In one of my previous articles I wrote about the great savings that can be got from going to Northern Ireland, How things have changed in the space of 3 months.

A look at the prices now in Southern Ireland.

Baby products, a lot of people, I included, went up north to buy baby products, this was probably the biggest saving up in Northern Ireland, now the Irish retailer is aggressively cutting prices, the Republic of Ireland has now cheaper prices, Superquinn has baby milk at around 15% less than the Northern price, not only that baby foods are the same price, now the cost savings are non existent traveling up from Dublin.

Property, property prices are still falling, David Mac Williams, a top Irish economist believes current prices are inflated by about 100% if you look at market fundamentals, same house in Galway suburbs in one of these horrible mass produced houses can cost around 350,000 euro but in the States a beautiful property with a pool could cost half that, with an area with better infrastructure and same wages, a house in the middle of nowhere with no space versus a place where you can have a life, a lot of the apartments and houses built during the boom were cheap, tasteless , cramped and overpriced due to buying hysteria with nothing taken into account if Irish economy hit bad times You can get better property in Europe in countries with lower unemployment, how will the Irish punter be able to pay for their over priced property in the future, so prices will further fall especially if unemployment reaches the expected 17.5% in 2011.

Junk food Now, we do get a few snacks when we go up North, what I can say is that I find Tesco heavily discounts junk food, or what I call crap food, but is less likely to have specials on wholesome good food like Dunnes Stores and Super valu. There is a price war down South at the moment and you can live cheaper here if shop around.

Still Booze is cheaper across the border, but has risen about 10% due to currency fluctuations, actually Northern Ireland has gotten 10% more expensive in last 3 months.

Restaurants are really struggling, prices have been slashed by 20 to 40%, a lot are fighting back with specials 7 days a week, the once bustling restaurant scene is now very quiet, places have cut back with staff, I have spoken to many business owners and the word is 2009 about survival.

Working in the retail trade and speaking to other business owners its very tough, the consumer is bargaining down like I have never seen before, margins are tight.