Your country : USA (Texas)
Currency: USD $
I had to convert gallons to liters and ounces/pounds to grams/kg, so they are estimates since packaging isn't the same
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| one month mobile phone plan with 5GB data (I have unlimited for $31.50, but if I were to get 50GB from the same company, it would be $35, so unlimited is less) | 31.50 |
| 1 litre of standard unleaded petrol/gas | 0.74 |
| 500 gram of pasta | 1.33 |
| 6 eggs - in the store, however, we buy $5/dozen from a neighbor who has chickens (we're getting a good price) | 4.67 |
| 1 kg flour | 1.44 |
| 1 kg minced beef | 9.00 |
| 1 kg of potatoes | 1.02 |
| one single can of 330ml coca cola (ours are 300 ml) | 2.00 |
| one cup of medium hot latte | 5.95 |
| one large pepperoni pizza from a sit down meal in a restaurant (this is pick up, where I live, there are no sit down pizza places - the only one closed over a year ago, only delivery/pick up) | 8.99 |
| one cinema ticket to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster movie | 15.99 |
| 1 pack of 10 can beer (12 packs are sold here, not 10, don't know much about beer, but I was able to look it up) | 12.87 |
Thanks Jo Dee for your input, and doing the extra work to look up the prices. I was hoping to get input from America because that's such an important country.
I love how cheap gas is, I remember when we did a road trip last year, that helped to balance out other costs like meals which are a little more expensive compared to UK.
Gas is much cheaper in Texas than most other states, because of the tax that is included in it (Federal tax and state tax - Texas state tax is less on gas than most other states, plus our area has a lot of oil refineries). In Los Angeles, CA, for instance, gasoline is $1.27/liter, much higher than here (but still not as bad as other places in the world). And even in Texas there is a difference depending on where you are in the state.
Even so, everyone complains about the cost of gas here, even though it is usually much cheaper than anywhere else in the world. Go figure. Maybe it's because we depend on cars so much to get everywhere. Some people drive an hour or more each way to work. We used to drive from Texas to Wisconsin and from Texas to Ohio, and from Texas to Florida a lot. Long distance travel by car is common.
I was amazed at the distance people drive in America when I was there last year. I remember speaking to some people at Zion National Park in Utah and they said they drove for about 2 days to get there. Then there was a guy at Yellowstone, and he says he drives about 4 or 5 days every year from his home town (can't remember where it was) to volunteer at the park for the season.
In UK, the longest north south point drive is less than 900 miles, which is nothing for your guys😄
Considering just Texas (where I live) is about 800 miles East to West and about 600 miles North to South (but the roads across are longer taking turns to go through cities), that 900 miles isn't much.
Yes, we do drive a lot. It makes it much more economical. We have four children, so flying would cost a lot. If visiting family, we would then have to rent a car just to fit us all, and my parents would have to ride in their own car. So, driving was much less expensive, and we'd have a car (well, a mini van is what we had then - sat seven). So, if we were visiting my mother-in-law, she would ride with us, but when visiting my parents, we were in two vehicles when going someplace around town.
I remember as a child, we'd have a two week (sometimes three week) vacation where we would drive all over the place. With five children, my parents needed to drive everywhere - flying was way too expensive for us if were were going to do something when we got there.
By the time I was 15, I had been to over 40 of the 50 states, several provinces in Canada, and to Mexico - all in a car! I lived in Wisconsin from the time I was born until I was 20.
Now that the children are grown, we will not always drive, but that is still an option, especially for 5-6 hours or less driving (after all, to fly that far would require more time to fly, driving to the airport, and getting there at least an hour early, flying, waiting for luggage, and driving to the final destination - but then everything is on their schedule, not ours).