Where to buy cheap Chicken Breast, cheap brocolli and cheap apples

[Montauk_Project]

If you eat salmon every day (the most expensive fish there is) I can see you spending this much. I would try anchoa (not the small anchovies), it is easy too cook, lots of omegas, and I can get it for about $40 a kilo (and I got to an expensive fish store). Doesn´t smell good when you cook it, but wow, it is good. I go to many different stores, from Dia (milk powder, milk, pastas, there version of casencrem which is yummy), the chino (soy sauce, granix crackers), a small arg run supermarket (actually cheaper than the chino, for cheese, coffee, cereal, cleaning supplies) and a dietetica, plus fruiteria and carneceria and pescadaria. Now, I have a great memory for prices, and I basically plan to go to each of these places once a month (except for vegetables and cheese), freeze a lot (including milk, it is only 2.5 pesos in dia, and 6 pesos everywhere else). Once you know where to go you will probably spend less time than wondering around Coto.
If you have a car, I recommend Mercado Central. The quality is EXCELLENT and you can really stock up.
Any mercado chino will give you an official receipt. Some vegetables stores won´t, but if you ask for a factura, they will (if they don´t they will get shut down, and they are getting stricter with this).
I would also check out barrio chino since you are close, all the imported things coto has but at a fraction of the cost.
Most Argentines save by freezing. I now freeze EVERYTHING, so I can buy kilos of stuff at a time and then use as needed. You can even freeze bread, facturas and herbs (roll them in a bit of oil first).
BTW, I eat well, and my husband and I spend about 300 pesos a week on food and another 100 on wine-beer, not including the occasions we go out or order in (a few times a week).
I buy high quality olive oil but not brand names.
I think by switching stores and sourcing a cheaper fish, you can cut you budget down to 1400 a month, if not more, and you wont spend much more time. BTW, almost all the chinos deliver, and a lot of the other places as well.

 

[Heather G]

Thanks.

It seems I am not doing too badly at Jumbo then! I admit i also buy cleaning products at Jumbo! Its so easy to buy everything at one place.

Those questioning 2000 pesos expenditure, I am a bit shocked at the question.

My "typical meal" in a given day are as follows ( to give you an idea) :-

1. Breakfast - 3 eggs, whole grain bread, natural carrot juice, oatmeal

2. Lunch - salmon, broccoli, tomato and cucumber salad

3 dinner - chicken breast, brown rice, avocados, natural pineapple juice

snacks in between - fruit salad ( bananas, apples, raspberries, blue berries etc), glass of milk, walnuts, almonds etc

I guess 2000 pesos justifies this kind of diet in my opinion.

But always great to know if cheaper option exists

we have a similar diet, minus the salmon and (pre-made?) juices and I spend about that much to feed my family of 3 (2-1/2, one of us is still quite small)

the eggs you should be buying by the "maple" 30 eggs in a rack. I pay 20 pesos for in the verduleria - 25 is the most expensive I've seen them sold that way

the oats are another thing that will cost a fortune at Jumbo, the big nice oats "avena gruesa" run over 20 per kilo there while at the dietetica I can buy them for 12 pesos a kilo in small quantities but since we use a 5 kilo bag per month (on breakfast alone, more if we are baking) I usually buy in bulk and they give me a 10 to 20% discount. barrio chino would be an excellent place to look for a good dietetica with good prices (some are more expensive than others, it is worth your time shopping around if you end up buying in bulk)

brown rice is also much better quality and cheaper at a good dietetica. I pay 12/kilo for yamani.

walnuts and almonds are the same, you can buy "nueces partidas" for 90 pesos/ kilo instead of the 140/ kilo for the "mariposa" whole ones. appropriately priced almonds are about the same, sometimes even slightly less - 80/ kilo is a good price and if you offer to buy in bulk you can often negotiate lower. another option with the nuts is to buy them on mercado libre just after the harvest, figure out how many you need for the year and store half in airtight containers and freeze the other half.

nice bread here is ridiculously expensive - I recommend making your own. the flour you get at the dietetica is also actually whole grain, unlike the one supermarket brand "pureza" that you can find in Jumbo that is a composite of processed parts of the wheat put back together.

and I agree with the others about getting the chicken from a granja, if you can start buying whole chickens instead of just breasts then you will save a lot. they will usually cut it up for you in the moment as well.

Also, you could branch out on the fish - there are some fantastic other kinds (another poster mentioned anchoa - which is really good too), brotola is one I really like that is usually 45-50/kilo, lenguado is amazing and usually 60ish/kilo and you can get white salmon from Mar del Plata for 60-70 kilo in "rodajas" not fillets..

as far as fruit and veggies go, the verduleria is usually the best place. try to buy only in season and always ask the price before you order things - many things are sourced locally (Entre Rios) and changes in weather can dramatically change the prices and the quality from week to week.

good luck!

 

[Davidglen77]

nice bread here is ridiculously expensive - I recommend making your own. the flour you get at the dietetica is also actually whole grain, unlike the one supermarket brand "pureza" that you can find in Jumbo that is a composite of processed parts of the wheat put back together.

I agree wholeheartedly about the bread issue. I come from New York City where some of the best bread in the world is made, Eli's Bread, Zabars, Le Pan Quotidien (which I hear is opening a branch here). When I was a kid we used to bake bread at home with my Grandma who was from cuba, and would make really tasty white bread with lots of fat called "pan sobao". The cost of bread here is outrageous, so I now have become an avid bread baker - 3 loaves per week between my partner and I.
Whole wheat flour, white flour, yeast, wheat germ, olive oil, brown sugar or honey, salt, oats, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin (squash seeds), water. All hand kneaded dough raised overnight. I am very proud of my bread! And Argentine cereal products are excellent, but I refuse to pay $25 pesos for a loaf of bread!

 

[irina]

Wow, I did some poking around and here is a price list for the ferias barriales, which seems to be updated every two weeks.

Definitely seems much more reasonable for fruit and veggies that what I've been paying at my local chino and verduleria - I'm a vegetarian so I can't say how well the prices for meat/ fish/ dairy compare to the shops but the prices are all listed.

Thanks for the tip, I'll be checking this out this week if the rain lets up!

I had no idea the prices were listed! And you can get things even cheaper than that sometimes if you buy 2 kilos rather than one. I LOVE these markets, they really are a godsend.

I forgot to mention they have a dietica carrito. So you can get nuts, sugars (all the brown sugars), flours, grains etc. We even bought a litro of soy sauce at a fraction of the barrio chino price there.

 

[cbonanni]

The best freshest fish is in Barrio Chino. Many restaurants buy there. Prices are better than the local fish places.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

You should go to Mercado Central.

 

[NomadInBA]

I would recommend to those with a car to head to Makro (http://www.makro.com.ar). Cash and carry set up with several large stores. While you have to buy some products in larger quantities (e.g. water in 6 bottle packets), it is not the case with all items and it is much much cheaper than any supermarket. You do need to register before being able to shop there but it takes about 10mins and is free. Now I don't buy my meat or veg here but everything in a tin or bottled. Also their cheeses are very well priced.

 

[homeinbuenosaires]

I should add that far and away the cheapest place for dried nuts/ beans/ pulses/ spices etc (think what you'd find in the more veggie/ organic Casa China in Chinatown in the dry section) is the Peruvian/ Bolivian market street in Liniers. It's totally worth the trek to stock up on things, and they also sell things like Mate de Coca which can be hard to find more centrally.

Cooking things like garbanzos/ chickpeas etc from there in a pressure cooker and supplementing with veggies and spices makes cooking pretty cheap here, I think. I'm looking forward to planting some cool things this spring now that I've found interesting seeds for things like rainbow chard and some heirloom varieties that can't be found in stores here on mercadolibre.

In my opinion, the best bread that I can get locally in Barrio Norte - and it's not too expensive given the quality - is at Haus Brot and l'epi (12 pesos-ish for a decent sized Pan de Campo), and the refrigerated 'Pan del Peregrino' raw sprouted bread from dieteticas is also great (about 15 pesos per loaf).

 

[laLuz]

I know we're talking about food here but what are the best (economic) places to buy hygiene products like body lotion, deo, facial creams etc (from Nivea, L'Oreal? not the high-end brands). Supermarket or Pharmacy?