Shopping around the world
Everyone has different motivations when moving abroad. Some people are attracted by the lifestyle of a foreign country, or for a better job, for love or might want to just ‘get stuck’ abroad after their studies. But there are also those who live close to a border and occasionally go shopping in their neighboring country. Whatever the reason might be, why people go abroad, the cost of living is a major concern for everyone, and costs are different everywhere. Let’s see how much we spend in a few, different countries around the world!
written by: NIKI – Continent Surfer
Moving abroad is usually a bit pricey in itself. A country with a higher standard of living is likely to mean higher costs while obviously getting a higher salary, too. The cost of living can also depend a lot on how much money you earn, what kind of lifestyle you lead and what region you live in. In this joint shopping tour, we looked at the prices of basic products that almost everyone buys regularly, and those have no difference in pricing, e.g. living in a big city or a small town does not affect it..
Continent Surfer
Did you know that the Continent Surfer team works from all over the world? Yes, we are working from different countries, and now we were all going on a shopping spree together!
CHECK OUT OUR >>> SHOPPING LIST <<<
Keep reading… at the end of this post, we’ll sum up the prices!
Hungary
Niki
We started our shopping in the heart of Europe, Hungary. At the same time, other team members from England to Australia, they all ‘shopped’ the same products in various places, but we converted all currencies to show the prices we found in GBP.
Niki decided to shop in a typical chain store, so let’s see what she put in her shopping basket:
Austria
Niki
We have to mention that Niki lives 500 meters from the Austrian border, therefore she is a regular visitor to both Hungarian and Austrian shops. She admits that food prices in Hungary have increased significantly and although prices in other countries have gone up, too, shopping in Austria is cheaper right now and the quality is much better than in Hungary… Fuel has been cheaper and the quality has been better in the past years. At the moment however (September 2023), it is slightly cheaper to fill up your car in Hungary, however many people still fill up on the Austrian side as they prefer the better quality.
Surprisingly you would find price differences of 10 – 40% on average for some producst of world- known brands. Meanwhile of course, the Hungarian salaries are far away from the Austrian standards, so unfortunately there is still some catching up to do in order to live up to the european standards!
Germany
Ildi
Germany is also worth mentioning, as many of you plan to move or live there already. Although it may be similar to Austria, we were curious to know what the differences are compared to Austria. For those who are moving to a German-speaking country, it is often difficult to decide between the two. Ildi now shopped in Leipzig, so let’s see what prices you can expect when going to do your daily shopping.
England, United Kingdom
Szilvia
In England, there are several well-known chain stores with a wide selection of goods (e.g. Tesco, Lidl). One of the favourite places for Szilvi and others of course, is Morrisons, which has hundreds of stores all across the UK.
Australia
Bogi
Let’s travel to the other side of the world to see what’s going on down under. So far we have looked at prices in the UK and some neighbouring countries in Europe. Australia is far enough away to give us something different, but the same products, really. Bogi helped us collect the prices of the products on our shopping list.
New Zealand
Kriszti
We know that New Zealand is a bucket list country for many people, not just for short trips, but also for permanent residency. So, we couldn’t leave this country off our list. Kriszti went shopping for us in New Zealand, let’s see what she found out!
The summary*
As we promised, at the end of this article we sum it all up. Here are the results!
*IMPORTANT! Please note that this shoppping is based on our own experiences in August, 2023, all prices you see above are converted to Great British Pound (GBP). Even within countries there can be significant price differences, but this little summary hopefully helps many of you!
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