Cost of living crisis

Kammekor · Post by **Kammekor** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 7:22 am

Newinkow wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:35 pm
If memory is correct pork up from avg 3.80 to 4.50.

Up 18,4%.

Newinkow wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:35 pm Chicken from 2.75 To 3.25.

Up 18,2%

Tootsfriend · Post by **Tootsfriend** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 8:05 am

Doc67 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:33 pm After 2 months in the UK, I could see that prices were more than last year, sometimes by as much as 50% for odd things (Lurpack is now £7 WTF?) Fish and Chips are now £15 and upwards, but after 5 pints of Kronenburg is still an absolute bargain.

What I did notice was pub/restaurant offerings. There seems to be a trend towards cheaper cuts of meat, such as flank or hanger steaks (AKA Onglet or butcher's cut), which are tougher and cheaper. It seems quite hard to find the traditional Fillet/Ribeye/Rump steak as these would now need to cost £60/£50/£40 each (with a normal 300% mark-up) and few are willing to pay that. Personally, I never order a steak, it was always a big waste of money, I want them to earn their money by making something that I can't (or can't be bothered). It seems others have caught on.

You can't find a side portion of chips for much less than £5, which they justify by using poncy descriptions such as naming the potato breed/grower, adding organic/sustainable, hand-cut, double cooked, etc. "As cheap as chips" will soon disappear from our lexicon.

As a side note and a pet gripe of mine.... the use of completely bullshit descriptions on menus is definitely on the rise, often making the description unintelligible. This is all to convince you to pay a lot for very little. If English is not your first language, good luck with Google Translate unpicking the nonsense.

For example:

Avocado on toast with a poached egg (Hipster fucktardary and a sure sign your neighbourhood has been 'gentrified') can now run to 40 words of description:

Avocado must be smashed (never simply mashed) and from somewhere exotic like Chile or Mexico and of course organic and sustainable (Aldi, 50p each, so 25p per portion);
Artisanal organic, multigrain hand-cut bread toasted to perfection (1 slice 20p from anywhere);
Soft-poached free range organic Cotswold Burford Brown eggs by Clarence Court (Tesco, 50p each),
lightly seasoned with Maldon sea salt flakes and organic crushed peppercorns etc (2p).
Total cost: 97p

And with a little magic and gullibility, this lot will cost you £10+, and with a coffee that'll be at least £15 and may even get you a 12.5% service charge too! All for yet another Instagram photo.

On the bright side, at least they have stopped covering everything in fucking pomegranate seeds.

Ryan754326 · Post by **Ryan754326** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 8:26 am

Is all of this economic turmoil not the expected result of shutting the world down for almost 2 years, while handing out trillions of dollars?

Newinkow · Post by **Newinkow** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 10:08 am

Kammekor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 7:22 am
Newinkow wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:35 pm
If memory is correct pork up from avg 3.80 to 4.50.
Up 18,4%.

Newinkow wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:35 pm Chicken from 2.75 To 3.25.
Up 18,2%

I guess I didn't express my views correctly. My point was over the span of 3 years (Mar 2020 last time in KoW b4 pandemic. Left last trip in Apr 2023), the prices went from X to Y. Remember during this 3 years we had the pandemic Ukraine war and natural disaster causing major supply chain issues. I consider that as not too bad when compare to what we are facing over here. Here we had those % increases DURING the pandemic (2020 to Q1 2022) due to supply chain issues. Post pandemic (Q2 2022 onwards) was when the shit hit the fan. The increase I posted was post pandemic increases.That's a real sharp increase over a short period of time. Hence, greater hardship to maintain our current standard of living.

My post was more to address the OP questions on "will the cost of living crisis we are facing in our home country spread to KoW". One poster stated it's already happening in KoW.

I just wanted to state that although prices have increase in KoW, it's just part of a growing economy. Unlike what we are facing here in the last year or so.

My view was that I don't think KoW will see the drastic raise in the cost of living like we are facing bcuz their economy, monetary policies, gov't legislation, taxes are different then us.

I was really hoping that more seasoned expats who understand KoW better would give there opinion on if it will spread over here. It seems like all post so far are just to state that it's also happening where there are or it's happening here and there.

I'm interested in what people think will happen in KoW in terms of cost of living. I call KoW and Canada my home now since I spend half my time there.

Bluenose · Post by **Bluenose** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 10:50 am

From my experience:
Anything imported - yes, going up quite a bit.
Anything local - seems much the same as a year or more ago.
As the years go by the former becomes less and less a part of life

Random Dude · Post by **Random Dude** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 11:28 am

newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 6:44 am
Random Dude wrote:It seems like every week there's something in the news about another food-producing area getting hit by drought, flooding, or fire and wiping out crops, that's going to impact food prices. Higher fuel costs and things like the shipping pileup currently going on at the Panama Canal affect the supply chains which no doubt affects the price of goods on the shelf too. I get that, it makes sense.

But some of the price increases seem like excuses to price gouge to me - I have to pay for various business compliance costs, commercial insurance etc and they've all gone up a lot over the last few years. There's no goods being provided, nothing that depends on supply chains but apparantly if a liter of milk or petrol goes up in price, a useless certificate that proves you know about workplace safety needs to almost double in price to 'offset their costs'.
When every business gets these extra burdens they'll usually pass them on to the customer, making life harder for everyone.
So a business can choose to either pass the extra costs down, or eat the extra costs.

Eat too much of the extra costs, and the business ends up in the red, and then out of business, and shuts down.

So does a business closing down lower everyone’s burden as opposed to a business staying opening and increasing everyone’s burden?

I don’t understand the logic.

I'm not saying businesses shouldn't pass on the costs, that's fair enough. My problem is with the companies that are jacking up prices when they don't seem to be incurring extra expenses themselves. Or, for that matter, jacking up prices much more than they need to be.

If the price of my groceries doubles I hate it, but I know that things like disrupted supply chains, rising fuel prices, natural disasters wiping out crops etc all play a factor in my food bill doubling - as long as the new prices reflect what it's now costing them to put the goods on the shelves I can accept that, it is what it is.

But if the price of something like the subscription for my accounting software, or a stupid compliance certificate doubles I have to wonder how they justify the new price, they don't have shipping costs and supply chains to worry about. It means I have to pass the extra costs on to my clients who now have to absorb the extra costs - it becomes a vicious circle and if people are jacking up their prices just because they can get away with it everyone suffers.

Kammekor · Post by **Kammekor** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 11:47 am

Newinkow wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 10:08 am
I was really hoping that more seasoned expats who understand KoW better would give there opinion on if it will spread over here. It seems like all post so far are just to state that it's also happening where there are or it's happening here and there.

Turn it around. Why would inflation not spread to Cambodia?

But to answer your question, it already has spread. Imported food is up around 25% compared to two years ago. Wages are up. Local food is up. Unskilled Labor used to cost 5$ a day, it's 7,50 now.
The only thing that hasn't become more expensive are water & electricity, because it's priced by the government.

We used to spend 400 riels on food every two weeks. Now it's 500k.

Newinkow · Post by **Newinkow** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:03 pm

Kammekor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 11:47 am
Newinkow wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 10:08 am
I was really hoping that more seasoned expats who understand KoW better would give there opinion on if it will spread over here. It seems like all post so far are just to state that it's also happening where there are or it's happening here and there.

Turn it around. Why would inflation not spread to Cambodia?

But to answer your question, it already has spread. Imported food is up around 25% compared to two years ago. Wages are up. Local food is up. Unskilled Labor used to cost 5$ a day, it's 7,50 now.
The only thing that hasn't become more expensive are water & electricity, because it's priced by the government.

We used to spend 400 riels on food every two weeks. Now it's 500k.

Sorry maybe I'm not explaining myself correctly.

I stated that excluding western imported goods I have not seen a big spike in inflation in KoW. May I ask what time frame were these price increases you mentioned. The reason I asked is that if X went up 20%, I would like to know with in a 1, 2, 5 or 10 years. If it went up in 1 years, then we are in serious problem. If over 5 of more year, I would just attribute that to KoW transitioning from a 3rd world to a developing country. During these inflation times, the general population saw a increase in their standard of live. In this cases inflationary pressures are not necessarily a bad thing.

As stated, from my observation and experience, prices have not really spiked up the last 3 years.

My 1st visit to KoW was 2007 for 1 week doing the tourist stuff in PP and SR backpacking/flashbacking. I started to spend half the year here in 2016. Skip 2 years bcuz of pandemic. Comparing my trip in 2007 and my time here now, I see a drastic change to PP. Yes, prices are higher now then 2007. Since 2007, the standard of living for the general population has increased dramatically. The infrastructure improvements are night and day. If I remember correctly, there was only a couple of pave road. There are less homeless people. I also get a feeling that basic literacy has increased. In 2007 most the locals I met couldn't read or write. Granted I was hanging at hostess bar.

That's just my own observation. Thank for sharing you views. Much appreciated.

phuketrichard · Post by **phuketrichard** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:52 pm

prices of groceries for sure have gone up, but overall my shopping bills are less here now, ( in Phuket) than they were in Kampot last year.

am sure they will continue to increase. its the way things are. nothing to lose sleep over

truffledog · Post by **truffledog** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 3:40 pm

Doc67 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 3:26 am
truffledog wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 2:25 am
Doc67 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:33 pm On the bright side, at least they have stopped covering everything in fucking pomegranate seeds.
But they still did not stop to use the fake balsamic glue sprinkeled over everything.
Do you mean glassa balsamica?

It's lovely. Balsamic with cornflour, yummy!

I'll bring you some!

P.S. Dont forget all the fake Parma Ham.

My fav is Parmesan Cheese from Kraft. Lightyears from the original.

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