French prices
I received an email from Superquinn yesterday.
They are offering specials on French wines. Hah!
We did a little shopping today, but I decided to forgo Superquinn’s offer, as I doubt they deliver here.
I bought some Royal Gala apples.
Superquinn are charging €0.49 each. To be fair, I looked at Tescos – €0.43 each. Here in France? €0.21, and they are lovely, crisp sweet, juicy, big ones too.
I thought about some wine.
A nice bottle of Rose d’Anjou will set you back €9.55 in Superquinn. Tescos charge €7.79, which doesn’t say much for Superquinn’s sale? French price? Wait for it…… €1.89. Hah!
Ah, but be fair, says you. Isn’t France a wine producer? That’s true, but it is still one hell of a mark-up, at four to five times the price. And Ireland is quite capable of growing its own apples so there should be little or no difference there?
OK, so. Ireland is a dairy farming country. How about milk?
Tecos – €1.14 a litre. Superquinn – €1.15 a litre. France? €0.78 a litre.
In fairness there were one or two items that were slightly more expensive here.
Tescos and Superquinn both charge €0.85 for their cheapest sugars, whereas in France I paid €1.42. But then the French tend to buy in bulk and I probably could have come nearer the Irish price if I had bought one of their more usual sacks that look like they should be delivered to a building site.
On average prices varied from equal to around a half of Irish prices. Some [like sugar] are higher but they are a rarity.
One price difference I find quite horrifying is pipe tobacco.
I will be honest and say I don’t know how much a pouch is in Ireland, because I tend to buy in bulk, and anyway they keep fucking around with the price [always upwards, of course]. It is somewhere around €6 to €7, if not more. The price here? €6.20. And before any of you say ‘so what?’ – the pouches here are twice the size of the Irish ones. And the tobacco is imported, so you can’t use that excuse.
The only thing that used to be expensive here was petrol. Last year it was around 50% higher. Irish petrol prices have been up and down like a whore’s knickers recently, but petrol here is around €0.10 a litre dearer which isn’t too bad.
And I dare say our forthcoming budget will sort that!
You’re right about the budget sorting it out. Apparently the fact that 70% of what we pay for petrol and diesel here is tax isn’t good enough for Gormless. By all accounts this stupid, feckless and idiotic carbon tax will add another 5 – 8 c per litre.
Robert – And that in turn will be passed on to us in higher retail prices because the cost of shipping goes up. So we pay twice.
We saved all our receipts in West Virginia and sat down a few weeks ago to compare. Many things are sold by the gallon there instead of litre: milk, petrol, coffee, ice cream, anything–so it took some working out.
In the end we discovered that the lower cost of living we enjoyed there actually offset the cost of all five of our airline tickets.
Most things were half the price of things here, or lower, and the variety of fresh fruit and vegetables was amazing. And yes, I do expect it to get worse before it gets better.
This country sucks. I really have to convince the Mrs. to move. So are you coming back or what? My friend’s parents are not, they now live on the canals in France.
Thrifty – Your friend’s parents are the sensible ones. Unfortunately, I shall be making my way back over the next few days.
They laughed when I brought home wine in milk cartons – they’re not laughing now!!!
Welcome Minx! Yup. Those bricks are handy. I wonder if they would ever consider selling Gunness in those?
Grandad, You prompted me to post a receipt of my latest purchases in France – notably wine. Mad mad mad prices. I thought it prudent to write to you now before I opened the plonk.
Sante (can’t do the fada)
Kerry – You old bugger!! That’s only about seventy miles from where I am now. Why didnt you stay on a couple of days, and we could have had a pint or five? [of wine, of course].
Santé. Heh!