Super King Markets
Super King is a small chain here in Southern California with 5 convenient locations if you live in the greater Los Angeles area. For the other palate in the house, they are just too big a conglomerate to be counted under his umbrella of "small local ethnic / international markets." I probably shouldn't tell him that Lotte is like Korean WalMart....
However....
Super King offers us everything Concord Produce (our favorite ethnic / international store up North, by the Wall) did, but yes, with more of a warehouse feel and less of the "everyone who works here is related to each other" feel. That's okay, though....
We're trying to eat really healthy on a really tight budget. I may have mentioned the budget before on this blog: we're shooting for $200 a month on food, which is less than $1 per meal per person. You have to have some planning and creativity to hit that mark. Which is why I suggested "shopping around" for ethnic markets in the first place.
What did we get?
I'm looking at the week's shopping receipt now. I'll divide this into "consumables," i.e. the things we will probably eat or have to toss within a week, and "staples," the things that will last us longer than the week. If we did this right, we should have less than $50 total going to food for the week, i.e. "consumables," and "staples" that last much longer than the week. Let's see how we did!
Consumables:
Item
|
Pounds
|
Dollars
|
Gopi Non-fat Indian Yogurt
|
1
|
2.59
|
Boneless chicken breast
|
3
|
8.49
|
Beef shoulder roast
|
2
|
6.04
|
Apples, Red delicious
|
1
|
0.55
|
Bananas
|
2
|
1.01
|
Beans - green
|
0.55
|
0.54
|
Cabbage, green
|
2
|
1
|
Carrots
|
2
|
1.06
|
Celery
|
(1 bunch)
|
0.5
|
Serrano chiles
|
0.26
|
0.13
|
Cilantro
|
(2 bunches)
|
0.29
|
Cucumbers, Persian
|
0.68
|
0.67
|
Strawberries
|
1
|
1.49
|
Blackberries
|
0.5
|
2.58
|
Eggplant
|
(2 large)
|
1.38
|
Lemons
|
(2 fruit)
|
0.4
|
Limes
|
(7 fruit)
|
0.35
|
Lettuce, green
|
(1 head)
|
0.5
|
Cantaloupe
|
3.51
|
1.16
|
Portabella mushrooms
|
0.23
|
1.15
|
Mushrooms, general
|
0.85
|
2.54
|
Green onions
|
(2 bunches)
|
0.5
|
Onions, white
|
5.09
|
1.68
|
Plums, red
|
1.82
|
0.6
|
Potatoes, red
|
1.75
|
0.43
|
Squash - zuchinni
|
1.21
|
0.6
|
Tomatoes - grape
|
0.8
|
0.79
|
Total food
|
31.25
|
39.02
|
Mind you, that's mostly fresh produce we're talking about, and we got all of it for just under $1 a lb because we shopped in season. I'll have to adjust my recipes to match the season, but it won't be hard, just look at that variety! I can cook almost anything and already have everything I need in the fridge without having to go to the pantry, the store, or the substitution list! Remember, we are shooting for a total food budget of about $50 to hit our "$200 per month" mark. We spent about $40 in "consumables," some of which will carry over to next week, many of which will not. Fortunately, the higher-ticket items like the meat and the yogurt will be fine for most of the month, and the meat is already in the freezer so it perhaps should be counted as a staple. However, for the sake of argument and because I'll repeat this next week with an update, let's move on along to staples, those things that occasionally must be replenished but are generally just there.
Staples
Item
|
Pounds
|
Dollars
|
Cured black olives
|
3
|
5.39
|
Chicken buillion
|
2
|
5.99
|
Black beans (dry)
|
4
|
4.59
|
Shawerma seasoning
|
1
|
2.49
|
Total food
|
10
|
18.46
|
Okay, so cured olives, buillion, and shawerma seasoning are only staples in the first world. I'll readily admit to first world staples if my food budget is still first-world-poverty level. The USDA "thrifty" monthly plan is nearly twice the budget of $200 per month I'm working with - they say a "thrifty" plan costs a couple $375 a month!
Anyway, here it is:
Weekly Breakdown
Consumables: 39.02
Staples: 18.46
Total weekly cost: 57.48
Total projected monthly cost, based on this week alone: $259
Caveats
There are good reasons to not compare our food costs with those of really low-income families. We could afford the up-front cost of nearly $400 for a nice, big fridge with a nice, big freezer. Therefore, we can buy meat in "family size" quantities without worrying about spoilage - we partition out what we will use and when, seal it up in baggies and aluminum foil, and freeze it until we want to cook it.
We also have a fully-stocked pantry with dry beans, flour, yeast, salt, baking soda, etc... and a spice cabinet to rival any ancient royalty. Just because I happen to always have any spice, herb, or seasoning on-hand to make something palatable doesn't mean your average low-income person has those means. Of course, I built most of my spice cabinet off great finds of half-a-pound for 99 cents at ethnic markets, so maybe that's not the best reasoning.
Your very low-income person, someone without a house, apartment, or kitchen, can't cook, and therefore can't make much of my tips and tricks that center strongly on cooking, saving, prepping, and learning the tools to make your own. If you don't have a pan to put over a cook-fire you don't have, there's not much you can do with $20 in your pocket. (But if you have $30, you can buy a gas-fired grill, gas to power it, a cheap knife, and an eggplant to grill on it. I keep an extra $40 in my car's astray just in case I get stranded - the $30 for a decent meal and a new grill that doesn't catch fire every time you light it up count as staples for me when I'm on the road.)
Epilogue
Seriously, $375 per month on a"thrifty" budget? http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm We decided to refuse to compromise our health or culinary enjoyment and wound up at a roughly $250-$300 a month budget. The extra $75-125 a month would mean the luxury of fine cheeses and good wines in addition to really good home-cooked meals. Please post with your comments and food-budget experiences.
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