Very much depends on what you eat and how you shop as to the relative merits of your grocery bill vs the UK.

Cheeseaholics are in for a shock, but we're constantly amazed at how cheap good quality vegetables are from the small markets.

Our purchasing/eating habits have changed, without doubt.

Think you will find theres quite a differance although Chicken has gone up i think veg and fruit have come down and lots of offers if you shop around,

I find them purely by luck Sainsburys have 4 tins of Tuna in spring water at half price i think it was about £2.40 i brought loads for the kids ( students ) that pasta and some toms etc will mean they always have a meal in,

Generaly i think food is actually cheaper now but heating etc are much more expensive, The price of petrol must have helped by coming down.

Do they have markets where you can buy fruit and veg over there ?

Do they have markets where you can buy fruit and veg over there ?

Oh puleeeeeeeze!!!!!!!!

Is that what a daft question or please can we have a market ?

In Halifax there is a Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning - find it can be quite expensive though.
Slightly off-topic, but you can get some great bargains at Superstore here - from around 9 am they sell meat, veg, fruit, bakery produce etc. at 50% less if it is coming up to it's sell by date.
I also found out yesterday that if you buy an item and they've charged you more than it's advertised for on the shelf, they have to give it you for free

You figure it out, but a hint, we have farms here in North America probably bigger than many counties of the UK.

Yeah totally agree, what is it with the cheese?

I think that the fruit and veg selection, though seasonal, is cheaper than the UK for sure, Superstore were selling organic mangos fro .99c for months. Beef is cheaper, but chicken more expensive. Living on the coast my fish and shellfish munching has sky rocketed as its nice and cheap (relative)

that doesn't mean that all parts of Canada have markets though, especially during the winter months.

Whats the price of chicken breast in NS val ? just wondering if its a global increase

Is fish cheaper there ? i think i payed about £4.00 for a large piece of smoked Haddock at the weekend from T i mean Asda

To be honest I'm not sure about the chicken, it's been so expensive I haven't bought for ages, was around C$20 last time I looked
I did get some nice sirloin roast from Superstore for $6.59/kg though and pork roast was C$7.22/kg - last one I bought was reduced by 50% so I only paid $5.50 for a pork rib roast I have to admit I usually go to Superstore around 9.30 am on a Wednesday morning and stock up the freezer with all the 50% bargains. Don't know why, but Wednesday seems to be THE day to go for the good buys. It really makes a difference, especially if you have a son with hollow legs
Local lobster fishermen have been protesting about the price they've been getting for lobster, so have taken to selling it from their trucks direct to the public, for $5 a lb. which has been great.

I found most of the time that cheese is cheaper if you buy it from the producer itself. This implies you have one around your area, of course! It is the same with good quality honey or game.

Most big cities would have an indoor market. Such as Jean-Talon in Montreal.

Get to know the area you live in and what produces it has to offer, and you'll be surprise what you can get sometimes. You can have ostrich meat 30 minutes out of Montreal, per example!

This is really the thinking behind the reason for starting the thread. As I have said here and in other threads, our income (mortgage free) for four in Canada is marginally more than my income (after mortgage payment) was for one in the UK.

I can think of no other explanation for four living in Canada (nearly) as cheaply as one in the UK than things are cheaper. Or can be cheaper with selective buying.

I didn't use flyers/vouchers etc when I was in England, for the reason that I never found it worth the effort. I don't see anything particularly appealing about "was £1.99, now £1.89." Just about the best offers I ever saw in Sainsburys were BOGOFs....but that £2 price for something last week had 'mysteriously' increased to £3 this week so the BOGOF price is actually £2 down to £1.50.

Even so, BOGOFs were not that common; most reductions being a few pence here and there.

There are so many things regularly half or two-thirds price here if one is able to buy some things at one supermarket and other things in a different one.

I spend around $70 for every $100 of the supermarkets normal prices. Back in England I'd cycle home from Sainsbury's with a full backpack having spent over £25. Here I do it having spent over $80. And England was over 4 years ago.

So can one buy joints of beef in the UK for under £1.42 per lb? Chicken breasts for £1.55 a lb, Campbells condensed soup for 28p, Pepsi for 50p for 2L. microwave snacks for 56p, 4 Chicken portions for £1.50.......?

I have heard that the recession has caused lots of cheapies in the UK that maybe didn't exist when I was there. I've just been looking over the Sainsburys site and they do indeed have many offers, including quite a few things at half price. I never saw it like that.

There are cereals from £2.18 down to £1. I pay the equivalent of £1.40. I see Nescafe is £4.55 down to £3. I pay (equal to) £2.20, but even the full price here is less than £3.50.

I see there's half price ice cream for £1.46 per Ltr. I pay a half price of £1.70 for 2 Ltrs.

Coopers is really expensive - there's one just around the corner from me but I drive across town to the superstore or Safeway to do my weekly shop. The only thing I've found cheaper at Coopers is raw Almonds.

I shop by bicycle. I know that, maybe, I'm lucky to have Sobeys and Superstore a 20 minute bike ride in one direction and very close together, while I have the same two stores available 15 minutes in the other direction (also close together) with a co-op on the way back. Detours are very minimal and I figure if I can do it by bike then it would be easier by car.

20 minutes extra per round trip is about right. 30 minutes in each of two stores instead of 45 minutes in just one saves me $30 in every $100 easily. Every week. That's more than a few $.

Every month I get bigger stuff that I can't do by bike. It's a $2 bus ride (6 buses every hour) and $8 back by taxi, $10 with tip. The savings on stuff like soup, ice cream and microwave meals (school lunches) alone will more than pay for the taxi.

You don't get flyers delivered? They come with the regular paper. For people who don't subscribe to a paper, they are delivered anyway.

You don't get flyers delivered? They come with the regular paper. For people who don't subscribe to a paper, they are delivered anyway.[/quote]


They aren't delivered here - though you can pick up in the local supermarkets.