Hi! Very cool video. I moved from the UK to Denmark in 2018. I didn't expect it, but almost everything is much cheaper. Internet, mobile phone is almost twice as much in the UK. We also would never be able to afford a house in the UK; but in Denmark we could buy a house right away. Our expensive are 30% less than they were in the UK, but our salaries, after taxes and everything, we earn more than double, than we did in the UK. We struggled financially in the UK, but in Denmark we're thriving. It's fantastic. The society feels very fair!
I nearly snorted out my morning coffee watching Miranda reacting to the Moonshine LOL - thanks for yet another interesting video. I'm surprised that water and electricity are nearly the same. I would have thought that Denmark would be a lot more expensive.
Hmm I can not remember if you have talked about the danish "pant system" which as far as I know is a unique thing for Denmark, since it is over of few countries that have such a system?
Nice video. I kinda had an idea to begin with but there were a few surprises. Food for instance, I thought it was in general cheaper in the US, but I still have a suspicion that it also has to do with the types of food. Healthy fresh fruit is very fairly priced in DK, while the not so healthy stuff is probably cheaper in the US. Also eating outside is quite expensive here, feeding 2 persons at KFC easily cost 200 DKK, and the buckets are smaller. Going somewhere that cooks from bottom up easily gets to 500-700. As a side note, my wife also has some heavily deducted price of food at work, and with the current focus on food waste these days, the catering packs up the remains after lunch, for people to bring home for free, I know the trainees at her work really appreciate that. About gas, well if you look into your gas bill you'll see that a big part of the cost are environment taxes, same when you fuel your car. I live somewhere with community heating (fjernvarme), it's certainly cheaper, but it still can't beat the US prices. Consumer goods are often very cheap in the US, but it's not all about demand. A laptop sold here often has a Nordic keyboard, which of course cost more than the US version to manufacture, because of the smaller batch size. But that's not the main reason either. I worked for consumer electronics manufacturer at some point, and when they sold to the US their markup was significantly lower than those for the local markets. And the reasoning for that was that the US consumers are used to cheap goods, and if you can catch a market share in the US, you'll get a lot of global attention, so it's basically marketing... Then you can sell with a very high markup in Dubai instead. A side note to that is that many imported consumer goods are actually sold with a lower markup here in DK, the manufacturers sell cheaper to counter our high VAT. I know that for instance some Germans would buy German cars in Denmark, then have the taxes returned when they "export" it to Germany, and save quite a bunch of money. I knew we have very cheap internet in Denmark, and that it's high speed and unmetered, I pay 260 DKK for 1000 mbps. I believe that it's also our internet infrastructure that is the reason why our phone bills are so affordable... When the fiberoptics are already in the ground, the last mile to an antenna is rather cheap. Because of the low density of the US population it also gets expensive to set up enough antennas to get a reasonable coverage. There are just more customers per antenna here. Anyway, as I said very good and interesting video, thanks.
@@KurtFrederiksen you're right that the margin you can save today is very much less today than 20 years ago, our taxes have been evolving since then. But a Mercedes sold as new in Denmark is still cheaper without taxes than it would be in Germany without taxes. The manufacturers do lower their markup to be more appealing/competitive on the Danish market.
Hej ! I saw your video posted in the expats in copenhagen fb group and really enjoyed this valuable information :) I'm from NY and just moved to Denmark, it is really scary adjusting to the differences culturally, socially, and just in the settling part as well its nice to see other Americans around and I hope I can fit in soon. I'll be sure to watch more videos, I really have fallen in love with this country and want to stay here thanks for the info !
Huh, this was actually pretty surprising to me. I've always seen the US as a much cheaper place. I often buy clothing when I go to the US so that part was not really surprising to me. The amount of Levis and Converse I've dragged home to DK with me :P This was a very interesting comparison so thank you for putting in the work
When going to the "States", I often travel light. Going out with a small backpack, coming home with a suitcase of new cloth and Peanut Butter😀 ! I usually sell the suitcase (for what I paid for it 😀 - Not greedy) . Win Win 👍😊👍
It is interesting to see that apart from a few special brand items such as Apple and Levis the cost of living in Chicago and Denmark is pretty much the same. However, the big and important difference being that in Denmark things are higher or even heavily taxed, meaning a lot of the money paid goes back to the government aka the people whereas in America it mainly goes in the pockets of the corporations as profit and not recirculating back into the economy. This is one of the key mechanisms how the Danish welfare state is able to provide more and better public services to its people.
"Better". It's on its edge of collapse as soon as it reaches 100 patients at the ICU. We're amongst the people with the highest taxes in the world, yet our healthcare services are horrible. At this time, I'd ratehr pay less tax and pay up myself at a private hospital. Comes from a Kidney transplant recipent, chronically ill.
@@Biiggles yer if you are one of those who has the money for paying to a private hospital that idea sounds great, and if you are lucky not to battle cancer and have to go there 20 times maybe.
@@klauspedersen1047 It´s funny, when discussing taxes the concept of "personlig fradrag" is never included in any debate. I am Portuguese and we don´t have that which means that anyone earning less than 30.000 DKK in Denmark is actually paying a lot less percentage wise than one would assume. I was working in Germany as well as a German/Portuguese translator and paying a 42% flat tax rate, again, no "personlig fradrag".
@@Biiggles You do not want to pay U.S healthcare costs. Regards from Finland where we share the similiar problems with waiting for treatment and quality.
@@Biiggles Curious, where did you get that information from? I retired from the USAF and moved to DK over 7 years ago and compared to Tricare, DK is doing fairly well. We also never had a collapse as you put it…in fact, for Delta, DK increased ICU capacity. While not perfect at all, I find the DK medical system more reliable, transparent, and generally effective. The Danish COVID surveillance and transparency is far superior to the US and DK tests more per capita. No one really knows how to manage COVID at the moment…its become very political…everywhere.
0:30 When comparing the size you could also think about it this way. In Denmark you can get to almost anywhere in Denmark within 6-8 hours by car. (Gilleje to Skagen takes a little over 6 hours). By comparison, you can't even drive from the the east (Horizon City) to west (Orange) of Texas in less than 12 hours straight.
Great breakdown!! Thank you, Josh - it proved a point I've been trying to make forever! We are not that different, but the taxes that we pay in DK, go further to help us(education, health and social welfare) but the, Try it on Tuesday was hilarious! I'm sorry for laughing Miranda, but your, 'it keeps on coming!' made me sputter my coffee!! Have a good one, hello from Hundested 🌸❄
The US is about the same size as Europe. I have found that really helps when thinking scale of the US vs. individual countries of Europe :) Generally what surprised me the most is mobile and internet plans in the US, omg, how is that viable?
I suspect the mobile is more due the large infrastructure. Folks in dense areas probably pay for towers in Montana as part of their plans. I do think competition will bring it down in time, but I was surprised in reverse when I moved here having been so conditioned to paying a boat load for each in the US.
@@TravelinYoung There's also the fact that in the US, the ISP's straight up pocketed the 400 billion dollar grant from the government to improve infrastructure, instead of actually.. improving it. There's a book called "The book of broken promises" that goes into depth about this. From my time when I lived in Canada, I know that the big TelCo's basically do "price fixing" agreements, where they divide the market up between them, and don't really underbid each other significantly on price. I suspect that the same happens in the US as well. In Denmark, and I suspect the rest of the EU, initial infrastructure was government funded and *managed* for a long time, before private companies took over. TDC used to be a government institution, but are private now - Either way, they all had a much better foundation to work from than in the US.
Former NYer and native Chicagoland suburbanite here considering moving to Copenhagen (or Amsterdam or Stockholm) in the future. Super helpful video on calculating the COL in Copenhagen vs Chicago. As mentioned by many Danes and Europeans taxes are higher but more of those tax dollars go back to benefit the public.... which isn't quite the case in the US. Paying for healthcare in America also is a (major) issue. It's almost the same COL interestingly enough but a better quality of life. Although, with the current housing market and inflation in the US it might be somewhat more expensive now...?
One Think to note in The “food essentials” the store referred to in Denmark is called Føtex. If You wanted to, You could in my experience easily cut the cost don’t to around 200 or less if you would by from a NETTO, Aldi or LIDL. Yes you may have to buy a less known brand than Doritos, but you could definitely save money on the food essentials. But still nice comparison video. We have been thinking about moving to the US 😊
A very quick google (and by that I mean I glanced at it for 45 seconds) in your kommune you should be offered fjernvarme within the next 5 years depending on where you live. Fjernevarme (translated in to distant heat) is hot water pipes very well insulated and burried in the ground that goes from fjernvarmeværket (distant heat plant) and to the inhabitants on their heat plant grid. It's the cheapest way of heating your house and get hot water.
Don’t forget the EU consumer protections on electronics that make extended warranties and Apple Care almost unnecessary. They make the price differences come out in the wash in many cases.
7;20 You are not really paying for the bottles and cans, the amount is refunded when you recycle them. Love the way Føtex is pronounced, but I would go for [Footex] instead :-)
It makes little sense before or when shopping in person, but definitely more today given when buying something online you have to tell it where to ship first before it can calculate what sales tax to apply.
not a fair compare, you should do the same things, if you choose to eat out in chicago for lunch, you need to choose to do the same in Denmark. ok transport is different, simply due to your home- access to puplic transport, and in dk your access to puplic transport, simply by luck is better, but again not a fair compare, you need to choose to do the same things, else this is not, what the tittle say : Comparing cost of living in Chicago to Copenhagen, but it is MUCH more a "Comparing cost of living in one specific location in Chicago to one specific location in Copenhagen doing every thing very differently".. you will come to the SAME results, if you do a similar compare : Comparing cost of living in one place in Chicago to another place in Chicago doing things different.. i love your videos and all that, dont get me wrong.. I have been to all us states and all dk kommuner my self, my point is : the head line, and compares are not done fair/equal, and the outcome could be the other way arround, just as easy :-)
Great video, i know its a small thing but your grocery list in denmark is so so expensive to what it could have been. Just the meat alone you could save 12kr, bananas is almost double the price of what they usually are, your sandwich bread is also double the price of a simple loaf. But thats what you get when you do the shopping in some of the bigger stores :) Just a quick mention, keep it up :)
Very good episodes. I've been curious about these prices for a long time. Gasprices is something I always found funny. I've seen so many americans complain about gasprices through the years in forums etc. because I know it's very cheaper in the US then in Denmark.
I was surprised that the US were more expensive in so many areas. I wasn't surprised that phone plans and internet were more expensive, as the US consumers are generally being abused by the providers of those.
Gas is so expensive becouse its a "luxery item". No new building have been build to include gas for like like 30 years. So everyoe still hooked up to the pipes must swallow the costs.
Thank you for taking the time to make this video! I live in Copenhagen and have sometimes wondered how our cost of living compares to that of the US. Of course, as you said yourself, you're comparing Copenhagen to Chicago specifically which clearly yields a result much different than comparing, say, Maribo to New York, but I still find it very useful information!
The "Try it on Tuesday" was really hilarious to watch - judging from Miranda's expression it looked as if it was almost "Died on a Tuesday" for her ! If you didn't got scared away by the lithuanian moonshine (it looked as you did) and you're a bit more "adventurous" then you should try Stroh rom (rum) it's 80% and I can guarantee you that its only proper use is for cleaning grease off on engine blocks and tire rims...
Yeah, the Stroh rum would be a good idea for "dying on tuesday", but make sure to get the brown 80% one. It feels like your mouth and throat is on fire, and if you don't swallow it immediately it will numb your mouth... Which makes it ideal for toothaches or sore throats, seriously! Just a few drops is enough, get it in your mouth and keep it there for a few seconds, moving your tongue around to the area with aching tooth, gurgle a bit, then swallow. For sore throat, do the same, except that you don't have to move your tongue around, just make sure to gurgle before swallowing. Even a very small bottle will last for years and it's a very handy thing to have around if the need arises.
Next for Miranda on "Try It On Tuesday" 80% Stroh Rum, that would be funny. I was quite surprised that You said that You didn't think that You ever had anything over 50% i your "bar", GOOD Scottish highland whiskeys are ALL between 46ish% to over 60%, and they are FANTASTIC.
I'm guessing a factor in higher costs for certain consumer products could also be due to the 2 years "reklamation" rights by law. It's there to ensure a certain quality within at least the first 2 years, or else the consumer can get a refund.
Really good video and I'm happy you mentioned and kept mentioning that it was those two exact places. Cause there is a massive difference between living in Copenhagen, Aalborg, Odense, Silkeborg, Aarhus and a small town like Stenvad. A perfect example and feel free to use this in your housing video. In Copenhagen, a 170 m³ house could be anything between 450k - 900k US$, where that same house in Aarhus would be around 360k - 725k US$. With that same house in Silkeborg being 225k - 450k US$ and in Stenvad being close to 38k - 68k US$ (Disclaimer: the house in Stenvad was my old house, the small price was what we paid for it, with the higher amount being what we sold it for when we left, after renovating it.)
North Copenhagen (Østerbro/Frederiksberg) and north of Copenhagen - Houses are substantially more expensive than what you state. In Gentofte for instance, an average house of 140 sqm house is 1.3 million USD. Generally speaking you get extremely little for anything below 1 million USD in that area.
Very interesting... I went on a family trip way back when I was assembling my first PC and we sort of just assumed that it would be cheaper to buy some of the more costly components in the US - which I still think it was, but I don't think we compared the actual prizes. We also bought the stuff in Florida and had a pretty hard time actually finding a store that sold components rather than already assembled stuff. That, and the fact that it was a hassle to try and spread out the things in different bags to avoid getting hit by border VAT? probably made it not worth to buy it there, rather than here...
Excellent comparison! I think the reason the household goods are mostly more expensive in DK is that the EU has higher import tariffs. It's basically because of protectionist attitudes in Southern Europe. France fx consistently tries to sabotage free trade negotiations, and Italy fights to keep tariffs high on shoes specifically. Which would explain your Skechers example.
One expense you might be missing out is the “Medical Insurance” in the US vs subsidized medical expense in the Scandinavia countries. On the other hand, the income level and buying power in the US is much higher compared to Denmark or other Scandinavian countries ( except Norway) for the same job - am quite certain about that.
Thanks for letting me know. I have updated the blur on UA-cam and hopefully it will finish rendering a new version soon. I also don’t know why your comments get deleted, UA-cam is odd sometimes. I do think they dump a lot of comments with links, but not always. Hard do understand when and why.
You should probably have accounted for gas prices being significantly cheaper 10 years ago when you lived in Chicago, since the US has a massive gas shortage atm.
I like that your final costs you show at 15:55 is your POV. But unforturnately, i do not think it's the majority of Danish citizens. They have to add internet, phone, probably lunch (i pay double of you and i work in for the government), if they wanna eat out it's more expensive, we do have more than one peace of clothes and shoes, we have more than furniture than only one table. it adds up. My thoughts: The different between bridge/road cost - DKK 240 (USD 24.25) to pass a bridge from Zealand to Fyn (connects two important islands) in Denmark. Do you wanna go to Sweden it is DKK 470 (USD 67.10). Community transport is expensive if you're not signed up. You have to sign up for everything when we talk cheaper transportation. To take the train, for a 3 hours trip will cost me DKK 450 (USD 64.25), one way. If i want it cheap i have to buy Orange Tickets, which means that i have to buy the tickets way before i wanna use them and they are only much cheaper on schedule times that's not busy. With Orange Tickets I am able to safe DKK 325 (USD 46.40). Right know, 17-08-2022 my little Toyota Yaris cost me DKK 700 (USD 100) to fill up with gaz. I have just been 3 weeks in the US, driven 3200km. A Nissan Rouge with a bigger tank costs me DKK 350 (USD 50) to fill up with gaz. Living outside Copenhagen and drive to work everyday is expensive. The cars here are out of reach in Denmark - so expensive. A comparison i would love is, how much money did you have after tax each month in the same type of job? My girlfriend is a teacher. She will be paid DKK 10,000 (USD 1430) more after tax in Florida. The salary is the same - which surprise us. Compared to Florida the tax was 10% (ish) and in Denmark it's 39%. Correct me if i am wrong. But i think it is a huge factor when we are comparing where it's cheapest to live. Comparison between middle class in Denmark and the US. I have heard they have more money in the states after fixed costs. Also i would love to see comparison to insurance prices. Bonus - The government knows everything about us. UPDATE (2 sec after posting): I bet fitness/crossfit is way more cheaper in Denmark. I am not sure, but i think the price is like USD 75-100 cheaper in Denmark.
When I lived in Denmark I drove my bike from Tåstrup to Copenhagen, my work had shower facilitets so I was able get my daily exercise in for free and travel to work was also free :)
Mobilephones plans top out at 20USD in Denmark for real, not fake, unlimited data plans. For a basic 5GB/5Hour month plan, its 2.5USD. Internet is 25USD a month for 1GB fiber. I don't understand why you use the work compensated prices, as if they're different than what you can just purchase. They're not. Those are utilities that are just cheap in Denmark, and Europe in general.
Interesting! :) I love these comparisons because when you look at all of them together it gives a much clearer picture. So some might say "You pay so much in tax!" but like you showed in another video, about income tax I think, to make a fair comparison you have to count health insurance, college fund etc. as sort of a tax, and when you do that it makes a whole lot of a difference. Keep up the good work :)
Comparing apples to oranges. Driving in DK is 2 x the cost. Cars are more expensive, taxed higher and limited in engine option. Repair is higher, mainly because of VAT, employer payroll tax etc. and the gas is 8.50 USD, up to 3 x what you can find in the US. Now. If you love trains and love biking so much that you have to bike everyday ( I was like this ) then DK wins, but if you love cars ? then yeah, you can't even buy 50 % of the world market cars in Scandinavia and private import ? that's 2 to 300 % the cost of buying the same car in the US. Whenever you see someone in DK with a F 150, F 250 they are a multi millionaire, a criminal or have borrowed the car from the King or the Military. Just saying .. 😅
Why is the phoneplan so expencive in the US?! I use Lebara for 99kr/month and use the hotspot from my phone to use on my laptop. Also, I don't know anyone who actually buys store-bought bread for 30kr. I don't know anyone who actually eats Pågen bread on the reg either, so that might be why that is :D
Hi Josh. Love your videos and the GF and I watch them when we have time. One complaint, when you do B-roll music we have to turn down the TV a lot, let's say we listen at Volume Level 55, we have to turn it all the way down to 20 for it to be at same level as your speech.
Interesting: household gods from US companies is considerably cheaper in US than in Denmark, household gods from EU (Sweden) companies are somewhat cheaper in US than in Denmark and household gods from Asian (Korea) companies are much cheaper in Denmark than in US. It may have been useful to have had a non-Swedish EU company in the mix instead of two Swedish ones.
You should have compared to Netto, Fakta or Rema1000 - Føtex is more expensive in particular when buying one piece items. I am absolutely confident that DK would have proven cheaper.
A couple of major things why your comparison is absolutely not applicable: Cost of insurance. Gross and nett income from wages. Those differ a lot between the two countries. A regular software engineer in Denmark makes maybe 70.000 euros with 10 years experience. In the US that would be a starter income. Besides that, the taxes are way higher in Denmark. So out of this 70.000 how much is really left after taxes?
And you forget free medical, free education, bicycle lanes, no Guns and random killings, friendly people, no mugging, real Coffee bars ( not the Starbucks shit), clean trains and metro, no democrats that eat babies, no Trump,....,,and one of the most charming cities in the world.
I don't drink alcohol, but there was this Spanish waiter that clearly didn't understand English very well. He brought me this tiny glass, which I suspected I shouldn't touch, but I thought I'd just barely nip at it out of curiosity. My lips were on fire.
like most capitals Copenhagen is outragious expencive compared to the rest of the country. Lolland Is imo the cheapest (houses/for homeowners) I lived in all the regions in denmark Bornholm don't count :D also even that we are so "small there is like 5 overall major speaking accents and people here have different attitudes. "jyder" are more proud, Practical but more chilled. Copenhagen/sjælland people are more forward fast speaking and trendy. though you can clealy hear the difference from where people are from on Sjælland-north/south. The outskirts of denmark is where accents are very strong Like people living on Bornholm can even be hard to understand for the rest of the population. Fyn/lolland has a somewhat similar accent. This statement might trigger some people ofc we are all uniqe in our own way but this is only "common" thinking for a broad opinion. very South/north jylland has also hard dialects to understand. I think as a foreinger it would be hard to understand danish people living cross the country from Copenhagen.
i love the vid, but i have a note, things i copenhagen(sjælland) is expensive, the same tv you can get most cheaper in jutland (jylland), and you can use pricerunner in Denmark to for things :) stroh rom from Gremany is 80 procent, try that :)
I did an analysis of the tax burden between the UK and Denmark and found that Denmark was almost identical to the UK but provided more services to its population. Do I have an explanation ?? Not really. I somewhat suspect the UK Govt is spending on items that are very costly, and yet un-productive, whilst the Danish Government chooses to focus on Education, elderly care, and children's early care. When young children are well taken care of their parents are at work and producing tax revenue (something the UK Government simply doesn't grasp) additionally investing in education produces a more productive economy that generates more taxes..I suspect that what is true for the UK economy is also true for the US - too many poorly paid and poorly educated workers are not generating enough income tax revenue. The cost of energy in Denmark is designed to encourage consumers to 'hunt out' cheaper forms of energy, and can be seen as a 'deliberate' policy - if energy costs you a lot you want to use less of it one way or another. Very interesting Vlog. My thanks.
About the meal: Did you know Denmark is producing enough food to feed 15 million people? 3 times higher than the population. Maybe this is the reason to the cheaper food? We don't have to use transport to bring it around in the country plus we are exporting much.
There are several taxes on multimedia items, not just salestax. There might be a few 100 kr in difference just because og country, but I definately contribute a lot of it to taxes. You could most likely do an entire video just on taxes! A more curious one is our “nut taxes”. It’s nuts!
Im surpriced america is that small.. You always picture america ishuge, but is not that big Feels like the same as europe and africa, not that many days in a car With the electronics it would make more sense to look at eu prices, after all we can just order in germany and save around 10-20% on most And the shipment is cheaper then from dk 🤣
Gas is for heating? or also cooking? Because I am happy I live in Odense and get heat from fjernvarme, as that was like 3-4 times more then what our familie use. Of course I dont know you house size.
I've always been curious about all this myself. However, I'd like to see actual numbers for the mobile phone and internet, as if you didn't have the benefit from your jobs.
Good way to compare it. Just one note, most workplaces dont have the option to get lunch paid via your paycheck, it is mostly for officeworkplaces and then not all of them.
Fun to see. I've always thought the US was significantly cheaper than Denmark. Remember to address the wage difference. I might be wrong, but I think in Denmark you make significantly more than in the US if you don't have an education. And in the US you make significantly more than in Denmark if you have the right education (doctor, nurse, any STEM field, programmer, etc.)
no actually programmers in usa acording to google make an average of about 86k USD in 2019 where as in denmark you have an average of 87k USD so its about the same slightly higher in denmark. Engineers are a similar situation in many cases based on the field but yes other than that I think its decently correct. A big part of why the salaries have gone so high in US for those fields is due to it being expected that you have a huge student debt where as in denmark you will have had a salary from the government during the school years. Some might still take student loans but they are tiny compared to USA and with much better rates generally. One of my best friends back in america has been a doctor for years and says he will probably be paying off his debt for at least 15 more years if everything goes perfectly. if not then it might be even longer
Mate we all dont have jobs where we eat in at the company , your statistical analysis is so off !! Denmark is the 9th most expensive place on the planet Chicargo is no where near that my friend
Fun thing about the food essentials, in Denmark the food you get isnt pumped full of addatives that really isnt fit for human consumption however thats what your gonna get in the US cause the FDA really doesnt seem to care about the people same goes does the US goverment as a whole to be fair
elecricity is diffren beacuse in us you have 110volt and denmark 220volt so ofcourse you got a diffrence. so it is cheaper as you get double amount of volt in denmark vs usa
Hmm not sure if it would have done much but you probably should have had a 2 parter of the daily item bills one where you compare with the discount and one without.
I have been to the us many times, and in fact that the americans do not take vat into the price is very confusing. Are they traying to make us not see what taxes are ore do thay whant us to belive that it is a bad thing (sorry my spelling)
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Hi! Very cool video. I moved from the UK to Denmark in 2018. I didn't expect it, but almost everything is much cheaper. Internet, mobile phone is almost twice as much in the UK. We also would never be able to afford a house in the UK; but in Denmark we could buy a house right away. Our expensive are 30% less than they were in the UK, but our salaries, after taxes and everything, we earn more than double, than we did in the UK.
We struggled financially in the UK, but in Denmark we're thriving. It's fantastic. The society feels very fair!
I'd rather live in the UK, more foil balloons and more selection in stores.
I nearly snorted out my morning coffee watching Miranda reacting to the Moonshine LOL - thanks for yet another interesting video. I'm surprised that water and electricity are nearly the same. I would have thought that Denmark would be a lot more expensive.
Hmm I can not remember if you have talked about the danish "pant system" which as far as I know is a unique thing for Denmark, since it is over of few countries that have such a system?
Nice video. I kinda had an idea to begin with but there were a few surprises.
Food for instance, I thought it was in general cheaper in the US, but I still have a suspicion that it also has to do with the types of food. Healthy fresh fruit is very fairly priced in DK, while the not so healthy stuff is probably cheaper in the US.
Also eating outside is quite expensive here, feeding 2 persons at KFC easily cost 200 DKK, and the buckets are smaller. Going somewhere that cooks from bottom up easily gets to 500-700.
As a side note, my wife also has some heavily deducted price of food at work, and with the current focus on food waste these days, the catering packs up the remains after lunch, for people to bring home for free, I know the trainees at her work really appreciate that.
About gas, well if you look into your gas bill you'll see that a big part of the cost are environment taxes, same when you fuel your car. I live somewhere with community heating (fjernvarme), it's certainly cheaper, but it still can't beat the US prices.
Consumer goods are often very cheap in the US, but it's not all about demand. A laptop sold here often has a Nordic keyboard, which of course cost more than the US version to manufacture, because of the smaller batch size. But that's not the main reason either.
I worked for consumer electronics manufacturer at some point, and when they sold to the US their markup was significantly lower than those for the local markets. And the reasoning for that was that the US consumers are used to cheap goods, and if you can catch a market share in the US, you'll get a lot of global attention, so it's basically marketing... Then you can sell with a very high markup in Dubai instead.
A side note to that is that many imported consumer goods are actually sold with a lower markup here in DK, the manufacturers sell cheaper to counter our high VAT. I know that for instance some Germans would buy German cars in Denmark, then have the taxes returned when they "export" it to Germany, and save quite a bunch of money.
I knew we have very cheap internet in Denmark, and that it's high speed and unmetered, I pay 260 DKK for 1000 mbps. I believe that it's also our internet infrastructure that is the reason why our phone bills are so affordable... When the fiberoptics are already in the ground, the last mile to an antenna is rather cheap.
Because of the low density of the US population it also gets expensive to set up enough antennas to get a reasonable coverage. There are just more customers per antenna here.
Anyway, as I said very good and interesting video, thanks.
@@KurtFrederiksen you're right that the margin you can save today is very much less today than 20 years ago, our taxes have been evolving since then.
But a Mercedes sold as new in Denmark is still cheaper without taxes than it would be in Germany without taxes. The manufacturers do lower their markup to be more appealing/competitive on the Danish market.
Hej ! I saw your video posted in the expats in copenhagen fb group and really enjoyed this valuable information :)
I'm from NY and just moved to Denmark, it is really scary adjusting to the differences culturally, socially, and just in the settling part as well its nice to see other Americans around and I hope I can fit in soon.
I'll be sure to watch more videos, I really have fallen in love with this country and want to stay here
thanks for the info !
Hej Frida and welcome to Denmark 🤗
Which city do you live in? I would gladly invite you out for a cup of coffee 👍
Huh, this was actually pretty surprising to me. I've always seen the US as a much cheaper place. I often buy clothing when I go to the US so that part was not really surprising to me. The amount of Levis and Converse I've dragged home to DK with me :P This was a very interesting comparison so thank you for putting in the work
When going to the "States", I often travel light. Going out with a small backpack, coming home with a suitcase of new cloth and Peanut Butter😀 ! I usually sell the suitcase (for what I paid for it 😀 - Not greedy) . Win Win 👍😊👍
@@KHValby My latest trip to the states I left DK with one suitcase and returned with 2
SKAT would like to know you location :)
I love how you organized this video and the explenation of how you made it the way you did - that worked very good!
Thanks!
yes and very informative! i love videos that learn you something new!
It is interesting to see that apart from a few special brand items such as Apple and Levis the cost of living in Chicago and Denmark is pretty much the same. However, the big and important difference being that in Denmark things are higher or even heavily taxed, meaning a lot of the money paid goes back to the government aka the people whereas in America it mainly goes in the pockets of the corporations as profit and not recirculating back into the economy. This is one of the key mechanisms how the Danish welfare state is able to provide more and better public services to its people.
"Better". It's on its edge of collapse as soon as it reaches 100 patients at the ICU. We're amongst the people with the highest taxes in the world, yet our healthcare services are horrible. At this time, I'd ratehr pay less tax and pay up myself at a private hospital. Comes from a Kidney transplant recipent, chronically ill.
@@Biiggles yer if you are one of those who has the money for paying to a private hospital that idea sounds great, and if you are lucky not to battle cancer and have to go there 20 times maybe.
@@klauspedersen1047 It´s funny, when discussing taxes the concept of "personlig fradrag" is never included in any debate. I am Portuguese and we don´t have that which means that anyone earning less than 30.000 DKK in Denmark is actually paying a lot less percentage wise than one would assume. I was working in Germany as well as a German/Portuguese translator and paying a 42% flat tax rate, again, no "personlig fradrag".
@@Biiggles You do not want to pay U.S healthcare costs. Regards from Finland where we share the similiar problems with waiting for treatment and quality.
@@Biiggles Curious, where did you get that information from? I retired from the USAF and moved to DK over 7 years ago and compared to Tricare, DK is doing fairly well. We also never had a collapse as you put it…in fact, for Delta, DK increased ICU capacity. While not perfect at all, I find the DK medical system more reliable, transparent, and generally effective. The Danish COVID surveillance and transparency is far superior to the US and DK tests more per capita. No one really knows how to manage COVID at the moment…its become very political…everywhere.
It would be super interesting to compare this to the average paycheck in both places :)
0:30 When comparing the size you could also think about it this way. In Denmark you can get to almost anywhere in Denmark within 6-8 hours by car. (Gilleje to Skagen takes a little over 6 hours). By comparison, you can't even drive from the the east (Horizon City) to west (Orange) of Texas in less than 12 hours straight.
Great breakdown!!
Thank you, Josh
- it proved a point I've been trying to make forever! We are not that different, but the taxes that we pay in DK, go further to help us(education, health and social welfare)
but the, Try it on Tuesday was hilarious!
I'm sorry for laughing Miranda, but your, 'it keeps on coming!' made me sputter my coffee!!
Have a good one, hello from Hundested 🌸❄
Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed also the try it on Tuesday was intense :).
The US is about the same size as Europe. I have found that really helps when thinking scale of the US vs. individual countries of Europe :)
Generally what surprised me the most is mobile and internet plans in the US, omg, how is that viable?
I suspect the mobile is more due the large infrastructure. Folks in dense areas probably pay for towers in Montana as part of their plans. I do think competition will bring it down in time, but I was surprised in reverse when I moved here having been so conditioned to paying a boat load for each in the US.
@@TravelinYoung There's also the fact that in the US, the ISP's straight up pocketed the 400 billion dollar grant from the government to improve infrastructure, instead of actually.. improving it. There's a book called "The book of broken promises" that goes into depth about this. From my time when I lived in Canada, I know that the big TelCo's basically do "price fixing" agreements, where they divide the market up between them, and don't really underbid each other significantly on price. I suspect that the same happens in the US as well.
In Denmark, and I suspect the rest of the EU, initial infrastructure was government funded and *managed* for a long time, before private companies took over. TDC used to be a government institution, but are private now - Either way, they all had a much better foundation to work from than in the US.
Former NYer and native Chicagoland suburbanite here considering moving to Copenhagen (or Amsterdam or Stockholm) in the future. Super helpful video on calculating the COL in Copenhagen vs Chicago.
As mentioned by many Danes and Europeans taxes are higher but more of those tax dollars go back to benefit the public.... which isn't quite the case in the US. Paying for healthcare in America also is a (major) issue. It's almost the same COL interestingly enough but a better quality of life. Although, with the current housing market and inflation in the US it might be somewhat more expensive now...?
One Think to note in The “food essentials” the store referred to in Denmark is called Føtex. If You wanted to, You could in my experience easily cut the cost don’t to around 200 or less if you would by from a NETTO, Aldi or LIDL. Yes you may have to buy a less known brand than Doritos, but you could definitely save money on the food essentials.
But still nice comparison video. We have been thinking about moving to the US 😊
A very quick google (and by that I mean I glanced at it for 45 seconds) in your kommune you should be offered fjernvarme within the next 5 years depending on where you live. Fjernevarme (translated in to distant heat) is hot water pipes very well insulated and burried in the ground that goes from fjernvarmeværket (distant heat plant) and to the inhabitants on their heat plant grid. It's the cheapest way of heating your house and get hot water.
Don’t forget the EU consumer protections on electronics that make extended warranties and Apple Care almost unnecessary. They make the price differences come out in the wash in many cases.
Just a comment to appreciate the reserch that must have gone into making this video. Very nice and informative.
Thanks for saying that, it was a bit of work but it was also fun at the same time. I learned new things along the way myself :).
7;20 You are not really paying for the bottles and cans, the amount is refunded when you recycle them. Love the way Føtex is pronounced, but I would go for [Footex] instead :-)
Completely fair selection of goods. A surprising end result for me. Thank you for these videos :)
Also good call on that VPN !
You are welcome. I definitely wanted to make sure I had the right prices :).
8:42 I always found that wierd, I prefer "the price you see, is the price you pay"
It makes little sense before or when shopping in person, but definitely more today given when buying something online you have to tell it where to ship first before it can calculate what sales tax to apply.
not a fair compare, you should do the same things, if you choose to eat out in chicago for lunch, you need to choose to do the same in Denmark.
ok transport is different, simply due to your home- access to puplic transport, and in dk your access to puplic transport, simply by luck is better, but again not a fair compare, you need to choose to do the same things, else this is not, what the tittle say : Comparing cost of living in Chicago to Copenhagen, but it is MUCH more a "Comparing cost of living in one specific location in Chicago to one specific location in Copenhagen doing every thing very differently"..
you will come to the SAME results, if you do a similar compare : Comparing cost of living in one place in Chicago to another place in Chicago doing things different.. i love your videos and all that, dont get me wrong.. I have been to all us states and all dk kommuner my self, my point is : the head line, and compares are not done fair/equal, and the outcome could be the other way arround, just as easy :-)
Great video, i know its a small thing but your grocery list in denmark is so so expensive to what it could have been. Just the meat alone you could save 12kr, bananas is almost double the price of what they usually are, your sandwich bread is also double the price of a simple loaf. But thats what you get when you do the shopping in some of the bigger stores :) Just a quick mention, keep it up :)
He shopped at IRMA 🤣
@@askedyhr dang ye then it explains it haha, couldnt quite put my finger on where he bought it but looked way to expensive
Really good comparison, and clearly a lot of work went into this. Thank you!
Thanks, and you are welcome :).
WOW 😲 ! Blew my mind 🥴 ! With the danish 25% sales-tax (VAT), I was sure that Denmark would loose out on everything ! Very very interesting 👍😊👍 !
Maybe an idea for a future video, but what could we learn from eachother.
Like what could Denmark learn from the US, and visa versa. Just a thought
Thanks this helps as I am trying to move and work over there myself. Was there for three months ending in October. But every little bit is helpful.
Very good episodes. I've been curious about these prices for a long time. Gasprices is something I always found funny. I've seen so many americans complain about gasprices through the years in forums etc. because I know it's very cheaper in the US then in Denmark.
But... If you take the monthly salery and compare procentage wise, it's probably cheaper in Denmark
OK. That was the cost of living.
Now do one with the cost of surviving.
Health care, wages and quality of infrastructure.
I remember when I talked to an American about the phone plans. I was shocked at how expensive it was
Yeah, it is pretty insane.
Nice thumbnail! - You should try a 80% Stroh Rum from Austria :-P
Thanks, and I think I do need to try it, a lot of people have commented on it.
I was surprised that the US were more expensive in so many areas.
I wasn't surprised that phone plans and internet were more expensive, as the US consumers are generally being abused by the providers of those.
Gas is so expensive becouse its a "luxery item". No new building have been build to include gas for like like 30 years. So everyoe still hooked up to the pipes must swallow the costs.
Thank you for taking the time to make this video! I live in Copenhagen and have sometimes wondered how our cost of living compares to that of the US. Of course, as you said yourself, you're comparing Copenhagen to Chicago specifically which clearly yields a result much different than comparing, say, Maribo to New York, but I still find it very useful information!
The "Try it on Tuesday" was really hilarious to watch - judging from Miranda's expression it looked as if it was almost "Died on a Tuesday" for her ! If you didn't got scared away by the lithuanian moonshine (it looked as you did) and you're a bit more "adventurous" then you should try Stroh rom (rum) it's 80% and I can guarantee you that its only proper use is for cleaning grease off on engine blocks and tire rims...
Yeah, the Stroh rum would be a good idea for "dying on tuesday", but make sure to get the brown 80% one. It feels like your mouth and throat is on fire, and if you don't swallow it immediately it will numb your mouth...
Which makes it ideal for toothaches or sore throats, seriously! Just a few drops is enough, get it in your mouth and keep it there for a few seconds, moving your tongue around to the area with aching tooth, gurgle a bit, then swallow.
For sore throat, do the same, except that you don't have to move your tongue around, just make sure to gurgle before swallowing.
Even a very small bottle will last for years and it's a very handy thing to have around if the need arises.
....."and in 2018 we moved from Chicago, Illinois to Copenhagen, Denmark". Sorry there was no intro so I had to make my own this time around.
Haha, working on a new one and substituted something shorter in the meantime :).
Next for Miranda on "Try It On Tuesday" 80% Stroh Rum, that would be funny. I was quite surprised that You said that You didn't think that You ever had anything over 50% i your "bar", GOOD Scottish highland whiskeys are ALL between 46ish% to over 60%, and they are FANTASTIC.
I'm guessing a factor in higher costs for certain consumer products could also be due to the 2 years "reklamation" rights by law. It's there to ensure a certain quality within at least the first 2 years, or else the consumer can get a refund.
Very nice break down. And incredible work on making sure that it was as comparable as possible.
Thanks for saying that! Glad you enjoyed.
Really good video and I'm happy you mentioned and kept mentioning that it was those two exact places.
Cause there is a massive difference between living in Copenhagen, Aalborg, Odense, Silkeborg, Aarhus and a small town like Stenvad.
A perfect example and feel free to use this in your housing video.
In Copenhagen, a 170 m³ house could be anything between 450k - 900k US$, where that same house in Aarhus would be around 360k - 725k US$.
With that same house in Silkeborg being 225k - 450k US$ and in Stenvad being close to 38k - 68k US$
(Disclaimer: the house in Stenvad was my old house, the small price was what we paid for it, with the higher amount being what we sold it for when we left, after renovating it.)
North Copenhagen (Østerbro/Frederiksberg) and north of Copenhagen - Houses are substantially more expensive than what you state. In Gentofte for instance, an average house of 140 sqm house is 1.3 million USD. Generally speaking you get extremely little for anything below 1 million USD in that area.
170m2 in Aarhus for that? where are you looking at houses because that's impossible within the ring. as far as where I've looked
Very interesting! As always 😊
Just out of curiosity, how is electricity produced in Chicago? Hydro? Nuclear?
you guys should reach out to Chili Klaus and do a Chili-vid
I’d love to but I don’t know how to get a hold of him :).
@@TravelinYoung Instagram? 😃
Very interesting... I went on a family trip way back when I was assembling my first PC and we sort of just assumed that it would be cheaper to buy some of the more costly components in the US - which I still think it was, but I don't think we compared the actual prizes. We also bought the stuff in Florida and had a pretty hard time actually finding a store that sold components rather than already assembled stuff. That, and the fact that it was a hassle to try and spread out the things in different bags to avoid getting hit by border VAT? probably made it not worth to buy it there, rather than here...
Excellent comparison! I think the reason the household goods are mostly more expensive in DK is that the EU has higher import tariffs.
It's basically because of protectionist attitudes in Southern Europe.
France fx consistently tries to sabotage free trade negotiations, and Italy fights to keep tariffs high on shoes specifically. Which would explain your Skechers example.
you should try a 88% absinth :)
I suspect you slept well after :).
One expense you might be missing out is the “Medical Insurance” in the US vs subsidized medical expense in the Scandinavia countries. On the other hand, the income level and buying power in the US is much higher compared to Denmark or other Scandinavian countries ( except Norway) for the same job - am quite certain about that.
9:52
The address on the left is not completely blurred the whole time
Thanks for letting me know. I have updated the blur on UA-cam and hopefully it will finish rendering a new version soon.
I also don’t know why your comments get deleted, UA-cam is odd sometimes. I do think they dump a lot of comments with links, but not always. Hard do understand when and why.
You should probably have accounted for gas prices being significantly cheaper 10 years ago when you lived in Chicago, since the US has a massive gas shortage atm.
Its em footballtime where are you and your daughters students celebration looking forward too see all the students in your garden love Claus.
I like that your final costs you show at 15:55 is your POV. But unforturnately, i do not think it's the majority of Danish citizens. They have to add internet, phone, probably lunch (i pay double of you and i work in for the government), if they wanna eat out it's more expensive, we do have more than one peace of clothes and shoes, we have more than furniture than only one table. it adds up.
My thoughts:
The different between bridge/road cost - DKK 240 (USD 24.25) to pass a bridge from Zealand to Fyn (connects two important islands) in Denmark. Do you wanna go to Sweden it is DKK 470 (USD 67.10).
Community transport is expensive if you're not signed up. You have to sign up for everything when we talk cheaper transportation.
To take the train, for a 3 hours trip will cost me DKK 450 (USD 64.25), one way. If i want it cheap i have to buy Orange Tickets, which means that i have to buy the tickets way before i wanna use them and they are only much cheaper on schedule times that's not busy. With Orange Tickets I am able to safe DKK 325 (USD 46.40).
Right know, 17-08-2022 my little Toyota Yaris cost me DKK 700 (USD 100) to fill up with gaz. I have just been 3 weeks in the US, driven 3200km. A Nissan Rouge with a bigger tank costs me DKK 350 (USD 50) to fill up with gaz.
Living outside Copenhagen and drive to work everyday is expensive.
The cars here are out of reach in Denmark - so expensive.
A comparison i would love is, how much money did you have after tax each month in the same type of job?
My girlfriend is a teacher. She will be paid DKK 10,000 (USD 1430) more after tax in Florida. The salary is the same - which surprise us. Compared to Florida the tax was 10% (ish) and in Denmark it's 39%. Correct me if i am wrong. But i think it is a huge factor when we are comparing where it's cheapest to live.
Comparison between middle class in Denmark and the US. I have heard they have more money in the states after fixed costs.
Also i would love to see comparison to insurance prices.
Bonus - The government knows everything about us.
UPDATE (2 sec after posting): I bet fitness/crossfit is way more cheaper in Denmark. I am not sure, but i think the price is like USD 75-100 cheaper in Denmark.
When I lived in Denmark I drove my bike from Tåstrup to Copenhagen, my work had shower facilitets so I was able get my daily exercise in for free and travel to work was also free :)
Mobilephones plans top out at 20USD in Denmark for real, not fake, unlimited data plans. For a basic 5GB/5Hour month plan, its 2.5USD. Internet is 25USD a month for 1GB fiber. I don't understand why you use the work compensated prices, as if they're different than what you can just purchase. They're not. Those are utilities that are just cheap in Denmark, and Europe in general.
Interesting! :) I love these comparisons because when you look at all of them together it gives a much clearer picture. So some might say "You pay so much in tax!" but like you showed in another video, about income tax I think, to make a fair comparison you have to count health insurance, college fund etc. as sort of a tax, and when you do that it makes a whole lot of a difference. Keep up the good work :)
Comparing apples to oranges. Driving in DK is 2 x the cost. Cars are more expensive, taxed higher and limited in engine option. Repair is higher, mainly because of VAT, employer payroll tax etc. and the gas is 8.50 USD, up to 3 x what you can find in the US. Now. If you love trains and love biking so much that you have to bike everyday ( I was like this ) then DK wins, but if you love cars ? then yeah, you can't even buy 50 % of the world market cars in Scandinavia and private import ? that's 2 to 300 % the cost of buying the same car in the US. Whenever you see someone in DK with a F 150, F 250 they are a multi millionaire, a criminal or have borrowed the car from the King or the Military. Just saying .. 😅
Why is the phoneplan so expencive in the US?! I use Lebara for 99kr/month and use the hotspot from my phone to use on my laptop. Also, I don't know anyone who actually buys store-bought bread for 30kr. I don't know anyone who actually eats Pågen bread on the reg either, so that might be why that is :D
Hi Josh. Love your videos and the GF and I watch them when we have time. One complaint, when you do B-roll music we have to turn down the TV a lot, let's say we listen at Volume Level 55, we have to turn it all the way down to 20 for it to be at same level as your speech.
What a great breakdown of some common costs. Thanks a bunch. Thumbs up.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
Interesting: household gods from US companies is considerably cheaper in US than in Denmark, household gods from EU (Sweden) companies are somewhat cheaper in US than in Denmark and household gods from Asian (Korea) companies are much cheaper in Denmark than in US.
It may have been useful to have had a non-Swedish EU company in the mix instead of two Swedish ones.
You should have compared to Netto, Fakta or Rema1000 - Føtex is more expensive in particular when buying one piece items. I am absolutely confident that DK would have proven cheaper.
A couple of major things why your comparison is absolutely not applicable: Cost of insurance. Gross and nett income from wages. Those differ a lot between the two countries. A regular software engineer in Denmark makes maybe 70.000 euros with 10 years experience. In the US that would be a starter income. Besides that, the taxes are way higher in Denmark. So out of this 70.000 how much is really left after taxes?
And you forget free medical, free education, bicycle lanes, no Guns and random killings, friendly people, no mugging, real Coffee bars ( not the Starbucks shit), clean trains and metro, no democrats that eat babies, no Trump,....,,and one of the most charming cities in the world.
I don't drink alcohol, but there was this Spanish waiter that clearly didn't understand English very well. He brought me this tiny glass, which I suspected I shouldn't touch, but I thought I'd just barely nip at it out of curiosity. My lips were on fire.
like most capitals Copenhagen is outragious expencive compared to the rest of the country. Lolland Is imo the cheapest (houses/for homeowners) I lived in all the regions in denmark Bornholm don't count :D also even that we are so "small there is like 5 overall major speaking accents and people here have different attitudes. "jyder" are more proud, Practical but more chilled. Copenhagen/sjælland people are more forward fast speaking and trendy. though you can clealy hear the difference from where people are from on Sjælland-north/south. The outskirts of denmark is where accents are very strong Like people living on Bornholm can even be hard to understand for the rest of the population. Fyn/lolland has a somewhat similar accent. This statement might trigger some people ofc we are all uniqe in our own way but this is only "common" thinking for a broad opinion. very South/north jylland has also hard dialects to understand. I think as a foreinger it would be hard to understand danish people living cross the country from Copenhagen.
i love the vid, but i have a note, things i copenhagen(sjælland) is expensive, the same tv you can get most cheaper in jutland (jylland), and you can use pricerunner in Denmark to for things :) stroh rom from Gremany is 80 procent, try that :)
You should get a cask strength whisky then. They are normally above 55% and they taste like heaven. You can always open it with a drop of water.
You know I’d forgotten I had some cask whisky at Trolden Distillery in Kolding. It was intense.
I did an analysis of the tax burden between the UK and Denmark and found that Denmark was almost identical to the UK but provided more services to its population. Do I have an explanation ?? Not really. I somewhat suspect the UK Govt is spending on items that are very costly, and yet un-productive, whilst the Danish Government chooses to focus on Education, elderly care, and children's early care. When young children are well taken care of their parents are at work and producing tax revenue (something the UK Government simply doesn't grasp) additionally investing in education produces a more productive economy that generates more taxes..I suspect that what is true for the UK economy is also true for the US - too many poorly paid and poorly educated workers are not generating enough income tax revenue. The cost of energy in Denmark is designed to encourage consumers to 'hunt out' cheaper forms of energy, and can be seen as a 'deliberate' policy - if energy costs you a lot you want to use less of it one way or another. Very interesting Vlog. My thanks.
Any chance, if not already done so, of you trying Stroh Rum 80% from Austria.
Enjoying it straight is the best.
You should try Stroh rum. It's 80% alcohol. Very popular in Germany. It's an Austrian brand. I can see Bilka has it.
Pampero Anniversario tastes a lot better!
About the meal: Did you know Denmark is producing enough food to feed 15 million people? 3 times higher than the population. Maybe this is the reason to the cheaper food? We don't have to use transport to bring it around in the country plus we are exporting much.
From Germany you may buy Ratzeputz Bitter, which is 58%. It gives an initial chock but then taste reasonably. ;-)
There are several taxes on multimedia items, not just salestax. There might be a few 100 kr in difference just because og country, but I definately contribute a lot of it to taxes. You could most likely do an entire video just on taxes! A more curious one is our “nut taxes”. It’s nuts!
Im surpriced america is that small..
You always picture america ishuge, but is not that big
Feels like the same as europe and africa, not that many days in a car
With the electronics it would make more sense to look at eu prices, after all we can just order in germany and save around 10-20% on most
And the shipment is cheaper then from dk 🤣
Gas is for heating? or also cooking? Because I am happy I live in Odense and get heat from fjernvarme, as that was like 3-4 times more then what our familie use. Of course I dont know you house size.
I've always been curious about all this myself. However, I'd like to see actual numbers for the mobile phone and internet, as if you didn't have the benefit from your jobs.
Lithuanian here, Samanė is a slang for literally moonshine. Samagon as known in eastern Europe.
Good way to compare it.
Just one note, most workplaces dont have the option to get lunch paid via your paycheck, it is mostly for officeworkplaces and then not all of them.
A MacBook in Denmark also uses the Danish/Nordic letters, and so may be a small production? I don't use a Mac so I really don't care ;-)
Another size comparing I know is this. Denmark is the size of Maryland while Norway is slightly larger than New Mexico. Just saying :D
When you are comparing Electronics doesn't Denmark have far superior consumer protection vs the US?
Electronic goods have 2 years warranty in EU vs 1 year in US... It explains some price difference
Fun to see. I've always thought the US was significantly cheaper than Denmark. Remember to address the wage difference. I might be wrong, but I think in Denmark you make significantly more than in the US if you don't have an education. And in the US you make significantly more than in Denmark if you have the right education (doctor, nurse, any STEM field, programmer, etc.)
no actually programmers in usa acording to google make an average of about 86k USD in 2019 where as in denmark you have an average of 87k USD so its about the same slightly higher in denmark.
Engineers are a similar situation in many cases based on the field but yes other than that I think its decently correct. A big part of why the salaries have gone so high in US for those fields is due to it being expected that you have a huge student debt where as in denmark you will have had a salary from the government during the school years. Some might still take student loans but they are tiny compared to USA and with much better rates generally.
One of my best friends back in america has been a doctor for years and says he will probably be paying off his debt for at least 15 more years if everything goes perfectly. if not then it might be even longer
Computers are more expensive because the keyboard the Danish keyboard pc is limited in production numbers.
Try comparing prizes on life-saving surgery.
Mate we all dont have jobs where we eat in at the company , your statistical analysis is so off !! Denmark is the 9th most expensive place on the planet Chicargo is no where near that my friend
Amazing video! Love when you compare the U.S and Denmark! 😃
Thanks!
Dont forget about our welfare system, you pay more tax however you will get healthcare "for free" without need of an expensive ensurance ;)
Hey man, I am also living in Lyngby. Your video is fantastic and helped a lot to me to make very important decisions in my life.
Remember to count in the life jacket every child in Copehagen wears on their way to school. The gay city ruled by the mob.
4:20 to my knowledge, before workplaces had lunch, most people would bring a lunchbox
Fun thing about the food essentials, in Denmark the food you get isnt pumped full of addatives that really isnt fit for human consumption however thats what your gonna get in the US cause the FDA really doesnt seem to care about the people same goes does the US goverment as a whole to be fair
Interesting, I thought Denmark was more expensive compared to Chicago.
Housing much more expensive e today in Chicago land, also for renting!
Oh boy, you really slaughtered the names of the different Danish cities lol. Great video, though!
elecricity is diffren beacuse in us you have 110volt and denmark 220volt so ofcourse you got a diffrence. so it is cheaper as you get double amount of volt in denmark vs usa
The proletariat cannot afford live in Copenhagen so they live in Malmö and commute by the train.
but what about the pay, how much ore little do you earn compared to Chigago, i know it would maybe be a full video to cover it but i am curius. :D
Hmm not sure if it would have done much but you probably should have had a 2 parter of the daily item bills one where you compare with the discount and one without.
one small thing. Did you define hat the Danish "pant" on bottles as ome would otherwise assume you meant heavy breathing..
“The burn came out my nose” Got me laughing hard 😂😂😂 Great video 👍
I have been to the us many times, and in fact that the americans do not take vat into the price is very confusing. Are they traying to make us not see what taxes are ore do thay whant us to belive that it is a bad thing (sorry my spelling)
well this was in copenhagen where its twice as expensive if you were living in the northen region on jutland, but overall seems normal