I’ve posted on here before, I think, on having the same perception when I moved over here – big, clunky, inefficient, well just about everything!
carlislematthew is right – the UK isn’t a paragon of fabulous, intelligent people, but it is much harder to get caught in the ‘debt trap’ over there, simply because its harder to get a line of credit.
Having said that, its been 6 years since I lived there, so I have don’t know if things have changed.
One thing hasn’t changed, or at least amongst my UK friends – people haven’t grown up with the “spend, spend, spend!” mentality. Huge wasteful consumer durables are ignored as being, well, huge and wasteful.
People are more concerned with energy conservation, smaller cars (if a car at all iin a big city like London), houses in line with family needs (few McMansions in Greater London – there simply isn’t the land for them), and living within your means.
A couple of things, I think, help explain this:
A) the cost of gas in the UK, and many other European countries, has been very high for a very long time – gas in the UK has been over $3 a gallon since the mid-1980’s. Consequently, most people need to find the smallest, cheapest transport, have energy-efficient household goods and cheap-to-run houses because otherwise they would simply not be able to survive.
B) historically, Europe is a generation behind the US in its ‘hard times’.
The US had the Great Depression in the 20’s and 30’s, and now most of the people who lived through it have passed, taking with them thier stories and tips on living frugally. There are few alive today to share what its like when things get really tough.
Over in Europe, the ‘hard times’ were the WWII years – so anyone born just before or just after 1939 – 1945 has first-hand knowledge of living frugally. As many parents and grandparents were born at this time, there’s still enough people living today to remember what it was like to live at rock-bottom.
Bear in mind too that in the UK, rationing was still in effect for some things until 1957! Well within the lifetime of many people in the UK.
While Europe was busy picking up the pieces after WWII, the US saw its biggest boom in consumerism and expansion – a direct contrast.
