Price Watch 1

I've posted on some of these items before on my previous expedition, but for those of you mildly interested, this is a price comparison of the things I've noticed already:

1. By the large, food in the supermarket is much of a muchness. Some things more expensive (e.g. milk, cereal) and some things cheaper (fruit, soya products) with most other food stuffs about the same.
2. Interestingly, eating out is way cheaper here. Of course they have the fancy restaurants here too, but everyday lunch can be had for about €2-€2.50. Compare that to what you pay for a carvery lunch at home! Granted the fodder is different and you have to like rice and/or noodles, but you get a great choice and a good feed! Given that, it's obviously not worth cooking yourself.
3. Pharmacies are cheaper (surprise, surprise!).
4. Doctors are cheaper (surprise, surprise again!).
5. Toiletries tend to be cheaper. How they can ship out shaving balm from Europe and sell it at half the price the do at home, I don't know!
6. Taxis are cheaper here (surprise, surprise) as is public transport.
7. Cars are astronomically priced as a disincentive to buy them. There's only so much space on the island after all. It's about 85% the size of Co. Louth with the population of Ireland stuck in it, so it's a wee bit cramped here! I saw an add for a Mazda 2 for about €27,000. It's under €15,000 in Ireland and we're bad for car prices!
8. Funnily enough, petrol seems to be cheaper, at about 80 cent a litre.
9. That's probably because tax on everything is so much less here. Max. income tax is only about 20% (and 8.5% for the average Irish industrial wage), for example. Oh, the advantages of not being a welfare state!
10. Computer games are cheaper too (no great surprise there either!)
11. Electronics such as flat screen TVs seem to be a little cheaper also.
12. Treatments for just about anything are cheaper here. This includes alternative medicine, laser eye surgery, skin treatments and the like.
13. Clothes and shoes are cheaper here. I just bought a pair of Nike Air runners for about 75% of the price back home.

Eddie Hobbs would be proud of me!