afford the lifestyle I enjoy in France if I lived in the UK.

I haven’t been in the UK now for over three years but then, having read posts like these, I was expecting my money to go a long way but was surprised at the cost of fish and chips, a curry and food shopping in general. I went to a Tesco expecting to buy lots but came out with Heinz beans and McVities plain chocolate biscuits. There was a huge choice of things I wouldn’t ever want but the only bargains seemed to be on the buy two get three offers. I’m not sure that I would know what to do with one trifle let alone three. I must admit I don’t know how cheap/expensive many other things were because fish and chips, a curry and Tesco’s was about the only time I got to spend any money there.

The big thing however is quality of life and the time I spent in South East England was overcrowded, coarse and alien. I was glad to get back to Calais to a country where, despite the exchange rate I can afford to live well.

[Théière]

Be interested to know if you are still working?

If not then depending on whether you prefer town or village you have the choice. Calais is a miserable ugly sprawling place to my eye, wall to wall social housing. In and out on a ferry you barely see any of it. Prices are/have risen in the UK but Tesco is by no means the yardstick for me. Their profits were down a short while ago so prices increased and quality fell to make adjustments. I paid £15.40 last week for fish & chips large hadock and I asked for small chips but still received enough for oven chip portion another day.

[YCCMB]

"Quality of life" is an interesting and very subjective thing.

As someone who has always lived in a town or city, I seriously miss the quality of life they offer. I enjoy spending extended periods in France, but I'd be climbing the walls if this was my life 24/7/365. Especially in winter.

There's something also about winter in the UK with access to proper gas central heating, no having to chop wood or worry about those weird days when, in order to have a cheap electricity tariff in summer, you have to prepare a flask of gruel and play patience by candlelight in order to avoid a "red day".

Lots of people have moved to France for a quality of life which, to them, is beyond price. I totally salute you. We are all different.

[mint]

A very good post, Betty.  Quality of life is indeed totally subjective; your personal inclinations, preferences, leisure pursuits and even, how you "feel" about things in general.

Also depends, I think, on your "age" and, of course, that too can be your actual physical age or some other age in your own imagination!

I loved by 40 odd years in various parts of the UK, I did NOT love my 3 years in the Charente Maritime but now I really appreciate my time in my present location.  Have been here for 8 years and all of it has flown by and that includes last year when I was, by the doctors' accounts, gravement malade.  In many ways, I think I am enjoying my life now more than I have ever done, but that could merely be a factor of feeling well again and coming to an acceptance of how things might pan out in the future.

Have a good life, everyone, be it in France, the UK or anywhere else[:)]

[Théière]

Thank you Mint, you to

[idun]

Maybe our lack of evening social life was due to the french friends we have. NONE of them would have been seen dead in a local bar on an evening with the alkis, because that is who would have been there. That was just the way it was.

We would eat at one another's homes, and that, quite often on a lunchtime, although sometimes on an evening. And sometimes, but not often, would go out to eat with them.

We would go and try our luck at finding a half decent resto, but that was hard. And apart from the odd spectacle, or trip to the cinema, our social life was VERY VERY limited. And my husband would buy beer to have a drink at home.

We did have some british friends, but we lived a very long way from them, we were scattered across the region. We never went out for a meal with them, but once or twice a year would go to theirs, and them to us. Sometimes less.

Yes, we were members of assoc's, but that was term time and apart from some sports, once a week.

It wasn't a problem when the kids were young, but when they grew up, thinking back, it was not a good thing.

When we lived in a city for the first couple of years, going out was different, we could go out to the pubs and pay an absolute fortune for drinks, but at least we could socialise in a way we were used to with people from work.

When I took a french friends to London, I just about had to push my best friend into a pub on the first evening to have a drink, she was asking what on earth sort of people went in and, ie the men were not simply on the pull....... and in some ways worse,  the women were not just there for 'custom'. That is what she thought of drinking in a pub on an evening. She happily did on our second night as she realised that it was all quite different, not that there are not pubs as she imagined, because I am sure that there are, but I wouldn't have taken her to one of them.

I wasn't saying anyone specifically was a heavy drinker, but in France, most who like a drink, do it at home when they live a la campagne. That is what my french friends do, and, as I said, my husband would have a drink at home........... no where else to go that was 'decent'.

I can pay that much for fish and chips and mushy peas at a restaurant, but restaurant prices are due to all sorts of overheads, I understand that, that is OK.

Look at the Magpie in Whitby, Cod and Chips £6.95, to take out. And that is a very well known for Fish and Chips.  And that is pretty much the price we pay, perhaps a little less. I make curries but I do not like going out for a curry, so have no idea how much a take out would be. We have a lovely chinese restaurant nearby now, that we go to, or order to home. Miam miam! That doesn't cost a fortune. About £15 for two starters and two mains, the prices similar in their restaurant to take away, the difference being that they give us much more food when we take a take away.

I shop around, I have the time, and as I said, our budget goes a lot further here than it did in France, and french friends keep telling me how expensive everything is and that is what I saw when I was back.