Value For Money

Late morning we went to the Sunday market on the roof of Rosebud Mall, Jo'Berg (South Africa) It's offered a good variety of stalls and we bought some baby dresses for the granchildren.

We drove to Boksburg where Mrs BB nephew lives with his girlfriend, to enjoy a braai, drinks and a catch up. I didn't take many photo's but did an aerial of their house for them. It's a large four bedroom (all ensuite) house with double garage and swimming pool. It's valued about 4 million Rand which is about £250K in british money.

I show it out of interest as we compare everything to what we have at home. It shows you UK house prices are far more expensive with you getting a lot less for your money in comparison. I'm told that the average wage for a person in SA with a degree is about £1K a month!!  That surprises me as we found clothes more expensive, food about the same, but eating out very reasonable or even cheap for us.

It does seem that tourists can pay a premium for booking hotels and game reserves from outside SA -which can be had cheaper by locals or by booking within the country itself. Indeed, some game reserves only sell to persons abroad as they get more money!

The other thing of interest is that people live in compounds with security guard/gate the entrance to the development, sometimes a gate/guard at the street and then the persons own electric gate/fencing and burglar alarm.

It seems every country has a trade off. Living in a nice house comes at a price in SA.