Food & Grocery Best Posts in Thread: Onions

Although it may appear that everything in the garden is Rosy for me back home in UK, this is definitely not the case, especially since I am here on my own, the cost to run a House back here is hitting me hard, although my Hoose has 4 Beds and 2Baths it is quite compact and around 125M2 only, however it is well designed and has good insulation, 2 years ago, I was charged £200 a month for Council Tax, this includes water and sewage charge, plus street lighting and refuge collection, this has now risen to £240 then there was the energy cost which was £80 a month back then, this has now risen to £285, I do think there has been an over estimated charge going on here? and have since submitted meter readings to get this stabilised? above this rounded up figure of £525 I have expenses for WiFi, house insurance, boiler service, then there is house maintenance, plus the expense to run a Car which I hardly ever use, the cost to me per mile travelled likely cannot be justified? I'm not all that sure what this all amounts to but would guesstimate somewhere in the region of £750 per month? this is before I put food on my table, fortunately I do know my way around a Kitchen and can eat like a King and Drink like a Fish for very little money, I should mention I have become an Alcotech and make my own Beer at a cost of Pesos 20 per half litre and Wine at P100 a bottle.

There is one big advantage to living back in Scotland, all Medical care is completely free for us and that includes Prescriptions and Eye Tests, with only a small charge for Dental work, even then I get a 50% discount on this as I only have half the teeth I once had, Education here is completely free of charge right through to getting a PHD at University as long as it is in Scotland and not elsewhere in UK, This could be a great advantage to me if/when I am able to get my Phil Family over here and thus enable my son to be Educated here.

 

Only today I was shopping and have taken a few notes on the prices here in UK, fortunately for us we have a budget brand supermarket named Aldi and a few of the more expensive ones, so I had gone to two different ones just to compare the prices, Aldi where you can get all the unbranded budget brands has upped their game a lot since the last time I was in UK with most being twice the size they once were when they had first opened here some 25yrs ago, now they have added many of the well known named brands.

Meat prices start at Pesos 220 per KG, this is for a low grade minced beef containing 20% fat, the highest grade Mince is close to P400 this contains less than 5% fat and is termed a Steak Mince. Diced Steak for stewing is P575, prime Steak for Frying which is 30 day matured is P1,200, P1,400 in the higher priced supermarket. Today I bought a Beef Joint for P460KG, this is no good for roasting and needs to be boiled to tenderise it, however this will be perfect for a Dutch Hutspot with plenty of flavour.

Chicken Breast Fillet is P400 per kilo, but buy a big family pack of 1.8 kg and you can reduce this price by 20%, more recently our supermarkets supply Thigh Fillets without bones, these are the same price as the breast, but far better flavoured with a nice moist texture.

Pork starts at P300 per Kg rising to P400 for the best Pork Loin Fillet. I can buy a good Pork Sausage here for P180Kg, likely they are not high quality, but they are tasty with very little fat in them, perhaps the higher priced quality sausage have no better ingredients in them anyway?

Large eggs are P150 per Doz.

Milk is P105 per 2.2ltr carton.

Potatoes range from P30 to 60 per KG, Carrots P30KG, Onions P45Kg.

For a basic long grained White Rice this is P30KG, Sugar is P50KG, I was surprised to find this is home grown in UK. this has gone up around P10 in the last 3 months.

All the above pricing is standard and none 0are offer prices, good offers are available in all our supermarkets every day, only today I bought an item I wanted and found that if I bought 4 of the same, (different flavours were available) I could get them half price, in the Philippines if you can find an offer with a 10% reduction you are doing well, where in UK we do not consider offers until they have a reduction of 20% or more, I think it fair to say I can buy the food I want to eat here in UK at half or even less than the price I had to pay in PH.

 

How long before Manila becomes the most expensive city in the World? I saw ONE medium size carrot in a local supermarket for 59 pesos and an expensive half-rotted broccoli the size of a child's fist! It's a double whammy here with high prices and low quality!

Most of us can get through this - but the poor???