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!
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 !
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.
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.
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 🌸❄
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...?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 👍😊👍
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
produced in Denmark. Arnbitter is produced in two varieties. The original bitter with the name Arnbitter (with green label) consists of a variety of herbs mixed according to secret recipe. It has an alcohol volume of 50%, and is sold all over the country, the variant Arnbitter Mint (with blue label) Cheers my friend.
You should try some absinthe.. You can get a fairly weak version at 60% or you could go all in and try the strong ones. Be advised that they go to 90% and that is where I had my last absinthe, and I can not recommend that you start with a strong absinthe all at once, but get a good idea of how wild the ride is. But to be honest, it's more fun watching others try out absinthe than to do it oneself. Cheers 😊
some of the reason for why apple, ikea, products etc is more expensive in denmark can also be explained with that the government requires of customer protection when buying products. Extended warranties is at least in norway required when buying products like laptops and mobile phones.
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.
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 click on this video because it peaked my interest for a few reasons, 1. Several years in my life I resigned for many years the northwest side in the city of Chicago. Not suburbia. My grandfather and his brothers were tradesmen/businessman. interior decorators painters sculptors architects. I’m second generation American born. Mother and father 1st born. My mothers side, 100% danish. How can I apply for danish or German citizenship using my grandparents. I’ve herd of countless story’s of my mothers side, before coming to America being commercial fisherman & ship builders in and around copenhagen Denmark. My family is literally scattered all over the world and many I haven’t kept in contact with because of some old major family feud. But now I’m older, things changed. Reconnect and learn our history. Any positive or constructive information is welcomed, Thank you for this video.
I think here in Denmark it is required by law, that if you show a non-taxed price, you have to explicitly write its without VAT/Tax. the mobile and Internet, is often covered by the "Multimedia skat", where we pay upwards to 2500 Dkk a year, so we basically "rent" it from the company you are a employee of ( this is often in private companies and in goverment jobs ).
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 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...
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
Ha, I am working on a new (not as long as the last one) intro right now. I hope to have it done soon, but for now I decided to use this quick stopgap until I get there since most people skip the current intro due to the length. And thanks :).
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.
Note: The price tag on a house may be higher in Denmark, but this is only because of the interest rate on a fixed-rate 30-year house bond loan is negative. - and you may borrow up to approx. 90-100%
I love your video! I found it very helpful because I'm moving to Denmark in 6 moths. And if you ever go to Lithuania again and like to try more alcohol drinks from there you should try some of Pakruojis manor distillery. They have very interesting rage of drinks. My favourite is cherry brandy (it's very sweet).
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.
If you want to try something else with 50% ABV, get a bottle of danish Arnbitter, which used to be made in Århus (now somewhere else in Denmark). It's sure to warm you up!
Eating out is always deceiving in the US, because you often forget tax and tips as an add on. Plus in terms of expenses, you will have huge costs for healthcare and medicine in the US.
Great job, love to see what you have digging into, once again - a great video, and as always fun to see. In danish "Tak er kun et fattigt ord, så jeg siger tusind tak !" .... right ?
Looking forward to the Housing Compare. However, you mentioned that the place you lived in Chicago is one of the cheaper places housing wise. Keep in mind, that Copenhagen is the most expensive place to live in DK.
Josh , make more videos about cost differences in us and Denmark , I'm a Romanian been in Denmark for 12 years , but go deeper man , i wanna see a full analysis like where do you actually live better from a financial point of view . but include all the stuff , healthcare , education , all . lets say me and my family 1 kid of 2 years old , wanna move to Chicago . make more of this videos.
A typical internet connection in Denmark, costs around $40. And then the chance of it being way faster, than in the US, is great. Electronics are usually way more expensive in Denmark, compared to the US. My estimate, 25-40%. And that's not only for Denmark, but all Europe, although Denmark is more expensive, than most European countries.
That said we have much better waranties here in Denmark. As a free baseline. Just the fact that if your product dies within 2 years, you get either the full amount you paid back or a free replacement (in case repair is not possible) simply outweighs the benefit from having cheaper electronics. And no company can overrule this. Even if they say you dropped water into your phone, if you can get a third-party repair salesman to confirm you had not, they must follow the rules and regulations. Apart from Apple most other companies don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to fight the warranty, so they just replace it free of charge. Over the last 12 years, I've gotten fully replaced three chairs, five Graphics cards, two CPU's, one motherboard, three PSU's a case and two phones due to this extended warranty. Of those many of them I just received the money back because they could not replace the item. Or received a better version for same reason.
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.
Hey, I am someone actually lives in Chicago. For one transportation, we have the CTA which covers a vast majority of the city. You can literally come off the bus or train Infront or near your job. Especially the loop since that train goes around the inner city. And yes we have city passes to monthly passes. Majority of people drive in Chicago, we pay between 3 to 4 USD per 3 liters/ a us gallon. For utilities it depends where you live in Chicago, I live in the Southside and I pay around 200usd on monthly utilities and about 108usd every two months on trash and water utilities. For food. We have giant local markets like Pete's Market, cermark produced, etc(people rarely buy in jewel osco. no one tends to like big box stores here, except for Aldi... That store is a godsend). Us Chicagoans we usually pay around 70 to 200usd on groceries. Since taxes are pretty high in Chicago currently. Also in Chicago, we tend to dislike people who say they are from Chicago but live in the suburbs which is like sometimes a 30min drive.(lol) People who live in the suburbs usually are upper middle to upper classes, they usually pay lower in utilities, gas and groceries since taxes are pretty low. For housing, the houses are between 100.000 to 400.000 in the suburbs. For property taxes, they pay a premium (not sure on the number but i Know some pay 2000 plus on monthly taxes) For Chicago housing. We usually have houses in the South side for 100.000 to 300.000 for the North side house can go up to a million because majority of upper middle to wealthy live in the north side. But for property taxes in Chicago. South side it tends to be between 500 to 2000 everyone few months. For north side it can jump to 4000 every few months. So depending where you live in Chicago. Your daily lives will vary depending on your income
That is why we always say Chicagoland :). We lived in the burbs for 8 years working downtown before moving to DK and are very familiar with public transport. Metra and CTA not being connected is a massive difference compared to DK. The equivalent S train, Metro, bus here have multiple transfer points with the same costs whatever combination you choose. All that matters is the zones you travel, not what mode of transport you use. Also the CTA is not well connected at Union Station and I worked in the west loop blocks from CTA metro. The system in DK is definitely superior :).
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
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.
concerning gas prices: The gas used in Denmark is much more refined and therefor more expensive, where as in the US your gas could litterally be a stack of dead cows in a barrel of whiskey
A very important difference to keep in mind, is how much you get paid for "normal" jobs in each place. Because then the danish philosophy for living conditions and such become even more pronounced/clear. Where as in the U.S. it is much more kind to the rich, here in Denmark our systems are much more kind to the "poor" and normal foke. We earn a lot more than people with the same jobs in the U.S. do. Once you start researching more, then it becomes even clearer that living conditions here in Denmark truely are some of the best in the world, and that compaired to the U.S. the conditions here are amazing! (except when it comes to weather...)
Thanks for letting me know. I have updated the blur on TH-cam and hopefully it will finish rendering a new version soon. I also don’t know why your comments get deleted, TH-cam is odd sometimes. I do think they dump a lot of comments with links, but not always. Hard do understand when and why.
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 :-)
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!
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
9:45 Clothes are one thing that have always been a "steal" to buy when you travel to the US. If you travel to the US and you need new clothes anyway just travel light and buy what you need when you get there. - I don't know why but watches and computers/laptops are the only (or were the last time I checked 2005ish) two items that you could buy online in the US and have them shipped to Denmark without having to pay told. The only disadvantage from buying a laptop is the missing native letter keys 'æ','ø' and 'å' that you would get if you bought it in Denmark. Some laptops (not Apply ofcourse) are able to have the keyboard swapped after purchase though.
You can actually order a Danish keyboard on a mac laptop in the US if you buy online and have it shipped to an address. But they of course don't have them in stores. I think some of the 'cheap' clothes in the US are also very poor in quality compared to DK which can also account for the cost difference.
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.
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 👍
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.
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.
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 :).
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 :).
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...?
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 :).
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 😊
Really good comparison, and clearly a lot of work went into this. Thank you!
Thanks, and you are welcome :).
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.
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 :)
Very nice break down. And incredible work on making sure that it was as comparable as possible.
Thanks for saying that! Glad you enjoyed.
It would be super interesting to compare this to the average paycheck in both places :)
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.
What a great breakdown of some common costs. Thanks a bunch. Thumbs up.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
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.
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
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.
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 :)
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
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.
“The burn came out my nose” Got me laughing hard 😂😂😂 Great video 👍
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
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.
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.
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.
WOW 😲 ! Blew my mind 🥴 ! With the danish 25% sales-tax (VAT), I was sure that Denmark would loose out on everything ! Very very interesting 👍😊👍 !
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.
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 :)
Great video, the comparisons worked really well
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
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.
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.
produced in Denmark. Arnbitter is produced in two varieties. The original bitter with the name Arnbitter (with green label) consists of a variety of herbs mixed according to secret recipe. It has an alcohol volume of 50%, and is sold all over the country, the variant Arnbitter Mint (with blue label) Cheers my friend.
You should try some absinthe..
You can get a fairly weak version at 60% or you could go all in and try the strong ones.
Be advised that they go to 90% and that is where I had my last absinthe, and I can not recommend that you start with a strong absinthe all at once, but get a good idea of how wild the ride is.
But to be honest, it's more fun watching others try out absinthe than to do it oneself.
Cheers 😊
Really a well done "job" crunching numbers!. Fun to watch-
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.
some of the reason for why apple, ikea, products etc is more expensive in denmark can also be explained with that the government requires of customer protection when buying products. Extended warranties is at least in norway required when buying products like laptops and mobile phones.
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.
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 click on this video because it peaked my interest for a few reasons, 1. Several years in my life I resigned for many years the northwest side in the city of Chicago. Not suburbia. My grandfather and his brothers were tradesmen/businessman. interior decorators painters sculptors architects. I’m second generation American born. Mother and father 1st born. My mothers side, 100% danish. How can I apply for danish or German citizenship using my grandparents. I’ve herd of countless story’s of my mothers side, before coming to America being commercial fisherman & ship builders in and around copenhagen Denmark. My family is literally scattered all over the world and many I haven’t kept in contact with because of some old major family feud. But now I’m older, things changed. Reconnect and learn our history. Any positive or constructive information is welcomed, Thank you for this video.
Lithuanian here, Samanė is a slang for literally moonshine. Samagon as known in eastern Europe.
I think here in Denmark it is required by law, that if you show a non-taxed price, you have to explicitly write its without VAT/Tax.
the mobile and Internet, is often covered by the "Multimedia skat", where we pay upwards to 2500 Dkk a year, so we basically "rent" it from the company you are a employee of ( this is often in private companies and in goverment jobs ).
Very interesting! As always 😊
Just out of curiosity, how is electricity produced in Chicago? Hydro? Nuclear?
From Germany you may buy Ratzeputz Bitter, which is 58%. It gives an initial chock but then taste reasonably. ;-)
Excellent video, one of your best.
Thanks, that means a lot. I am working hard to make small improvements and get better :).
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.
Amazing video! Love when you compare the U.S and Denmark! 😃
Thanks!
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...
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
New intro and 4k?! Great video as always!
Ha, I am working on a new (not as long as the last one) intro right now. I hope to have it done soon, but for now I decided to use this quick stopgap until I get there since most people skip the current intro due to the length. And thanks :).
4:20 to my knowledge, before workplaces had lunch, most people would bring a lunchbox
7:23, But you should include that you get the “pant” back when you return the bottles to the machine!
I love your guys videos. Amazing channel.
Thanks so much!
This is a best video I ever seen about Denmark . Awesome .
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.
Note: The price tag on a house may be higher in Denmark, but this is only because of the interest rate on a fixed-rate 30-year house bond loan is negative. - and you may borrow up to approx. 90-100%
I would love to see how Meyer reacts to that moonshine
I love your video! I found it very helpful because I'm moving to Denmark in 6 moths. And if you ever go to Lithuania again and like to try more alcohol drinks from there you should try some of Pakruojis manor distillery. They have very interesting rage of drinks. My favourite is cherry brandy (it's very sweet).
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.
This was a fantastic episode. The exact kind of breakdown I was looking for. Exceptional episode.
Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed!
....."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 :).
If you want to try something else with 50% ABV, get a bottle of danish Arnbitter, which used to be made in Århus (now somewhere else in Denmark). It's sure to warm you up!
If you can get your hands on some “Riga Balsam” you should definitely try that. It’s a treat. Weird, but a treat.
Oh, I do have some black currant flavored riga balsam from when we traveled to Riga a few years ago. It is odd :).
@@TravelinYoung have never tried a blackcurrant - only the very spicy herbal one. 😊
Try it on Thursday. You have to try stroh 80 rum
Eating out is always deceiving in the US, because you often forget tax and tips as an add on.
Plus in terms of expenses, you will have huge costs for healthcare and medicine in the US.
You guys Got a new intro! Great! 😃
This one is temporary….working on something super cool that should be done soon :).
Thanks for this comparison, must have taken some time.
You are welcome :).
Great job, love to see what you have digging into, once again - a great video, and as always fun to see. In danish "Tak er kun et fattigt ord, så jeg siger tusind tak !" .... right ?
Very nice comparison, well done - poor Miranda :D
Looking forward to the Housing Compare. However, you mentioned that the place you lived in Chicago is one of the cheaper places housing wise. Keep in mind, that Copenhagen is the most expensive place to live in DK.
Josh , make more videos about cost differences in us and Denmark , I'm a Romanian been in Denmark for 12 years , but go deeper man , i wanna see a full analysis like where do you actually live better from a financial point of view . but include all the stuff , healthcare , education , all . lets say me and my family 1 kid of 2 years old , wanna move to Chicago . make more of this videos.
A typical internet connection in Denmark, costs around $40. And then the chance of it being way faster, than in the US, is great.
Electronics are usually way more expensive in Denmark, compared to the US. My estimate, 25-40%.
And that's not only for Denmark, but all Europe, although Denmark is more expensive, than most European countries.
That said we have much better waranties here in Denmark. As a free baseline. Just the fact that if your product dies within 2 years, you get either the full amount you paid back or a free replacement (in case repair is not possible) simply outweighs the benefit from having cheaper electronics.
And no company can overrule this. Even if they say you dropped water into your phone, if you can get a third-party repair salesman to confirm you had not, they must follow the rules and regulations. Apart from Apple most other companies don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to fight the warranty, so they just replace it free of charge.
Over the last 12 years, I've gotten fully replaced three chairs, five Graphics cards, two CPU's, one motherboard, three PSU's a case and two phones due to this extended warranty. Of those many of them I just received the money back because they could not replace the item. Or received a better version for same reason.
The minimum wages here, are higher than in the US. So some of the higher prices are due to those higher wages.
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.
Great video. Thanks for making it.
Thanks, happy to :).
Hey, I am someone actually lives in Chicago.
For one transportation, we have the CTA which covers a vast majority of the city. You can literally come off the bus or train Infront or near your job. Especially the loop since that train goes around the inner city. And yes we have city passes to monthly passes.
Majority of people drive in Chicago, we pay between 3 to 4 USD per 3 liters/ a us gallon.
For utilities it depends where you live in Chicago, I live in the Southside and I pay around 200usd on monthly utilities and about 108usd every two months on trash and water utilities.
For food. We have giant local markets like Pete's Market, cermark produced, etc(people rarely buy in jewel osco. no one tends to like big box stores here, except for Aldi... That store is a godsend). Us Chicagoans we usually pay around 70 to 200usd on groceries. Since taxes are pretty high in Chicago currently.
Also in Chicago, we tend to dislike people who say they are from Chicago but live in the suburbs which is like sometimes a 30min drive.(lol)
People who live in the suburbs usually are upper middle to upper classes, they usually pay lower in utilities, gas and groceries since taxes are pretty low. For housing, the houses are between 100.000 to 400.000 in the suburbs. For property taxes, they pay a premium (not sure on the number but i Know some pay 2000 plus on monthly taxes)
For Chicago housing. We usually have houses in the South side for 100.000 to 300.000 for the North side house can go up to a million because majority of upper middle to wealthy live in the north side. But for property taxes in Chicago. South side it tends to be between 500 to 2000 everyone few months. For north side it can jump to 4000 every few months.
So depending where you live in Chicago. Your daily lives will vary depending on your income
Ah for rent... Since alot of people rent here. It can vary from 640 USD to 1800 USD in the south side to 800 to 2000+ USD in the north side
That is why we always say Chicagoland :).
We lived in the burbs for 8 years working downtown before moving to DK and are very familiar with public transport. Metra and CTA not being connected is a massive difference compared to DK. The equivalent S train, Metro, bus here have multiple transfer points with the same costs whatever combination you choose. All that matters is the zones you travel, not what mode of transport you use. Also the CTA is not well connected at Union Station and I worked in the west loop blocks from CTA metro. The system in DK is definitely superior :).
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
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.
concerning gas prices: The gas used in Denmark is much more refined and therefor more expensive, where as in the US your gas could litterally be a stack of dead cows in a barrel of whiskey
as far as i remember Denmark is size-wise in between the state of Maryland and West Virginia
A very important difference to keep in mind, is how much you get paid for "normal" jobs in each place.
Because then the danish philosophy for living conditions and such become even more pronounced/clear.
Where as in the U.S. it is much more kind to the rich, here in Denmark our systems are much more kind to the "poor" and normal foke. We earn a lot more than people with the same jobs in the U.S. do.
Once you start researching more, then it becomes even clearer that living conditions here in Denmark truely are some of the best in the world, and that compaired to the U.S. the conditions here are amazing! (except when it comes to weather...)
Excellent video!
Great comparison! 👍
0:30 Another size fact: The longest domestic flight route in Denmark (Aalborg - Copenhagen) is 27 min. in the air by B737
It would be fun to compare those costs with income as well. To see where it is "more attractive" to live.
Well, less income and more take home pay after taxes. We did do a video about that topic a while ago.
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.
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 TH-cam and hopefully it will finish rendering a new version soon.
I also don’t know why your comments get deleted, TH-cam is odd sometimes. I do think they dump a lot of comments with links, but not always. Hard do understand when and why.
Very interesting topic.
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 :-)
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!
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
part of the reason items like a mac cost more in Denmark and Europe in general is that we have longer warranty... not the full reason but part of it
Not true
9:45 Clothes are one thing that have always been a "steal" to buy when you travel to the US. If you travel to the US and you need new clothes anyway just travel light and buy what you need when you get there. - I don't know why but watches and computers/laptops are the only (or were the last time I checked 2005ish) two items that you could buy online in the US and have them shipped to Denmark without having to pay told. The only disadvantage from buying a laptop is the missing native letter keys 'æ','ø' and 'å' that you would get if you bought it in Denmark. Some laptops (not Apply ofcourse) are able to have the keyboard swapped after purchase though.
You can actually order a Danish keyboard on a mac laptop in the US if you buy online and have it shipped to an address. But they of course don't have them in stores. I think some of the 'cheap' clothes in the US are also very poor in quality compared to DK which can also account for the cost difference.
@@TravelinYoung Thank you for responding. Well, then there's no reason not to buy a mac from the US store if that's the case.