Steve_

Source? I said bread and cheese were more expensive here. I've got back bacon down as more expensive as well, although the regular awful bacon at Loblaw's is $3.98 (for 375g) and at Tesco their back bacon (250g) is $3.70. I've got chicken wings for $7.40 at Tesco and $8.77 at Loblaw's for the same amount.

Haven't got oranges to compare but the strawberries I quoted in the other thread were way cheaper in Canada. $3.88 for 900g and the cheapest ones I can find on Tesco.com work out to $7.29 for the same amount. And I already compared orange juice.

A pack of three cucumbers from Loblaw's is $2.28 and the equivalent from Tesco.com works out to $2.72

London Mike

Hope so mate, but seems to have stalled at 1.85!

printer

We have Superstore, Walmart, Safeway and Save on. If i am not on a budget then Save on has nice stuff but is way overpriced in comparison to Walmart.
Just as a quick example the same brand name pasta sauce can be bought in all 3. Walmart is always $3.77 but sometimes on offer, Superstores is usually $3.95 but was on offer at $2 last week, Save on want a whopping $4.99 for the exact same product and to add insult to injury any discounted prices shown are only for club card holders something that doesn't occur at the other 2, the price is the price for every shopper. I don't shop in Safeway enough to make any comparison with that store.

bats

oh what the heck it varies all over Canada, between nearby towns too, as do wages. It's all well meaning waste of time

BristolUK

The flyers.

They are, of course, special offer prices and one could argue a fairer comparison would be with the offer prices in the UK. It's just that the UK doesn't seem to do so many different things for so much less than their normal prices.

And the Canadian special offer prices seem to come around so often as to actually be more the norm. Those lower prices I mentioned are what I typically pay.

scrubbedexpat091

If we had a Super Wal-Mart I'd likely go there, but our Wal-Mart is a normal one, and the food selection is very small and mostly just junk foods with no fresh foods, and no meat or anything of that sort. Not worth the time to go just for a couple items.

Save On for this town is the cheapest, but as I said we only have 3 options for groceries, and 2 of the 3 are owned by the same company, and the 3rd is a Loblaws owned brand but a franchised location and the selection and pricing is poor.

MikeUK

We certainly don't see the flyers, but the offers are there and they're displayed in store...
And in a similar way they tend to come round on an almost regular baisis.. a good example that we take advantage of in sainsbury has been legs of Lamb at 1/3 normal price, comes around about 1 week in 4...

christmasoompa

Trouble is that (a) Tesco's is quite an expensive supermarket these days (Aldi/Lidl/Asda are cheaper) and (b) you're not comparing the cheapest things or taking in to account special offers. For example, the Tesco value back bacon works out as $2.98 for 300g. So your comparisons aren't what most on a budget would buy anyway, I tend to buy 'value' (if at Tesco) or 'smart price' (if at Asda) products unless it's meat (except for the bacon which I find fine).

My wholemeal loaf is 45p, which converts to $0.81 and it's bigger (800g) than the price you've given above, because I buy the 'value' one rather than the Tesco's standard loaf.

Bottom line is that I spent around £80 a week feeding my family of 4 plus several pets, and we eat very well for that (everything is fresh, no ready meals, lots of lovely cheeses/continental meats/salads etc), plus it includes alcohol.

I could never have done that in Canada, so for me personally groceries would be much more expensive, but obviously every family eats and shops differently.

MikeUK

I can add in that we used to spend around $1100 a month in Canada, we now spend £600 in the UK and I think/feel that we eat better

Meal sizes haven’t changed, but more variety in the diet and we eat lamb much more than we used too, we have a roast dinner most weekends, we have greater selection of cheese, much better selection of breads, (and for some bizarre reason I have a mountain of chocolate)

MountainHiker

You will drive yourself crazy comparing prices all the time, personally I found I spend less on groceries in Canada. Our eating habits have changed however, we never eat lamb anymore because it's so expensive, we also don't by any premade food only raw foods, we bake our own bread and we do huge shops at Costco ever 4-6 months.

colchar

How many people were you feeding and what were you eating to spend that amount per month?

colchar

Not first thing in the morning when I haven't even finished my first coffee of the day.

colchar

Around here we have Fortinos, No Frills, Freshco, Food Basics, Sobeys, Metro, WalMart, Target, Shopper's Drug Mart (many have grocery sections now), Rexall (many have grocery sections), Costco, and a super center type place owned by Loblaws (I forget its name as I rarely go there). There are probably a couple of others that I am forgetting. With that many stores it is very easy to find things for good prices as they all have sales each week and are all competing for our business.

SchnookoLoly

Alright, this got me curious to see what my grocery spend is.

Right now, Husband and I are living at home with my parents, and my younger adult brother has also moved back home, so it's a full house with 5 adults.

I do probably about 2/3 of the cooking. Not all 5 of us are at home every night, and my mom does groceries occasionally as well.

My total grocery bill from 21 March to 21 April, which is mostly Longos and Costco, one Whole Foods (needed something specific), one Starskys, and one Metro, plus LCBO, was about $800.

I will also echo that we don't eat as much lamb as we used to, however I've found that the prices at Starskys for lamb are only a smidge higher than what we used to pay at Sainsburys. (For a 2kg full price lamb shoulder I'd pay about £20-22; at Starskys, the same lamb shoulder I paid about $35.)

scrubbedexpat091

We spend 200 a month on food for 2 people, what we eat varies week to week based on what is on sale and generally if its not on sale we don't buy it.