Imports from Europe will be considerably higher, Especially with those clueless Tory government in charge of negotiationsOriginal Post Deleted
I have to agree with you on that. Everyone who comments that food in HK is cheaper than the U.S or UK is probably eating shitty spam and instant noodles at some hole in the wall down the street. Eating or even cooking proper food in HK costs at least twice as much as back home.
My food bills aren't much cheaper when I'm in France, but we eat a much wider range of food, and I tend to shop locally at the village butcher or fruit & vege weekly market which puts the price up. Can't beat a fillet slab of Limousin beef, but even in Limousin it's expensive.
Electricity is more expensive, but as it's a large house we have 3 phase power which costs. Until last summer I was happy with no air con costs, but we got a mobile unit after the first heatwave, just in time for the second when it hit 42C. Heating is free except for labour of felling and chopping up trees, if you don't take into account the huge cost for installing a new eco heating system.
Anything that requires a tradesman is crazy expensive. If you can get them to turn up.
Water is a lot more expensive.
Property taxes, holy fuck, ditto house insurance.
All worth it for the fresh air, blue skies and absence of HK-induced stresses.
If you want to eat non-Chinese meat to cook at home, it is very expensive. I'm not even talking about organic, just imported frozen chicken and meat is 2x the price compared to the US or UK. Here it costs HKD 50 for a pack of chicken wings from Thailand. In London I'd pay GBP 3-4 for a basic pack of wings from Sainsbury's.
True, water in HK is dirt cheap and back home they also charge sewage fees. Electricity is cheaper in HK, but because of better insulation we are using less power at home.
I'm paying about 5 times as much for home contents insurance here in HK than back home with a roughly similar limit. $9900 HKD vs 220 EUR per year.
Property taxes are less than rates + management fees here.
Car insurance is about equal, but cars are obviously way cheaper and there are no tunnel tolls.
Food is cheaper and you can get much better quality stuff right from a farm.
Tradesmen are expensive, but way way better than in HK. People back home take pride in their trade and are trying to do a perfect job whereas in HK they just wanna charge you money for a job that's usually way worse than if I'd do it myself. I'll bet you there is not one flat in HK where corners are actually 90 degrees and straight all the way from top to bottom. Bump into a wall here or try to peel off some tape and the paint and plaster comes off, won't ever happen back home.
Biggest expense for most is housing and it's very difficult to move to a more expensive housing market than HK. Even after five years back in the U.S. I still marvel at how cheap food is at the grocery store.
The total expenses are FAR less in the U.S. (even in an expensive city like L.A.) however, the expat package picked up a fair portion of cost.
I think on the whole it is comparing apples and oranges. In France we live completely differently, space, land, quality of life we can't have here. Compare any country there will be pluses and minuses in costs, quality is more important to me. We could certainly live much cheaper in France, but chose not to buy a neat little house with a bit of a back garden.
As for tradesmen, I have plenty of experience of french artisans and tradesmen here. A plague on all their houses is my only comment, otherwise I'd be typing a full-length book on my views. Thank god for Youtube DIY videos.