Eating on a budget

[marksoc]

Walnuts 110/kg!!!

Peeled walnuts are 70/Kg in the "Bolivian Downtown" (Liniers around the train station). Again, location location location.

 

[SteveD83]

I almost feel embarrassed to say this, but last year I was so poor that I had to learn to get by on about 50-70 pesos per week for food - that would probably be nearer 80-100 this year. I'm getting by better now (paying native rent prices makes a big difference), but I'm still scrimping and saving in an effort to travel next year. Anyway, I'm not saying this to be smug, but rather to pass on a few lessons I've learnt. I should stress that I'm pretty much vegetarian, so I imagine that brings the price down a little. Anyway...

Don't try to have the same diet you had back home. I miss mushrooms, I really do. But I'm not going to pay 12 pesos for a packet I could get for 50p back in London. Zapallito will suffice. Likewise, I hardly ever eat cheese anymore, because unless you're going to pay through the nose, it's by and large awful here.

Don't buy from Jumbo and the like. Even Coto should be avoided if necessary. Get to know your local chinos; find out which items are cheaper in each one. If you live in a posh neighbourhood, head to a cheaper one to buy your fruit and veg - from a green-grocer of course. I live in San Telmo / Barracas, but often nip into La Boca (it's okay in places at certain times) for fruit and veg. Even the butchers are cheaper there.

Don't buy in bulk. It's no cheaper (sometimes quite the opposite) and in the case of veggies, will go off before you can use it. Mercado Central is great if you're shopping for three or four of you, but not worth it for one or two people.

A small investment in some luxury items in Barrio Chino can lead to long term savings. Stir fries and curries are very cheap to make, beyond toasted sesame oil and garam masala, respectively.

Someone mentioned stocking up on food and drink before they leave the house. Wise words.

Invest in learning how to cook rather than investing in expensive brands. A good cook can make cheap ingredients taste expensive while a bad cook can make expensive ingredients taste cheap.

Okay, here are a handful of dishes that have kept me going over the past year. I'm not a sensational cook, but I've met worse. Most are fairy obvious but all are fairly cheap:

Soup - yeah, I know. But it's very cheap, lasts forever, and surprisingly filling. If you want to eat cheap you can't turn your nose up at it. Leeks (although expensive, spread over 5 or 6 helpings are justifiable), onion, garlic, carrot, sweet potato, vegetable stock, butter. Yum.

Falafel - chickpeas/Garbanzos are dirt cheap. Throw in a few spices, an onion, a clove of garlic, lemon rind and (shhh, you heard it here first) grated carrot and you're laughing. You can make about 10-15 falafel burgers for 10 pesos. That's not 10 pesos each.

Porridge - dollop or cheapest available jam / honey for flavour. Nice and warming on a chilly morning.

Omelette - nowt wrong with an omelette once in a while.

Roast vegetable, cheese and breadcrumb bake - this is relatively expensive, but I made it recently and fed about 6 or 7 people for around 40 pesos. It's nice cold, so it keeps. It's a ball ache to go into detail with the recipe, but if you're really interested then PM me. Otherwise, just make something up. I did.

Stir fry - Perennial student / bachelor's favourite, I know. But there's no shame in cooking it once in a while. You don't need stir in sauce: ginger, garlic, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil for flavour. Serve with rice (cheapest brand is fine), cooked in stock and pre-fried with a chopped clove of garlic. That's a meal for two people for about 8 pesos.

Vegetable Curry - lentils and chickpeas are very cheap here. Don't make a creamy curry with coconut milk - it'll treble in price. Go for the spicy kind instead. For other ingredients, you'll need to do some substituting for whatever's cheaper locally. Hola zapallito.

Quiche - one sheet of pastry, 3 or 4 eggs, dash of milk, packet of spinach, small onion, tomato, clove of garlic, bit of cheese. Probably less than 10 pesos. Feeds four. Nice cold. Has a french name, so it sounds like it should be expensive.

Veggie Burgers - lentils and/or chickpeas make the base. Then add whichever vegetables you like. Lentils can be bland, so you'll need to add plenty of other flavours (mustard and tomato puree comes into their own here).

Potato wedges or re-stuffed baked potatoes (mayo, cheese, ham, onion, garlic, oregano/thyme/chives) and salad.

On that last point: the staples of potato, rice, pasta, etc can seem pretty boring, but they are very cheap here. There are lots of ways you can cook them to make them more interesting. Actually, there are a few websites that specialise in finding you recipes based on the ingredients you have available - supercook.com is one of them. I s'pose you could just type in some ingredients that you know to be cheap here and see what happens.

Anyway, I've gone on enough here. Sorry if I've stated the obvious in a lot of cases, but perhaps it'll be useful to someone who finds themselves in the same situation as I did last year.

 

[legilber]

We´ve been tracking our food spending over the last few months and it seems that with two of us, we spend between 1000 and 1200 pesos (with eating out/ordering food once a week). We do one enormous Coto trip on the weekend (10% discount on debit cards) and then probably buy veggies and fruits twice a week.

Back at home I wasn´t huge into veggies, now I use them for everything! They really help expand a meal. Potatoes, squash, whatever you have at home. Also, use them quickly! Once you´re hooked, you wont want the crappy french fries and pizza. We also buy meat in larger packets, split it up and freeze it and use meat sparingly. Also, don´t be afraid to buy some of the cheaper cuts and throw them in a pot for a stew.

We also buy whole chickens instead of just the breast. Using the chicken in different ways means that we have 3 or 4 meals with chicken. Thinking of throwing away the chicken carcass after you´re done? Not so fast! Throw it in a pot with some water to boil and you have automatic chicken broth with no preservatives. I even go so far as to take all the chicken chunks off the bones to make homemade chicken soup, pot pie, etc.

Also, especially if you´re working full time; make some extra food for dinner and bring it to work. At our office it´s weird if you buy your food.

One more tip: invest in some good spices that can change your bland meal to something amazing! And be creative as you have a lifetime to eat!

Learning how to budget food is something seen all over the world right now, not just in BsAs. So it´s good to keep up these habits when making the switch back home (should you decide to do so). I think it´d be great to go out all the time for dinner, but that´s not the reality for the world, plus I´m a pretty flipping good cook and love making my OWN meals that are better than in restaurants.

 

[sheawj]

We are 3 adults and two pets and I spend 600 pesos weekly on groceries and around 150 pesos on delivery ( pizza, etc ) so I manage to spend 750 pesos weekly and that includes beef, pork, chicken, lots of fruits and veggies ( one member is vegan ), dairy products, chocolate, pet food, wine, sodas, etc. We also have all meals at home... I am not sure what you guys buy or cook.

Same here: two adults, one preteen and two pets...and we usually eat at home. We noticed our bill starting to skyrocket about two months ago, and began doing minimal shopping at the box stores when possible. Now we get our fruits, veggies, eggs, and meat at the little neighborhood shops. It has really helped.

 

[Hop]

I've got a Jumbo nearby and a chino on the same block. I find prices at the chino are more expensive, specifically milk and bottled water. The only explanation I have is that people will go to the chino instead of Jumbo if they just need a quick bag of milk and don't want to wait 45 minutes in line at Jumbo so the chino can afford to have slightly higher prices.

Either way, the price difference between Jumbo and that particular chino is negligible so I'd rather go to the Jumbo where I know that all the things on my list will be in stock. As someone else mentioned on this thread, it's really hard to find a significant bargain anywhere and I'd rather not go from store to store all afternoon searching for a 10 centavo difference in bread.

Anyway, I also live off of buying a whole chicken and spreading it throughout several meals. Also the stir fry with a bit of chicken and a ton of veggies and rice. Lots of tartas as well.

 

[puvenlee]

I think the trick is to make food from scratch but not from half-processed things.
That is healthier but requires much effort.

 

[nikad]

I think the trick is to make food from scratch but not from half-processed things.
That is healthier but requires much effort.

It requires some more effort but not that much really

 

[MizzMarr]

I think the trick is to make food from scratch but not from half-processed things.
That is healthier but requires much effort.

I agree with Nikad and think that while it IS more effort, it's more a matter of getting into the habit than anything. I make nearly everything from scratch and have learned to become a pretty good cook (if I do say so myself) since I've been in Argentina. One of the benefits also is that you can make big freezer batches of food and then have easy meals in a pinch.

What's more, once you look beyond the price difference it's truly amazing to think of all the chemicals that you're not putting into your body when you cook from scratch. That, and it usually tastes much better, too!

 

[Ashley]

Falafel - chickpeas/Garbanzos are dirt cheap. Throw in a few spices, an onion, a clove of garlic, lemon rind and (shhh, you heard it here first) grated carrot and you're laughing. You can make about 10-15 falafel burgers for 10 pesos. That's not 10 pesos each.

Steve, what spices do you use for falafel? I've tried so many recipes and they've all turned out bland and buying the mix is more expensive than buying it pre-done at an armenian place. If I could get the spices right, I could eat that stuff all day!