Poland not so cheap anymore!!

Beer up in price, cigarettes up in price.

The price of property and in turn rental rates have sky rocketed.

Its not so cheap anymore.

If im going to try and have a lean month bearing in mind i dont pay rent im lucky to survive on 2500 PLN / month.

Very true. What you see is a substantial mark-up on the recommended price (sugerowana cena on the side of beer bottles). You will see ever greater numbers of people claiming back for the bottle.

Cigarettes too. They are trying to raise the price to the European level and should have it up to 10PLN in no time at all.

Property is generally overpriced for what you get.

It's a time for being lean right enough.

Cigarettes in the US are 7 USD which is about 21 PLN so the price isn't that bad in Poland.

Yeh ands its cheaper than that in Romania, you just cant categorise based on the US, what about Africa, yep thats right Africa it does exist outside the US. WTF gotta laugh at Americans.

How the fcuk can you survive on £500 a month? I spend nearly £2k a month and don't live all that well, Don't you live in a palace too?

Yep, let me think:

Food: 500 PLN
fuel: 600
Bills: summer 600, winter 2000
Baby: 500
Doctors: 200
Internet: 100
unforseen: ---

Lean is 2500, ive never actually added it up, i suppose the average is quite a bit more..

I don't find it that cheap anymore either but then its always a shock when i go back to the UK and realise that a good night out costs £150, cigarettes are at £7 a packet, fuels always going up,

we pay nearly 2000 pln to rent our place but bills are minimal and my girlfriend is very good at saving cash,

how come your heating is so much? one of the drawbacks of having a massive house i suppose, However I imagine living in a palace would be ace :)

How to survive on NMW 959zł / 4.69 = £204 per month?
You need another bank loan.

How to survive (as a probationer) on 605zł / 4.69 = £129 per month?
You need to rob a bank ;)

not all over USA.. over here they are under $5 and i have seen them under $4 in places.

Wow, this thread was cut down. A lot of expensive stores are popping up as if the country has suddenly found real wealth. Yes, wages/salaries have been rising steadily but prices have been rising at a disproportionate rate.

2500 PLN wouldn't last me a week and I have only myself to support. I can't understand how you'd possibly be able to survive a month on that amount, with a wife and baby too.

lol are you a big spender?? isn't 2500 zl something like $900?? after i pay my rent and all other bills thats what i have left to live for a month and it's more than enough!

Is the difference because of individual state taxes? Excuse my naivete - I've never visited the US. I heard something about Native American reservations selling cheap cigarettes, but I was wondering if people in California and New Mexico cross the border to by them cheap, just as British cross the water to France and Belgium.

In Warsaw, you can still get cheap Ukrainian cigs for 5zl, sometimes 5.50 for the smokeable ones, but more and more the smuggled ones come from Belarus or even (yuk) Moldova.

that's only for rent... 5000zl is a minimum...

Sure they do, why not its alot cheaper?

Just like I could cross the border into Indiana and buy discount Cigs and Fireworks:)

When I earned 1,800zl a month I used to have about as much left in some months when I earned 18,000+zl! Then I learned that the trick is to view your monthly savings/investments/blackjack money as monthly expenses which leave your bank account the same day your income does. I know people here who live very happily with 2 kids on 1,500 a month and people who are counting their grosze at the end of the month because they've spent their all!

Isn't the trick to get over people to pay your bar bill at the end of the night?

The Scottish way is not to pay it at all ;) ;) Always slip off and let another poor sod foot the bill ;0 ;)

Just kidding. Harry, you seem to be full of crap, sorry.

^To be fair, neither of us could remember settling our bills that particular night. And I did say before you worked out you'd paid for both of us that I'd call Kev and sort out the damage.

Tell you what: you join me & the Mrs for Hilton brunch & I'll pick up the bill. Deal?

Harry, just pulling our plonker mate. But brunch at the Hilton sounds cool!

Let me know when would be good.

sledz
You should have kept the hitch hiking axeman avatar that was quality. The Queens pretty good to though.


We all spend to our means, when the cash is flush people tend to spend like its going out of fashion. I can remember 3000 PLN losses at the casino on one night and it was no big deal.

Lol, I make very good money and enjoy spending it too. Don't know how long my money would last in Poland though, with the high cost of living there.

i think it's got more to do with Poland adjusting the price of virtually everything to what it is in the EU, but the wages are still the same and many, many people have to work crazy hours to be able to survive. here in UK you have many discount stores and there are always good offers everywhere with supermarkets fighting for customers. go to a discount shop in Poland and whatever you buy there will most likely give you a rash, it'll look and smell cheap and will be months out of date. markets are good though, especially for food, veg and meat. if you're really skint you can survive on a fiver in UK for a week. in Poland - no chance. but like i said it's the issue of prices compared to wages, if you brought your salary here and lived on it for a month you'd be perfectly fine. one pond in the UK or one dollar in the US has more value than a one zloty in Poland. i mean what can you get for 1zl in Poland? go to poundland in UK and you can get anything you want ha ha, and it won't be half bad either. that's what i find anyway.

It's the same situations all over Europe. The prices have increased a lot everywhere.

The biggest problem in Poland is not the cost of living itself, it's the low salaries. It's normal that the prices increase when things get more westernized. But the salaries should also increase, or else it will be an impossible equation. And now that equation is difficult for many Poles.


All people must learn to adjust their way of living to their income. And one's income can change quickly.

My friend left for Preston about 2 years ago, having lived in Gliwice before that. I met up with him yesterday as he decided to return to Poland, now living in Rybnik. He told me that he couldn't believe the hike in prices in only 2 years. He is happy that he doesn't smoke now as he saw the price of ciggies had gone up by about 3PLN. He will be feeling the pinch as he has a kid to look after.

It's a bad time for teachers as they tend to get less, I don't know how that happened. Other salaries went up but a lot of teachers saw theirs go down.

Maybe it is the price of economic growth?


I these come from a nannying E.U. ideology.
I stopped smoking a year and a half ago but I still do not mind people smoking in pubs, it is only a matter of time before it comes here.


Spot on, people who live here get used to it and then notice rises but for me there is nothing like going to Dublin and compare.

You can live here for very cheap, I still go to the vegetable market and cook, not just because it is so cheap but it tastes better than super market food.


This is a very usual situation, as we all know it is about financial management.


Supply and demand?
There are more native English teachers now, before the high wage for an English teacher was an incentive to get them and due to the lack of foreigners here, wasn't it?

LOL 500 PLN in the wallet should go along way, after some fuel and an average food shopping spree its all gone. Just a few Zloty coins and perhaps a few small notes left in the back burner.

I remember when a £100 food shopping outing in the UK (2003) meant loads of food, its basically the same here now.

Fair point, as a few have said already, although the wages have risen, slowly and steadily, the prices have gone up disproportionately.

May be we are just turning in to grumpy old men, remembering "back in the day", when a shilling could have bought you a cinema ticket :)

Indeed the old "when i was a nipper" old fart speech. But really when i was a nipper a pint was less than £1.60. I think for RN it must have been around £0.45. Hes a nasty / bitter old prick hey?

I forget how much a pint was but a ten pack of cigarettes was 92p, plus we had pound notes and halfpennies.


He has problems, I was almost happy that Ireland voted 'Yes' just to imagine the expression on his ugly face hahahaha.

Edit*
Cinema tickets are now 29 PLN!! in some places, shocking.