Bangkok is really cheap!

Thank goodness I live in Thailand and not Norway! A survey of 32 international cities has found that Oslo is the world's most expensive place to live - and, to my delight, Bangkok is the second most affordable city on the globe.

Oslo topped PriceRunner's International Price Comparison survey for the fourth year running. Prices in Oslo were found to be a third more expensive than the global average. Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen took places 4, 6 and 7, respectively.

Not surprisingly for those who have watched in horror as prices soar, Cape Town was found to be the 12th most expensive city in the world. Shocking, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Bangkok came in at number 31 only “out cheapened” by Mumbai, where prices were 27 percent lower than the global average.

The survey looked at a range of products that included everyday items such as milk and petrol as well as luxury items and technology.

Ranking - City - Percentage above or below average

1 Oslo 35.3%
2 Sao Paulo 27.1%
3 Sydney 20.5%
4 Stockholm 15.5%
5 Reykjavik 14.9%
6 Helsinki 11.5%
7 Copenhagen 10.6%
8 Tokyo 9.8%
9 Paris 8.3%
10 Rome 4.4%
11 Dublin 2.0%
12 Cape Town 1.6%
13 Amsterdam 0.5%
14 Brussels -0.1%
15 Vienna -0.2%
16 Athens -0.4%
17 London -0.9%
18 Madrid -1.2%
19 Lisbon -1.2%
20 Buenos Aires -3.0%
21 Moscow -4.8%
22 Budapest -6.1%
23 Berlin -6.7%
24 Warsaw -7.8%
25 Prague -8.1%
26 Vilnius -13.3%
27 New York -14.5%
28 Shanghai -14.8%
29 San Francisco -16.2%
30 Dubai -16.2%
31 Bangkok -19.8%
32 Mumbai -26.9%