In this follow‑up video, AskRobAnything (Rob) revisits his earlier price‑comparison between South African and UK supermarkets, acknowledging that the original approach—direct price conversion—missed the lived reality of people earning local wages. He introduces the “hour test,” which measures how many hours of minimum‑wage work are required to afford everyday items. Using the current UK minimum wage (£12.71/hr, ~R270) and South African minimum wage (R30.23/hr, ~£1.36), Rob evaluates six categories: mobile phone plans, a second‑hand Volkswagen Polo, a basic food basket, a dental check‑up, rent for a two‑bedroom flat, and a typical lunch out. For each, he presents price points in both currencies, calculates the equivalent hours of work, and highlights stark affordability gaps—e.g., a South African mobile plan consumes ~20 hours of minimum‑wage work versus <2 hours in the UK; a loaf of bread takes 54 % of an hour’s pay in SA versus 4 % in the UK. He also discusses hidden costs absent from the first video, such as medical aid, security, transport, school fees, and insurance, noting how these further strain South African budgets. Throughout, Rob contrasts the perspective of a visitor spending foreign currency (where South Africa appears cheap) with that of a resident earning rand (where many items are relatively expensive). He concludes that while South Africa offers attractive value for foreign earners—especially in rent, space, and lifestyle—the UK generally provides better affordability relative to local wages for essentials, and that his earlier video was too narrow. He invites viewers to share their own wage‑based cost experiences.
Chapters
In a recent video, I compared the cost of shopping in Checkers in South Africa with the cost of buying the same or similar products in Morrisons here in the UK. Now, I thought I was doing a fair test— same sort of basket, two mid-range supermarkets, prices converted from pounds to rand for direct comparison— and the results surprised me because Checkers came out slightly more expensive, even with my dodgy maths. But then the comments came in, and there were a lot of them, Some were polite, some of them were very direct, and honestly, a lot of you were right. I compared prices, but I didn't compare real life, and that was a big problem with the first video. A direct price comparison is useful if you're a tourist, a visitor, or someone who's earning in pounds, dollars, or euros and spending in rand. But if you live in South Africa and earn in rand, that comparison can be misleading because locals don't live on exchange rates. They live on wages. You also pointed out that most people don't always shop in one supermarket. In the UK, for example, lots of people would use Aldi or Lidl. In South Africa, people might use Shoprite, local butchers, markets, loyalty cards, and Extra Savings. You also pointed out that Cape Town prices are not the same as prices across the whole of South Africa, which surprised me because that isn't typically the case from supermarket to supermarket in the UK. And yes, a couple of you spotted some arithmetic errors as well. Fair enough, that one is on me. Now, it's quite a complex video to put together, but no excuses. So today I'm doing the video that I probably should have made the first time around. This is still not perfect, no cost of living comparison ever is, but this time I'm asking a better question: how much does everyday life cost when you compare it to what people actually earn? So instead of just asking, is Cape Town cheaper than the UK, I'm going to use what I'm calling the hour test. Now, in the UK, the current minimum wage for someone aged 21 and over is £12.71 per hour. That's around R270 an hour. In South Africa, the national minimum wage is R30.23 per hour, which is £1.36. So a huge difference. I'm going to compare everyday costs in 6 areas: mobile phone costs, a secondhand car, a basic food basket, a dental checkup, rent for a 2-bedroom apartment, and lunch out. Then I'll also talk about the hidden costs that many of you said I missed completely, things like medical aid, security, transport, and the costs that sit around everyday life. I'll show the prices in both pounds and rand, but the more important part is working time because price is one thing, affordability is another, and that is where the first video fell short. My first video compared baskets, this one compares real-life pressures. Now let's start with mobile phones, because for most of us, a mobile phone is not a luxury anymore. It's how we bank, it's how we work, and it's how we keep in touch. For the UK, I looked at a Vodafone plan with 50 gigabytes of data and unlimited calls and texts, and that is £21 a month. That's about R468 per month. Now for South Africa, I looked at Vodacom's Red plan with 4.5 gigabytes of data and 100 minutes at R594 Rand a month. That's about £26.67. So already, before we even talk about wages, the South African plan I found costs more in pounds and gives far less data. But the wage test makes it more interesting. For a UK minimum wage worker, that Vodafone plan is less than 2 hours work per month. But for a South African minimum wage worker, the Vodacom plan is nearly 20 hours of work. Same category, very different pressure, and this is exactly the kind of thing I missed in the first video that you guys correctly pointed out. Now let's talk about a secondhand car. Now I've chosen a Volkswagen Polo because it's familiar in both countries. It's common in the UK and in South Africa, and for many people, especially in South Africa, a car is not just about convenience. In the UK, a car is absolutely useful. In South Africa, depending on where you live, a car is almost essential. Public transport is limited in many areas, walking is not always safe, and if you live outside the centre, a car can be the thing that gives you access to work, family, shopping, and normal life. At first glance, the price looks surprisingly similar. A used Polo in the UK can be around £5,600 to £6,000. In South Africa, older examples are around R120,000 to R125,000. Converted back into pounds, £5,400 to £5,600. So if you look at the sticker price, you might well say, well, actually, Rob, that's pretty similar. But again, the wage test changes the story. A minimum wage worker would need about 440 hours of gross pay to buy a £595,000 car in the UK. A South African minimum wage worker would need 3,970 hours of gross pay to buy a R120,000 car. So that's roughly 9 times longer, and that doesn't include insurance, fuel, repairs, tires, road license, or finance. This matters to us personally because when we are in South Africa, we think about movement differently. In the UK, as I said, I might walk, I get a train, or jump on a bus. In South Africa, depending on where you live, you often plan life around a car, especially outside of Cape Town., and when we're back in South Africa, we're probably going to need to buy a secondhand car. So this isn't just a random comparison, this is something that we will have to deal with ourselves. Now let's get back to food, because this is where the first video started. Last time I compared a Checkers basket with a Morrison's market basket, what I felt were two mid-price supermarkets. This time I've changed the test to perhaps be more reflective of the cost of living crunch that we're all facing.. So for the UK, I'm using Aldi. For South Africa, I'm using Shoprite and Staple Food price data. And instead of reading out a long shopping list, I want to focus on items that really show the difference. The question is simple: what can 1 hour of a minimum wage buy? And here's the shock. In the UK, a loaf of bread at Aldi costs about 55p. That's about 4% of 1 hour's minimum wage. In South Africa, a loaf of bread costs about R16.22. That is about 54% of one hour's minimum wage. So the UK bread barely touches one hour of pay, whereas in South Africa it takes more than half an hour of pay. And coffee was the one that really made me stop. In the UK, a jar of instant coffee takes about 13 minutes of an hour of a minimum wage. In South Africa, a jar of Riff coffee takes nearly 2.5 hours. Now that's not a small difference. That shelf price tells one story, the wage tells another. And this is where I think the original video fell short, as you told me. It was interesting as a touristy style comparison, but it didn't tell the whole story for someone earning local wages. And I wanted to be fair to you guys, and that's why I'm recording this video, as I promised in lots of the replies I made in the comments. Next, dental care. Now in the UK, we're fortunate with our National Health Service which is free. Well, actually, we pay for it via our taxes. So an NHS Band 1 dental checkup is £27.90. That includes an examination, diagnosis, advice, and x-rays if needed. Converted, that's about R621. In South Africa, a private dental checkup is typically around R400 to R800. That's about £18 to £36. So in pounds, South Africa actually look cheaper. And I think dental care is definitely better in South Africa, having had firsthand experience myself of having tooth extraction and an implant. But again, how many hours of work does it take? In the UK, an NHS checkup takes just over 2 hours of the minimum wage. In South Africa, a private checkup can take around 13 to 26 hours of minimum wage. This is why medical aid and private care are such a big part of the South African cost of living conversation. Healthcare costs are where exchange rates can really hide the real problem. Now this is where South Africa starts to look much cheaper when we talk about rent. A 2-bedroom flat in London can cost anything from about £1,800 to £3,200 per month. At the exchange rate I use, that's roughly R40,000 to R71,000 a month. In Cape Town, a 2-bedroom apartment averages around R19,000 Rands per month, that's about £853. More affordable suburbs can be around R14,500 to R18,000, and high areas like Green Point can reach as high as R39,500 for a 2-bed apartment. So if you earn in pounds, Cape Town can look very good value, and honestly, this is one of the reasons why South Africa is so attractive to people from the UK, Europe, and the US. You look at the space, you look at the views, you look at what you get for the money, and you think, wow, this is a really, really different lifestyle. But if you earn in rand, R19,000 a month is still a serious amount of money. Cheap in pounds does not always mean affordable in rand, and that's the tension running through this whole comparison, and that's the points that you guys pointed out to me in the comments of the last video. Now, eating out is another area where South Africa can often feel much cheaper, especially if you are spending in pounds, euros, or dollars. And this is one of the reasons why people from the UK and Europe and the US feel like South Africa is such great value. In the UK, a typical pub lunch with a drink is around £12 to £20. At the exchange rate I'm using, that's about 267 to 445 Rands. In Cape Town, an inexpensive lunch or cafe meal can be around 195 to 200 Rand. That's about £8.76 to £8.98. So if you're converting everything back into pounds, Cape Town still looks amazingly good value. And I have to say that this is one of the things that we really like, love about South Africa— going out for a coffee, sitting outside for lunch, having an amazing quality meal with great service because the views, the relaxed lifestyle is a huge part of the appeal for us expats. But again, the wage check— the wage test changes this story completely. A £12 to £20 pub lunch in the UK works out to about 0.9 to 1.6 hours of minimum wage work in the UK, so less than 2 hours. But a R195 to R200 lunch in Cape Town is about 6.5 hours of South African minimum wage. And that is of course the part that visitors like me often miss, and you were right to call me out on it. The same lunch can feel really affordable if you're spending or converting from pounds into rand, but if you earn in rand, it's an absolutely very different calculation. So yes, South Africa can feel cheaper for eating out, and let's be honest, much better quality than the UK, but it does not always feel cheap to people who are living and working there. Now here's the part that doesn't fit neatly into a basket: the hidden costs. Several of you said, "I miss South African costs that are not optional for many people," so private medical aid, home security, a car, as I said, because public transport is limited, private schooling for some families, and of course insurance. Those things don't show up when you're comparing a loaf of bread or a bottle of wine, but of course they absolutely affect the real-life cost of living. Now, of course, in the UK it also has its own pressures and costs. As I said, rent is brutal, council tax is painful, energy bills are amongst the highest in the world, and as I said, eating out can be very expensive. And of course, the weather— well, let's just say you don't move to the UK for the weather. So this isn't a video about saying the UK wins, and it's definitely not a video about saying South Africa loses. It's about asking a better question: what does real life cost when you factor in wages and also the general cost of living? So what did I learn from doing this properly? Well, first of all, South Africa can be way cheaper if you earn in pounds, dollars, or euros. Rent, space, eating out, sunshine, the general lifestyle, and that general feel the feeling of being there can all look very attractive, and I understand that completely, and that's what drew us to South Africa for the first time all those years ago. Second, the UK often wins when you compare basic costs to the minimum wage. Groceries, mobile data, and access to public healthcare are far more affordable relative to income. Thirdly, South Africa has hidden costs that many visitors do not see, as I've already mentioned, And fourth, my first video, while it had good intentions, was too narrow. It just compared a direct comparison of prices, and so this comparison looks at broader costs of living, and that's when the pressures in South Africa really show up, and I totally acknowledge that. So yes, I got part of the first video wrong, or at least I didn't tell the full story, and this video is my attempt to do it better. Now I'm sure I haven't got everything right, so please do excuse me, but I would love to hear from you. If you live in South Africa, what does 1 hour of your wage actually buy you where you are? Because of course not everyone is on the minimum wage. And if you live in the UK, Canada, Australia, or the US, how does this compare to your cost of living? Did I miss anything important? Medical aid, transport, school fees, insurance rates, security? I don't know. It was quite complex just using the categories I've used in this video. So do tell me in the comments, because your comments are what made me create this follow-up video, and of course your comments help me decide what future content to make as well. Now, South Africa can look amazingly cost-effective when you arrive with pounds or euros or dollars in your bank account, but if you earn in rand, the same price can tell a very different story. So I hope that's been useful and given a bit more of a fair balanced view of the cost of living, and we'll be back to our normal travel content next week. So this is Rob and James's Working Next Door signing off for now.
