Dec 13, 2024
Grocery budget 2024?
How are you managing your grocery budget, for a single or a family? I'm finding my buying power for a single is diminishing, but I'm doing okay, cooking nearly all my meals and dining out infrequently. After going over my receipts, I'm still averaging 30,000 yen a month on groceries. For reference, I'm well outside Tokyo in a Chiba suburb. Have you had to change your grocery budget considering the rising prices?
Best Answer
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on Dec 15
No we haven't changed our budget, because we don't have one really. We just spend what we need to spend. And our grocery bills have gone up significantly. So we are feeling the increases in prices - not just in groceries, but everything. A lot of the increases, outside of groceries, aren't reflective of inflation and aren't incremental. There are definitely some companies taking advantage of price increases to hike their profits.
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on Dec 14
We're fortunate that we have some neighbors that grow their own produce. They drop bags of their excess to our front door, so we typically have a bit of free stuff that we get to use. Obviously that's a bit harder in winter, but certainly during summer and autumn we had a ton of stuff given to us. Cherry tomatoes, cucumber, corn, eggplant, etc. -- even watermelons sometimes, which grow surprisingly well here. We have a farmer's market about a 10 minute walk from home, which has prices that are typically cheaper than what the supermarkets offer. I buy a lot of dry pantry staples (and other things like household cleaning products, paper towel, toilet paper) on Amazon using the gift card money I earn here. It helps to offset our spending a little bit so that we have more to spend on other things. Sometimes at supermarkets later in the day, they mark down things like dairy products that are getting closer to their expiry date. This is helpful for me because yogurt is something I eat almost every day, and if I can save even 30 yen on a tub that's 30 yen in my pocket and not the supermarkets. I do think trying to use up whatever we have is big, too. Food waste is a big issue globally, and it's easy to let things go bad if I don't have a plan for them. I try to freeze things like bananas that are getting too ripe because we can then use them in things like smoothies later on. We try to be creative with leftovers, too, or be mindful to only cook what we need. Often if we make too much for dinner, that's our lunch for the next day. I don't mind that, though, as it takes out some of life's decision fatigue! Anytime we do eat out, I take pictures so I can review it on here to recoup some of the cost. I enjoy blogging anyway, so it's not too much of an additional effort. I do think we probably eat less meat here than I would have in my home country, but the cost of living is affecting people back there, too. I don't think anywhere is really immune to it at the moment :(
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on Dec 14
@genkidesu It sounds like you have the same frugal habits as me! Tops and tails of veggies and anything I can't use soon enough go in the freezer for soup stock ingredients. I also take advantage of supermarket discounts late in the day. The discounts offset the sales tax. I eat out perhaps 2-3 times a month. I'm selective, choosing places with good reviews on Googe Maps or Tabelog and then reviewing them here on City Cost. My diet is low in meat, too, and I eat fish and chicken. I'm eating as well as I ever did, just cooking more at home.
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on Dec 14
@TonetoEdo Love the idea of using tops and tails of veggies for soup stock, that's something I haven't done yet but something I absolutely could do with only a little extra effort.
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on Dec 14
I can't say I've changed any spending habits. I have noticed some prices have nearly doubled... Still using the local veggie stands when I can and supporting local small businesses. I think the extra costs sometimes associated with small businesses is worth it, to keep the currency local and get better quality. I do miss the days of getting cheap kyushoku when I was working in a school. Are you able to take advantage of that? If I remember correctly high schools and private schools don't have school lunch unfortunately.
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on Dec 15
@helloalissa There aren't many farm stands near me, and the local farmers vend at supermarkets. The produce is quality and fresh. Nope, no kyushoku. The school has a shokudo but I rarely buy lunch there as the bento lunches are light on veggies. I make bento nearly every day with fresh ingredients.
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on Dec 27
One other thing we do (not so much a change of budget but of shopping habits) is checking our local supermarket's catalog each week. Because we are in walking distance from them we usually stop in multiple times a week, and they have different fruit/veggie sales on different days. For instance, on the 24th it was broccoli on sale, 25th was cabbage, 26th was carrots, 27th (today) was green onions. I find that buying on the sale days actually does make a bit of difference, and getting out and walking to the store when we need something also is a good way to get some exercise in!
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on Mar 5
8 Answers