High prices and cheap quality.

Poland is a very expensive country in which to live. Capitalism is still relatively new in the ex-eastern bloc and consumerism has not quite taken hold.

If your diet consists mainly of cabbage, you live in a tiny flat in a block which you rent from the government, you spend your evenings watching TV and you don't need western type goods or electronics then I suppose for most Poles, yes, life is cheap. But if you aspire to anything not typically Polish then expect to pay well over the odds. I bought a courgette yesterday and it cost me the equivalent of one pound 20p. A small bottle of HP (only found in some hypermarkets) is just over four pounds. A pot of pesto will set you back nearly a fiver. Mobiles cost well over twice what they do in the UK, upgrades are given only every two years with just a minimal selection of old models. Many mobile phone shop owners get their pals in Britain to buy in bulk from places like Argos and then sell them here for a fortune, they even sell the two-pin European adaptors alongside the handsets! Even the main dealers like Nokia in Lodz charge two and a half times what the same phones cost in the UK. Why? I have no idea. Landlines, the Polish national telephone company TP (Telekomunikacja Polska) is apparently the most expensive in the world after Japan.

Antiques are few on the ground and horribly expensive. Flea markets exist but consist mainly of over-priced junk with very little of interest to be had. Books are also pricier despite being made of cheap quality paper. Generally, all Polish goods are high in price and cheap in quality. And there is very little choice.

Cars are often bought from Western Europe and advertised for sale in Poland at ridiculous prices on online auctions... I've seen the same cars advertised for over a year... sitting there at the same silly prices for months on end. Even complete write-offs are advertised at ludicrous figures... who's going to pay thousands of pounds for a write-off? And yet they is an abundance of them (another sign of the carnage on Polish roads). In Polish there is no word for Bargain.