Monday, May 31, 2010

Shopping in Ecuador: part 1

I thought I would keep track of a month's worth of expenses, I think it will be a good portrait of what life is like here.

Monday is the day we shop at Supermaxi for El Sendero. Supermaxi is a large supermarket (I will try to get a picture next week), that is very modern. It reminds me of the grocery stores back home. Except that some praices are much better, and some prices... WOAH NELLY, I am lucky if I don't get a heart attack. Do not try to buy peanut butter or tabasco sauce in Ecuador.
We take a taxi to supermaxi, then take a taxi back to El Sendero we we unload the food and haul it up to flights of stairs.
After we put it away, we usually take our two market bags of food and walk home.

Today we took a taxi because we had to buy paper plates and wood chips (not pictured) and the wood chips were heavy and bulky.

Since we didn't walk home, we also did not stop at the local tienda where we buy our fruits, or the market where we buy our veggies.

Anyhow, here are the pics of what we did buy:



We spent 65.00 which is about what we spend at supermaxi each week. We have a challenge though to only buy things there that we can not buy at the tiendas. Sometimes, for convenience, we ignore our challenge. I can get brown sugar almost anywhere!

See anything interesting? Have a question? Want to know how much a specific item cost? (The snickers were a STEAL! Normally 10.00 they were only five! That made them about what we would have paid in the states! Now I am wondering if I should have bought an extra!) Just ask away.
Today was a boring shopping day. Not all that different than what we would have done back home.

1 comment:

Renee said...

Of course you should have bought more Snickers, but only if you have a place to hide them. Is it cheaper to buy in bulk there? Do they even sell 50lb bags of Banana flour? Do they have sales flyers? Do they use coupons?