[Anonymous]

I was curious to know how many posters think that the austerity measures will affect them in any significant way.
I suppose that there are not many, if any funcionarios on this site, they will see their pay cut and adjustments in working hours.

Will expats be relitively unscathed or not?

I havent formed my own opinion as yet, it is still early days.

Fred.

[logan]

All utilities from 1st September will cost 3% more as will most food stuffs, and anything else you buy or use.
Medical care is being cut back, 10% costs for prescriptions, police officers laid off, street cleaning refuse cut, in fact all public services slashed. Community charges and taxes increased.
Every facet of life in Spain is and will cost everyone more money.

[Anonymous]

but with the pound rising expats receiving a pension and transfering to euro’s will have a little easier time and not notice as much

[Anonymous]

Costs are rising all over the world, cuts are also happening right left and center, there is no place to hide, I think that the important thing is to have realistic expectations, for instances in the country where I reside (1st world country) they pick up the garbage once a week, I believed in Madrid they used to pick it up daily and now they change it, was it realistic to expect to be picked up daily?? so why complaint, perhaps because they were used to do it and now they take it away.

There are many examples like this such as: surgery waiting periods, tax increases, medical coverage increases, poor service, civil servants, etc etc. I ti s not a perfect world and Spain is not an exception, so where to go??

I believe that each of us have to decide how and were to reside with realistic expectations and be flexible for changes as there will be more coming.

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

[Anonymous]

Increase or decrease of exchange rate shoud not be taken into consideration Do factor this in but no more

The long terms forum users will know how risky it is to assume a certain level of exchange rate .

[katy]

@Jaime wrote:

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

Rubbish, said by someone who hasn’t been poor in Spain or probably spent a winter there. It may be warmer than some other countries but it is still bloody cold in winter. Not many Western counties where you have to queue up for food parcels because they have no benefits. Perhaps you should ask some of those people their opinions.

[DBMarcos99]

Unfortunately food parcels are becoming a part of life in most countries. Yet we still keep giving billions to the Banksters 🙄

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-18824460

[katy]

Yes these “food banks” seem to have caught on in the UK. Have seen one group collecting outside Waitrose. (whats up with Lidl 😉 )

I am a loss to understand why there should be a need for these in the UK with such a generous benefits system 🙄 Different from Spain where many families have no income whatsoever!

SKY news did a feature on one…a couple with 2 kids who “often did without food to feed the kids” 🙄 They were shown loading carrier bags from the food bank into a newish car, says it all really Someone remind me how much benefit a couple with 2 kids get ❓

[Anonymous]

@katy wrote:

@Jaime wrote:

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

Rubbish, said by someone who hasn’t been poor in Spain or probably spent a winter there. It may be warmer than some other countries but it is still bloody cold in winter. Not many Western counties where you have to queue up for food parcels because they have no benefits. Perhaps you should ask some of those people their opinions.

The only people who come out with that old chestnut are the ones who are still living in the UK, or those that havent a clue what hardship it is to live in Spain, or the seriously deranged.

[Anonymous]

Katy and fern999,

The way I took this comment and the way I meant it when I posted is, that there are other countries/cities that are also hard to live in with the economy the way it is, so the comment is that there are other places that could be harder to reside if you are poor than Spain, not that Spain is great to reside when you are poor.

Believe me it is no fun to live anywhere when one is poor, but there are some places better than others and I don’t think Spain is the worse in that case !!!!

[Chopera]

@Jaime wrote:

Costs are rising all over the world, cuts are also happening right left and center, there is no place to hide, I think that the important thing is to have realistic expectations, for instances in the country where I reside (1st world country) they pick up the garbage once a week, I believed in Madrid they used to pick it up daily and now they change it, was it realistic to expect to be picked up daily?? so why complaint, perhaps because they were used to do it and now they take it away.

There are many examples like this such as: surgery waiting periods, tax increases, medical coverage increases, poor service, civil servants, etc etc. I ti s not a perfect world and Spain is not an exception, so where to go??

I believe that each of us have to decide how and were to reside with realistic expectations and be flexible for changes as there will be more coming.

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

It doesn’t make much difference whether the rubbish is collected daily or weekly – they still have to collect the same amount of rubbish and it still takes the same amount of resources. In Madrid we still get our rubbish picked up every day. I suspect it’s because here nearly everyone lives in large blocks of flats and goes down and puts their rubbish in wheely bins outside, ready for the dust cart to quickly pick it up. If they collected it on a weekly basis we’d end up with the rubbish piled high outside flats once a week.

[Anonymous]

@Chopera wrote:

@Jaime wrote:

Costs are rising all over the world, cuts are also happening right left and center, there is no place to hide, I think that the important thing is to have realistic expectations, for instances in the country where I reside (1st world country) they pick up the garbage once a week, I believed in Madrid they used to pick it up daily and now they change it, was it realistic to expect to be picked up daily?? so why complaint, perhaps because they were used to do it and now they take it away.

There are many examples like this such as: surgery waiting periods, tax increases, medical coverage increases, poor service, civil servants, etc etc. I ti s not a perfect world and Spain is not an exception, so where to go??

I believe that each of us have to decide how and were to reside with realistic expectations and be flexible for changes as there will be more coming.

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

It doesn’t make much difference whether the rubbish is collected daily or weekly – they still have to collect the same amount of rubbish and it still takes the same amount of resources. In Madrid we still get our rubbish picked up every day. I suspect it’s because here nearly everyone lives in large blocks of flats and goes down and puts their rubbish in wheely bins outside, ready for the dust cart to quickly pick it up. If they collected it on a weekly basis we’d end up with the rubbish piled high outside flats once a week.

I’m not sure you thought the thing through about the rubbish pickups. The numbers of staff needed to pick up trash every day instead of once every week will be seven fold. This is totally disregarding the fact of other running costs like fuel, wear and tear on machinery etc. There are however a difference that it’s not hygeniec to keep rubbish around in countries with hotter climates but that’s besides the point.

[Chopera]

@Ardun wrote:

@Chopera wrote:

@Jaime wrote:

Costs are rising all over the world, cuts are also happening right left and center, there is no place to hide, I think that the important thing is to have realistic expectations, for instances in the country where I reside (1st world country) they pick up the garbage once a week, I believed in Madrid they used to pick it up daily and now they change it, was it realistic to expect to be picked up daily?? so why complaint, perhaps because they were used to do it and now they take it away.

There are many examples like this such as: surgery waiting periods, tax increases, medical coverage increases, poor service, civil servants, etc etc. I ti s not a perfect world and Spain is not an exception, so where to go??

I believe that each of us have to decide how and were to reside with realistic expectations and be flexible for changes as there will be more coming.

As Someone said in another site:

“I rather be poor and warm in Spain, than poor and cold somewhere else”

It doesn’t make much difference whether the rubbish is collected daily or weekly – they still have to collect the same amount of rubbish and it still takes the same amount of resources. In Madrid we still get our rubbish picked up every day. I suspect it’s because here nearly everyone lives in large blocks of flats and goes down and puts their rubbish in wheely bins outside, ready for the dust cart to quickly pick it up. If they collected it on a weekly basis we’d end up with the rubbish piled high outside flats once a week.

I’m not sure you thought the thing through about the rubbish pickups. The numbers of staff needed to pick up trash every day instead of once every week will be seven fold. This is totally disregarding the fact of other running costs like fuel, wear and tear on machinery etc. There are however a difference that it’s not hygeniec to keep rubbish around in countries with hotter climates but that’s besides the point.

A dust cart can only carry a certain amount of rubbish and the amount of rubbish generated won’t change. So it will take the same amount of trips per week between each residencial area and the tip to remove that same amount of rubbish regardless of whether it is done all on one day of the week or spread out over 5 days of the week. The difference is that on a weekly collection the dust cart would end up covering a smaller residencial area (by a fifth) each night since each area would have generated 5 times more more rubbish.

[Anonymous]

[/quote]

A dust cart can only carry a certain amount of rubbish and the amount of rubbish generated won’t change. So it will take the same amount of trips per week between each residencial area and the tip to remove that same amount of rubbish regardless of whether it is done all on one day of the week or spread out over 5 days of the week. The difference is that on a weekly collection the dust cart would end up covering a smaller residencial area (by a fifth) each night since each area would have generated 5 times more more rubbish.[/quote]

I should mention that I don’t know how it’s done in the bigger cities but in the smaller towns in Mallorca they go around and manually pick up one small paperbin bag at a time. They even manually shake them around to see if you have thrown something else than the accepted pay loads. I cannot for the life of me understand how that would be more efficient than stopping once every week at that place and pick up a big dumpster and shredding it in the back. Sure the amount of trash will probably be about the same. The time for the lorry to stop etc will not go much quicker for one small bag than for a big dumpster. It’s easy to see where you save time and time is money in countries where salaries are the biggest costs of running a business.

But you are right that the thrash lorry can only handle a certain amount until it needs to be emptied.

[Chopera]

@Ardun wrote:

A dust cart can only carry a certain amount of rubbish and the amount of rubbish generated won’t change. So it will take the same amount of trips per week between each residencial area and the tip to remove that same amount of rubbish regardless of whether it is done all on one day of the week or spread out over 5 days of the week. The difference is that on a weekly collection the dust cart would end up covering a smaller residencial area (by a fifth) each night since each area would have generated 5 times more more rubbish.[/quote]

I should mention that I don’t know how it’s done in the bigger cities but in the smaller towns in Mallorca they go around and manually pick up one small paperbin bag at a time. They even manually shake them around to see if you have thrown something else than the accepted pay loads. I cannot for the life of me understand how that would be more efficient than stopping once every week at that place and pick up a big dumpster and shredding it in the back. Sure the amount of trash will probably be about the same. The time for the lorry to stop etc will not go much quicker for one small bag than for a big dumpster. It’s easy to see where you save time and time is money in countries where salaries are the biggest costs of running a business.

But you are right that the thrash lorry can only handle a certain amount until it needs to be emptied.[/quote]

In the rural areas of the UK they have tried to implement fortnightly collections, so I’m guessing there is some advantage in areas where the dust cart has to travel further between each residence. Or it might be a case of forcing people to take their own rubbish to the tip!

[Igurisu]

@Chopera wrote:

In the rural areas of the UK they have tried to implement fortnightly collections, so I’m guessing there is some advantage in areas where the dust cart has to travel further between each residence. Or it might be a case of forcing people to take their own rubbish to the tip!

Its not just in rural areas, its pretty much standard across most of the UK. In our case, the waste collection is alternated week by week, one week is recycle week, the next is non recycle week. That means one week one wheelie bin, the next week two wheelie bins and so on.

If they were to collect all three bins every week, it would be more time consuming for the collectors as they have more bins to load up to the wagon. In most cases, certainly for our own, the bins do not get filled after one week, so being emptied every other week is fine. This means the wagons can process the waste faster which will allow their run/area to be bigger than if they were emptying 3 bins at every house.

I would guess its a similar situation to the one you are discussing.

[Chopera]

@Igurisu wrote:

@Chopera wrote:

In the rural areas of the UK they have tried to implement fortnightly collections, so I’m guessing there is some advantage in areas where the dust cart has to travel further between each residence. Or it might be a case of forcing people to take their own rubbish to the tip!

Its not just in rural areas, its pretty much standard across most of the UK. In our case, the waste collection is alternated week by week, one week is recycle week, the next is non recycle week. That means one week one wheelie bin, the next week two wheelie bins and so on.

If they were to collect all three bins every week, it would be more time consuming for the collectors as they have more bins to load up to the wagon. In most cases, certainly for our own, the bins do not get filled after one week, so being emptied every other week is fine. This means the wagons can process the waste faster which will allow their run/area to be bigger than if they were emptying 3 bins at every house.

I would guess its a similar situation to the one you are discussing.

Yes that makes sense if everyone has a wheelie bin outside their house and it doesn’t get filled up each week. However in Spain (and I think quite a few European countries) there are usually communal bins that always get filled up. I personally find the use of communal bins much better. Instead of having rubbish stack up in your house you just take it down to the communal bins each night (in fact in our block of flats we pay the consierge to come round to each flat each night and collect it)

[katy]

Yes I prefer the Spanish method, communal bins emptied every day.

[Igurisu]

@katy wrote:

Yes I prefer the Spanish method, communal bins emptied every day.

I would also prefer the Spanish method if we had any choice. As it is we have 3 wheelie bins and two large tubs that we have to store on our property. It is a real pain, they take up a lot of room and I’m forever shuffling them around to get down the drive, into the garden, into the garage etc.

[GarySFBCN]

Regarding garbage pickup, some of the communal bins in the street in Spain look like health hazards.

Here in San Francisco, we have trash, recycle and compost pickup twice each week. All of the bins are the ‘wheely’ type.

[Chopera]

In Madrid we’re now getting recyclable waste picked up 3 times a week rather than every day

[Author]

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