I don't know about the own brands being better here, but I may have been spoilt having really good grocery shops. Most of the places I've lived have had fairly decent grocers with decent own brands, and the last few years I lived in the States I lived in
Wegmans territory. If anything, Wegmans' own brand is better than branded items a lot of the time.
Here, I avoid a lot of own brand unless I know it's good. An exception would be the premium own brand (which is something I encountered in the States as well).
As for the original question, I don't know. Are you planning to move here soon, Cheers? There are other options than owning your own car like membership clubs (like Zipcar). We do pretty well without one, but my husband now is leaning towards me getting my UK licence so we can do something like Zipcar for certain errands.
I guess it depends on where you live, but if you're living in a built up area, there's usually a lot of public transport. A lot of places deliver. You might not need a car, and I would figure petrol prices absolutely last in figuring out the cost of living.
Bread here in greater London is usually £1-2. Gregg's sells it pretty cheap. You can get deals on sliced bread like Hovis. I can't give you an idea on milk as I buy organic and we tend to buy small bottles as we don't use it that much. Butter is around £1 for 250 grams, give or take 20p. Eggs depend on what you get will probably be more expensive, but the UK is moving away from using battery hens. And since the standard under the EU for free range are a lot stricter than the US's "cage free", it's not easy to compare. I am thinking that I spend £2-3 on a dozen free range woodland eggs.
I do agree that the quality of processed food is slightly better here, but I don't tend to buy a tonne of it. When we do pick up "American food" it's always shocking to see how fake it tastes. I would say that a lot of whole ingredients are about on equal footing, although there are some things better here and vice versa.
We are not typical, but I would say our food bill has gone up about 25-30% since moving here compared to when we were both in the US together. I do, however, buy things like meat from an independent butcher and have to cater to my husband's need for junk food in his lunch (something I never included in the grocery bill at home).
Some things are a lot cheaper. Cable's cheaper. The phone bill's cheaper. Internet's cheaper. Electric's not. Heating is about the same, but it's not as cold here. So yeah, heating is probably more per unit. You also have to factor in things like the fact you won't need to pay for insurance. You won't be covered by Medicare here, so there's no sense in continuing to pay for it.
Ultimately, you have to decide whether you want to come home enough to make the leap and risk paying a bit more (or less) for your cost of living.
