Notes from the General Manager by Diane Jacoutot, General Manager
I hope you are sitting down as you read this shocker, but it appears that there is very little market in Vancouver Canada for $450 pizzas.
This surprising news was discovered by Canadian Nader Hatami when he offered a pizza named C6 on his menu that features black Alaskan cod, lobster thermidor and a side dip of Russian Caviar. So far he has only sold one. On the other hand, his second priciest pizza- the $120 version (a relative bargain I suppose) with Icelandic scampi and lobster ratatouille has flown off the shelves to at least 7 people. Who would have thought that there is any market at all for super gourmet pizza? The Canadian economy must be doing better than I thought. Perhaps $120 is not a lot to spend on a humble meal which got it start when southern Italian bakers decided to approximate the Italian flag in food – red tomatoes, green basil and white mozzarella on flat bread.... What did you say? That $120 is not chump change in Vancouver?
No, I thought not.
Cost of living is something which is really hard to explain to people and doesn’t really impact you until you live it. When we live at home, we instinctively know how much something costs. You know what a can of Coke or a bottle of water costs. You know about how much a taxi ride to town costs. And you know about what percentage of your take home pay you lose to taxes and rent and electricity and phone bills. All of this is subconscious, really. It’s the air you’ve been breathing for years.
But when you go away all of these costs change. And often they go down. So you might get free housing – wham! There’s several hundred dollars each month that’s not slipping away. Food might be 50% cheaper so bingo, there’s another hundred. And taxes might be 10% as in the Far East and Kazakhstan or 0 in the Middle East so whoa – there’s an extra 30% of your salary you can pocket. And so on... It really adds up.
This is the answer to the Big Question we get at Teachanywhere from those who are new to the international circuit. “Everyone says you can save money when you go abroad. But I don’t get it because I’m making so much less money on this salary”.
Of course it does depend on what you spend your money on. Those of us who have been on holiday abroad and have wandered into a shop looking for a favourite snack that is common at home but clearly must be imported to this foreign country have had sticker shock. I will never forget when I found a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in England for £4.50 ($6.75) and my jaw hit the floor. (And no, it was not even the deluxe kind.) In the US the stuff goes for $1.25 – it was highway robbery.
But then again, I reasoned, someone went to the trouble of getting it all the way over here and frankly, since most Brits have no idea of the cheesy (?) goodness that sits within a box of this highly addictive foodstuff, it is not going to be a big seller, hence the markup. So if you live abroad and eat like a tourist, it’s going to cost you more. But if you live abroad and eat like a local.... well this is where you save big money.
For those of you who want to play around, the cost of living calculator on Expatistan does the job fairly well. But keep in mind that it includes housing which is often free to teachers living abroad so take that out of the calculation. You really care about food , travel and entertainment. It’s HERE
Finally, in other fascinating Canadian pizza-related news (sorry Canada, it’s one of those days) the Winnipeg Sun reported that 22 year old pizza delivery man Justin Labrie is going to jail for 6 months after an overzealous attempt to get a pizza to the customer on time at all costs. Apparently he led police on a high speed chase where he forced two pedestrians to dodge to safety, ran a red light and gave the police the finger as they signalled him to pull over before he sped away with his precious cargo.
There is no mention of whether he received a good tip for his efforts.
All the best
Diane Jacoutot
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