Grass Is Always Greener

Recently a famous Malaysian who is living in the UK, showed how he manages to buy a trolley of groceries for only GBP 50. But is the groceries in the UK really that cheap?

Actually it is not so cheap compared to Malaysia. GBP 50 is roughly RM 300, and you can get a similar amount of groceries if you go to Mydin. But minimum wage in the UK and in Malaysia is the same, i.e. £1500++ vs RM 1500 you say? So is the cost of living in the UK better then?

Here it gets a bit trickier. It’s true that if the value is converted, the minimum wage in the UK is waaaay better and you can afford more with the same amount, but there are a few more factors/caveat. You can’t simply just move to the UK and expect to survive on minimum wage. Here’s reasons why I think the comparison doesn’t work.

Firstly if you want to work in the UK, you need to have a working visa, and this requires you to earn higher than the threshold, normally around £30k annum. There goes the ‘opportunity’ to work a minimum wage job, unless you’re on a spouse or a student visa, but let’s not go there. Then the income tax, which I vaguely understand is 20%, but in my personal experience though, the bring-home earning is normally around 2/3 only of your salary only. So if you earn £36k annum (£3k monthly) you’d probably bring around £2k plus only home. Even if you earn minimum wage, you are very likely be paying income tax since the personal tax allowance is only £12,570 annum. In comparison, Malaysian need to pay income tax only if you earn roughly RM 3000 or more monthly.

There’s also the council tax, which is around £2,000-ish a year. This is in addition to personal income tax. If you’re just earning minimum wage, almost one month salary is just for your council. In comparison, I think the normal assessment tax, or cukai pintu, is below RM 1,000 annum. Most houses in kampung don’t pay any even.

Enough about tax. Back to groceries.

True, some stuff are super ‘cheap’. Pasta is 39p a pack, milk is around £1.50 for 2 litres and cheeses are £6 a kilo. If you notice though these are local produce. If you have ‘lidah melayu’, you have to pay (slightly) more. Rice is £1 – £2 a kilogram, roughly like in Malaysia but ‘kicap’, chillies, santan etc are much more expensive.

The video I mentioned earlier mentioned buying some products containing meat. Halal meat is relatively easy to get in the UK but get ready to pay 10 – 30% more than the non-halal option. See below.

There’s also the cost of Asian shop stuff, for spices and the odd instant noodle, plus Milo is super expensive. Don’t even talk about durian.

Another related factors I think important would be the gas and electric, as when you cook, these can get a bit higher. The cost has risen dramatically (or so they say) and the bills can easily get to around £100 – 200 monthly. In comparison, Malaysian use LPG and cost around RM 30 – 40 per cylinder. Even if you go through two of them a month, that’s less than RM 100 a month.

How about days that you get swamped by work and don’t have enough time to cook (or just plain lazy)? Eating out might cost you around £10 – 20 per person. Generally takeout price is half compared to the ‘price’ in Malaysia, i.e. burger set that costs you around RM 10 – 20 would cost around £ 5 -10 here. So it is kinda ‘cheaper’ to eat out, but it’s quite unsustainable, financially.

Of course you may live fine without all of these, and I am just stretching things out to show that there are more costs and groceries are not that cheap as expected. You can argue the same in reverse, where in Malaysia, dairy stuffs are so expensive and that strawberries are simply too pricey, but hey, that’s life. You can’t get everything, and I’m just highlighting things that people might not know so they can align their expectations. Not everything is hunky dory on the other side.

Grass always seem greener on the other side.