Different prices

Living abroad has its perks and downsides, like everything under the sun. The upsides will validate your decision to relocate while the downsides will have to feeling homesick and a bit more appreciative of the life you left behind.

For the most part, I and my wife have adjusted quite nicely to life in the UK. We're still far from actually settling in the country. We have long term visa issues to contend with coupled with all the debt we're still in, so settling is still some way down.

Adjusting to a new place involves the grander things like getting a house, a car and all that. However, when you're still relatively new, there are also smaller bits that makes life less shittier.

In the UK, everything, including the aforementioned smaller things, seem very expensive. Yeah, the cost of living is higher here because you earn more but with only Nigeria in my head to compare, some differences are quite ridiculous.

I was talking to my sister about the price of some common drinks we have in Nigeria and she was surprised by the huge difference in price. A lot of it could be as a result of taxes that the companies have to pay but it is still very expensive at face value.

For example, a bottle of Jameson, for example, costs around £26 in Tesco. The same bottle of Jameson retails at around 22000 Naira in Nigeria. At the current exchange rate, that's around £11 in Nigeria.

So Jameson in the UK is just over 2X the price in Nigeria. The exact same drink, made by the same company is twice the price.

YouTube subscription is a couple thousand Naira in Nigeria or around £4 a month. In the UK, it is £12 per month. Netflix, Amazon prime and all other similar services are also more expensive in the UK than in Nigeria.

We also have some simple services that you'd get for fair value in Nigeria being relatively expensive. For example, getting a hair cut in Nigeria at a decent salon would cost you somewhere between 2000-3000 and that's basically £1-1.5. In the UK, the cheapest I've seen is around £15 and compared to the other shops around, it is a shit hole.

I'm still somewhat fresh off the boat and with funds as tight as they are now, it is hard not to feel stressed out by the situation. Every time I think about prices, my mind wanders to a different time when "living" was much cheaper.

Now at this point, it is important to understand that I understand context and some of the economics behind these price differences I'm talking about. However, I'm only human and with everything we're going through, it is hard not to feel frustrated.

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