Scary Truth About Which Country is Cheaper!
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2023
- Are you curious if things in Bulgaria are really as cheap as everyone says? In this RUclips video, we compare the prices of all things in the UK to the prices of the same items in Bulgaria. Find out if it really is so cheap in Bulgaria and learn how to save money overseas! From food, to electronics, to clothing and more, this video will show you how to get the most for your euro while traveling in Bulgaria. Get all your answers here and start planning your next budget-friendly vacation! #Bulgaria #CheapestPrices #TravelTips
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I live in a small Center City neighborhood in Varna. My friends there have advised me to not shop at the major grocery stores. (such as Lidl ). I did a little price comparison between shopping at the big stores and the small neighborhood shops. I soon stopped going to the big stores. I buy all my groceries and supplies at the little privately owned stores in my neighborhood. I have saved money and also enjoy the one-on-one customer service of the shop owners and their attendants.
Thanks very much for your input, it’s always greatly appreciated
This is great to hear! I'm glad to hear about people supporting their local businesses and circulating their money into their own economy instead of helping large corporations get bigger! When the large corporations take over, the place becomes very depressing like a factory. Everything loses it's culture and personality that way.
Good choice.
Sorry but I live in Bulgaria & you have forgotten so much. Lidl is expensive, we only go there once a month because of that.
No standard charges on water & electric, and virtually no council tax. If you are retired and own your own home it’s super value.
Market food is good value and taxis are cheap so are buses. Every situation is different for everyone, Sofia is dearer than Plovdiv.
Plovdiv is dearer than Stara Zagora. The sun shines almost every day it’s better all round. So many people are coming here and are very welcome. Happy days.
I also live in Bulgaria, Lidl was used because it’s the same brand in two different countries (as was send in the video). The was no mention of Standard charge for electricity and gas, that was mentioned for Uk
I have been in Bulgaria for almost 1 month. This is my 4th visit I love this country
Cheers for this. Bulgaria is on my short list. The cost of food has shocked me, clearly your tenacious efforts have shown how expensive food is there. However, let's not forget open air markets will be cheaper for fruit and veg. The prices for food there being about the UK or slightly higher depending on factors like where you shop and the types of products e.g., free range etc. will vary. Any cost savings from rent in Bulgaria being less will be eaten up by health insurance and dare I say my biggest stumbling block for Bulgaria the foreign worldwide income tax of 10% even to pensions. To my mind that is the biggest deterrent. As an expat twice now USA and Australia currently the cost of foods are less than here - shocking as that may be but we pay way more for food items. Look thanks for your time and efforts - one cannot rule out Bulgaria but the tax thing is a big negative more than food. Hope that makes sense...rents are low but if food is equal to then the offset of rent is simply redistributed to health insurance and taxes, so whats the bloody point. Plan B me reckons. Open to thoughts...
You can't a visa post brexit unless you can show a monthly pension
Fruit and vegetable prices are very seasonal, if they are in season you could slash the price by 2 even 3 times for some. Also 25 lv for chicken breasts is wrong, it's around 10-14 lv depending on producer. Cheese been 20 lv is also wrong. Moral of the story don't shop at LIDL lol
It depends on the branding of the cheese. Cheese certainly does go for 20 lev. However this is normal a Kilogram of cheese as opposed to 500G back home.
for Bulgarians it's not cheap. I can barely afford anything here anymore because of this recent inflation. When I lived in Scotland it seemed a bit cheaper to buy there (probably because of the different currency and prices). I can't afford a Starbucks in Bulgaria because it looks more expensive than it was in Scotland...
THERES STARBUCKS IN BULGARIA??
Why do you expect Starbucks to be cheap when half of the goods are produced on the other end of the continent and it's a franchise so you're paying for the whole logistics and the price to have a Starbucks in Bulgariya. Just buy a local coffee for 30 cents or a cappuchino for 50 cents and stop nagging. 😂
@@ia3078 that's what I do. Can't buy Costa either. McDonalds became overpriced too lmao.
@@atlantidaunderground too many monkeys on the branch. Fast food restaurants are paying a lot to the franchise owners so foreign fast food brands are too expensive. When it comes to restaurants I never rely on franchises whose owners live outside Bulgariya. There are plenty of foreign businesman from all over the world who live here and offer good prices, but in the end of the day I always come to the conclusion that Bulgarian owned restaurants are equal in taste to the foreign ones. I now see very often Bulgarians owning Asian restaurants, Italian restaurants, Irish pubs, Indian restaurants etc. Good luck mate, I just bough myself a cappucino for 0.50 EUR cents from the 'hood market. Beats Costa and Srarbucks any day of the week.
@@Shy0z yes there a few places with starbucks... lol yes Bulgaria isn't as behind as you think it is... Also there are Armani and Sephora stores which surprised me as well.
I mean you're using LIDL as a comparison, I'd recommend Kaufland instead. But again it is true, especially since inflation has started, food price has skyrocketed :/ many food items have double or tripled their price in the last 2 years...
only foreigners would buy fruit and vegetables in Lidl, almost all fresh stuff is imported and thus more expensive. Bulgarians would go to the markets. In four years living here I haven't noticed big price increase for seasonal fruit and veggies, maybe about 50 stotinki, no more. And taste is impossible to compare, Bulgarian products will always win.
Thank you for your efforts in making this video. Prices in supermarkets really shocked us when we first arrived. Had this video been out then, we might have considered coming here. But sure, now we know, and try to get through the week with what we get at the market on Sundays, which btw I also find expensive. But it is a lot more fun 😊
Unfortunately I don't drink or smoke anymore. That would probably help coping with the rising costs 😊
thanks for the appreciation, there are still ways to enjoy life here though more than in western countries
Great video. I've been hoping someone would do this. We've seen prices go wild in the many years we've been here. Two things worth noting are that I find Lydl to be quite expensive here. It is much cheaper to shop around and buy local, buying local in UK can be more expensive than Lydl. The other thing is that while some of the BG veg was more expensive, you can be sure it tasted twice as good!! 😉Also you need to eat seasonally, that really helps keep costs down. Or just grow your own.
Keep up the good service.
No way is a bottle of wine 20 Lv! I usually buy wine by the 3 litre box (so that's 4 standard 750 ml bottles) and it's a bout 15 Lv for one box, so that's about 3.75 Lv a bottle, or a bit over 2 quid.
In four years of living here, plus eight coming I’ve not come across a restaurant or a bar that sells 3 litre bottles for 15lev. Where are these places, I like to take my friends there, will be a cheaper night than usual.
Thank you so much. I must admit i was preset shocked, especially on food and electrical. I appreciate how long this would have taken to do. Cheers
Glad it helped! And yes was a lot of time to put together
Great info, if you keep digging and digging example how much to own a house outright, insurance, council tax, parking, childcare it starts to get cheaper and cheaper in BG, but very true food has never really been cheaper. I think eating out for me has been the most noticeable over the last decade. And as another comment the supermarkets are not always cheaper than local shops, our local supermarket in Troyan area is very competitive.
Interesting comparison there, thanks. As someone who lives in the UK, and is planning to live near Varna (at least for some of the year), I find the electricity standing charges a pain. Used cars seem so much more expensive in Bulgaria than the UK too. From my quick comparison between a UK site such as AutoTrader and somewhere like Motors in Bulgaria, they seem like almost twice the price!
This is absolutely correct, that’s why many are able to make a business taking cars from Germany, transferring plates and the selling for a profit
I understand its very hard to do a price comparison and for local people to get by. I tend to use two supermarkets when shopping, Lidl and Kaulfland both have offers on every week. by buying the offers when possible you can bring down the cost a lot, to give an example coffee beans on offer at 13.99 lev per kg in one of them most of the time.
I find Bulgaria for vegetables very seasonal on price. I do a monthly food shop which costs about 400 to 500 lev a month, and me and my dog eat very well (that maybe why I am fat ). Peace and love everyone.
I went to Viena a couple of times and observed something very interesting. Locals were all shopping from small local shops while immigrants and tourists were all shopping at the supermarkets you mention... Then I understood one golden rule: Local fruit and veggies markets, butchers and milk parlours offer fresh products at better prices compared to supermarkets that bring chemically enchanced food from the other end of the continent. For comparisson the fake milks in the supermarkets you mention cost around 3.50lv per litre and in my local milk parlour it comes fresh Monday, Wednesday and Friday from Vratsa and Silistra at 2.30lv per litre. Vegetables and fruits in foreign supermarkets are overpriced as F*** too. In the supermarket they offer cherries at 6-8lv per kg, but in the fruit market which is just 15 minutes away with bus or subway they cost 2lv. That's 300% more cherries for the same price. 😂 A fun thing to mention is that I have a restaurant and when I buy meat I ask for stock receipt with expiration dates. I was stunned to find out that the aupermarkets you mention have lower expiration dates than the fresh meat from local butchers. In supermarkets they have just 3 days left to the expiration of the meat because they stock huge quantities and can't sell them and over price because they throw away a lot while local butchers are very precise in their calculations and their meat comes fresh every day and they have and give 7 days until the expiration day. Shop local and it will be fine. And that's not some patriotic slogan. It's common sense. And... And let's be honest. Bulgarian meat, dairy fruits and vegetables are much better than the imported ones. And that's not patriotic either, it's reality.
Although comparing prices from the same supermarket chain in both countries seems fair, it's in no way reflective of the " price in Bulgaria". The prices shown here are noticeably much higher than what I pay by patronising local small businesses; something which should be standard practice anyway. Also Varna is known to be excessively expensive, on a par with Sofia. Yes prices are increasing everywhere and it's very difficult for Bulgarians when considering generally very low wages .
It is good to show the differences in the supermarket prices for some items, when comparing the cost of living in the UK with that of living in Bulgaria. However, this video does not tell the whole story and so it is really misleading. Yes, it might be the case that a tin of baked beans is 20 stotinki more expensive in Bulgaria or a bottle of beer might be a bit cheaper in a Bulgarian supermaket. So what?
A nice house with a fair-sized garden in the UK might cost you the best part of a million pounds, but you could buy a similar property (or even something better) in Bulgaria for as little as fifty thousand. Oh yes and in the UK there is something called "Council Tax" and that might be two hundred pounds or more every month. In Bulgaria, your annual "danak" might be as low as twenty quid. Here in Bulgaria, I really do not mind paying an extra leva for some pork chops or a little bit more for a pack of butter in Lidl.
For many people in the UK, central heating during the winter months is a major expense. Perhaps it might cost you as much as two or three thousand pounds to heat your house when the weather is cold. Here in Bulgaria, you have a chat with the kermit (the mayor, not a character from "The Muppets") and you buy yourself a chainsaw. A bit of hard work and you will have a woodshed full of logs for the winter. Yes, you can buy all of your veggies in Lidl, but most people in Bulgaria have things called "gardens" where they grow a lot of their own. In the UK, most gardens are about the size of postage stamps.
In the UK, there used to be something called the "National Health Service", but anyone who has tried to see a GP or is waiting (and waiting!) for an operation will tell you that many people living in the UK have given up on the NHS and so they have "gone private", even though it is very expensive. Here in Bulgaria, I went to see my GP on the Tuesday, even though I had not arranged an appointment, and then I had the surgery at the hospital in Veliko Tarnovo on the Thursday.
There are so many other factors that are not taken into account in this video, so overall I think that it gives a lopsided, distorted and inaccurate picture of the real cost of living in Bulgaria, compared to living in the UK.
Rent in dublin : 2500 €
Rent in sofia : 300 € for same type of apparement
Very simple: cost of products are high but services are cheap.
This is correct
You won't find much anymore for 300 euro in Sofia (center). 1 bedroom apartments are more like 450 euro or 600 euro for the center.
@@iku7630 Oh 2.5k in Dublin is not in the city center either my friend ! But I agree with you, let's say overall Sofia, you can find something decent for 500 euros per months. Also I read somewhere that > 70 % of Bulgarians owned their place due to re distribution after communism... Which is really not the case in the west (far, far from it)
The grocery prices are probably off-season downtown Sofia. Which has similar GDP per capita to UK.
If you're after financial independence, you gotta go full cottagecore. Spend 30K Leva on a socialist-era village house, and then another 30K to make it comfy. Not exactly free, but not the 7-digits you'd need in UK either. Or rent -- rent in rural areas is basically pocket change. But I digress.
Learn to live with less and appreciate what you have. Grow your own vegetables. Learn some basic Bulgarian. Barter with your neighbors -- you have extra tomatoes, they have extra honey. Dig a well so you can water your tomatoes without paying crazy water bills. Dairy prices bother you? A cow will set you back 1000 Leva or so and can give you 20+ litres of milk per day! It's gonna be tough, but maybe that's the price you need to pay for peace of mind..
😲 Bulgaria haa gotten expensive 🙈
Very much so
Overall - if you want to just survive - it's cheaper in the UK, but once you start living even a little bit - boom XD
Also, I hate when people compare avg. salary figures. Please understand Bulgaria has an endemic problem with the grey economy. A contractor here is listing himself as on a minimum salary. I.E. - 700 lev and that's how they appear in the stats. Yet, they cost an avg. of 4-6k a week to hire and are booked for months in advance. Same goes for drivers, factory staff (payed "bonuses" cash-in-hand) and so on. If you have a relatively acceptable work ethic, willing to learn, even if you don't have relevant skills and are relatively washed, you will not be poor. I spent some time in Scotland - I met a few working poor people. It was ridiculous.
Have you EVER tried to live on the minimum wage on the IK? No? I though tnot!
@@khankrum1 IK is UK i take it? Also, you're right. Does that mean it's doable? It's not possible? Please explain.
You do make a good point about the salaries…but for sure is not the case for all. A lot of people do only receive the Median salary and have to live on that, then what about the pensioners.
@ATasteofBulgaria exceptions to the rule are pensioners and starter level government employees (cleaning ladies, gardners, etc.). I know of nobody that earns less than 1700 and a lot more that earn 3000+
@@khankrum1 u cant have a decent life with minimum wage in 90 % of the world
That s crazy prices in Bulgaria .In two years when we exept the euro will face even more financial crisis
Hope not….guess we will see. If they don’t manage to fight it off
i dont like Lidl,but you know,in markets,fresh vegetables,most are pritty bioproducts,this in England cost much,much more.:)
One lev is 50 p mate
If ur monthly net is 5000 lev can you save as a single person
You can even endure Dubai comfortably if you're a single guy netting 2500 euro a month come on...but when kids, pets and gfs enter the equation you can't survive anywhere except on Mars lol.
With 2000 lev/month one can save between 200 and 800.(my experience)
yeahhh if you live in the streets and eat from trees @@krasteff
👍
Stopped shopping at Lidl far to expensive, the fruit & veg markets are so much better & fresher. Billa are not good value either.
I know where I would rather live Bulgaria beats the U.K. so much better and the sun shines here.
For going out the prices aren't true. You may have dinner for 20 leva if you only eat toasted bread..and the beer for 3 leva you cannot find
Where are you living in Sofia? I’ll prepare a little video for you
@@ATasteofBulgaria I completely agree with Ivo and I am from Plovdiv. Sofia isn't the only expensive city in Bulgaria.
More standard seems like 20-22 leva for a main course, 5-6 leva for a beer nowadays for a regular restaurant. Not counting the bullshit trip advisor traps.
You are paying about 25% less than I can get a Cappucinno for in Bulgaria, but paying about 25% more for tok.
And that's just electricity for "home end users"...for businesses aka 'industrialen tok' the prices are a joke 2-3 times more...
@@nikolaipaunov9669 That would be the same as the UK..Business users always pay higher rates.
With regards to the train prices. Buying your ticket on the day you need to travel in the UK doubles the price. This does not happen in Bulgaria.
This is a fair point
Bulgaria also is more pricy for restaurants. Also for hotel stays is equal now. Healthcare is also expensive in Bulgaria and very bad. Taxi service is very expensive same as Uk. After Bulgaria accepts euro zone and euros and pound goes to 2.10 leva. Bulgaria will be 100% more expensive than UK with lower salaries x3 x4 times
It’s madness if you think about it
Why so much information saying Bulgaria is a lot cheaper than the UK with the information in the video some things are cheaper and some things more expensive,
Looks like everything balance out.
Glad someone said it lol, in addition property: both sales and rents are expensive if you want something decent and not an "escape to abandoned village" + the internet prices. And if the euro gets adopted it will get even worse. The low prices in the UK can be explained either due to increased competition or production of local resources, many things in Bulgaria are imported.
Local goods it is. Problem in Bulgariya is that everyone aims for foreign supermarkets and the capital. Go observe how people live in Spain or Austria. People aim for local shops and only tourists and immigrants aim for supermarkets. Local is better always especially in Bulgariya where we have such fertile soil due to the 4 seasons.
This video has purpose YOU to not go to BULGARIA AND THEY are not telling you ALSO that 1 euro = 2 levs but they ARE comparing 1euro to 1 lev ? So Bulgarian prices are extremely cheaper ? DON'T BUY FROM THIS VIDEO THEIR SNEAKY CALCULATION ?
Idk from where you get your prices but they are wrong ..
Due to the 78-year Russian yoke, only 5 million people live in Bulgaria, and over 6 million Bulgarians fled abroad. During the first 45 years of the democracy/republic in Bulgaria, the Russian influence was 75% and 25% Western yoke, and in the last 33 years, the Russian influence has increased to 100% in many sectors and this has made life for the Bulgarians here impossible! - Considering all six Russian republics in Bulgaria: Ukrayna, Moldova, Surbia, Montenegro, Bosna and North Makedonia, the situation here is not optimistic!
Absolut scam. Prices are very different in BG and GB!
Bulgaria 1 gay take for months 300 euro and for England 1 gay take for months 6000 euro ? 😢 This is real for 1years 3600evro .
Дай само и минималната заплата и сметай колко сме пре3бани!