I can't remember which show exactly I was watching but I believe it was probably on travel channel. One person was in a foreign country and purchased a pastry of some sort and said that it cost about $0.80
Looking at that pastry on TV I can tell you it would have fed me the entire day, or at the very least, breakfast and lunch. Over here for $0.80 I can get a typical jelly donut and be hungry before I leave the store.
I guess my point is, that it must be relative not only to how much a person earns in their own country but also what it costs them for the basics of living..... Rent, mortgage, food, electricity etc.
My electrics bill here in the desert are often over $450.00 and now that summer has past Im still paying over $250.00 and NOT using air conditioning. Our food bills are often over $400.00/month (and we are certainly NOT eating steak and lobster every night and usually not even once every 6 months), our natural gas is usually over $35.00/month (and we only run the stove with the natural gas). My rent is now $1400.00 for a tiny and i mean TINY little house in a somewhat decent neighborhood. I could certainly move down about 10 streets and pay $500.00 for a one room shack in the bario, but I choose not to do so.
If I want a new pair of levis now, it costs me about $40.00 unless I can find a knockoff or find levis on sale however I've not bought a pair of levis in many years now.
Can I cut corners? Most assuredly I could. I could let my house get up to 90f and pay less electric, I could take my pair of docker pants to the seamstress and pay her/him $7.00 to put a patch on the inside of the thigh instead of buying a new pair, I could move alltogether into a tiny one room apartment (boy wouldnt that be fun with 2 adults, 2
full size dogs and a smaller dog) and pay less in rent.
OR.... I could move to a country like Isreal, live on a kibutz in a one room studio, work 6 days a week 12 hours a day in the fields and have all of my expenses paid for just about. I guess it all depends on priorities.
Im sure I'd hate to live in the UK and pay out $5.00 US /litre of petrol or whatever their current pricing is, and hate paying out $2.65/gallon of fuel now in the U.S. I'd hate to live in France in a tiny little apartment regardless of how close it is to the nighlife or daylife. I'd love to be able to settle down in some scottish town with about 500 people and live out the rest of my life but I don't really see that happening any time soon I think.
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