The Real Shopping Cart 30/8/24

Mint is delicious

Image description: a blue plate with ground beef, iceberg lettuce, spinach, spicy mayonnaise and cucumbers.

Highlighted Meal of the Week: Thai-Style Beef Salad with homemade Nuoc Cham and Spicy Mayo

We had such great meals this week, that it is almost too difficult to pick just one meal that stood out; however, this meal deserves mention because it is cheap, delicious, simple to make and kept nicely within my blood sugar levels.

The total cost of this meal for two was $6.73 and the single serving was $3.37.

Its ingredients were ground beef, spinach, iceberg lettuce, mini-cucumbers, mint and peanuts with a dressing of homemade Nuoc Cham: fish sauce, garlic, rice vinegar and sweet chili sauce. On top of it all is one of my favourite sauces: spicy mayo. We use a combination of Gochujang and mayonnaise to make this. Gochujang is a Korean condiment that is a hell of a lot tastier than ketchup. We get a container of it from our local Independent Grocer for between $4.99 and $5.99 and it lasts us six months or so.

Image description: red plastic container which reads Korean Traditional / Asian characters; O’Food/Gochujang 100% Asian characters/Brown rice red pepper paste/NETWT. 17.6 oz (1.1 lb) (500g)/Symbols Vegan.

Stores considered this week were Metro, Walmart, Voila and Adonis for delivery, Massine’s, Isabella Loblaws, Kowloon and Farm Boy, which are within walking distance, Real Canadian Superstore and Food Basics, which are accessible to us by public transit and two stores in Gatineau Maxi and Super C. These two Gatineau stores were included to compare Quebec versus Ontario since Maxi belongs to the Loblaws group and Super C is a Metro brand.

This week a couple of things happened. First the Metro on Rideau Street re-opened. It was closed many years ago, torn down and rebuilt. So of course Charles and I checked out the store on opening day. We picked up a few stock items at a great price and were given a gift bag that contained random groceries and coupons.

The other issue this week were items which we stock up on and are not easily available at a reasonable price. At the Metro opening we got a great deal on Smoked Salmon, 250g $8.95 which we use in salmon omelets. We can use the two packages over time to create eight omelet lunches for two. Also, the store was selling cans of maple syrup for $7.99, a good price for this time of year. Maple syrup stores well and this purchase will solve our maple syrup needs until spring next year. Stocking up creates additional expense which means that the cost of this week’s cart is higher than usual, but that excess will take four to six months to use up.

The extra stock and the Metro opening resulted in a more expensive cart this week. If we could get the cheapest price at all the stores, the total amount would be $179.47.

By combining delivery from Walmart, a few strolls to local stores and a few bus rides, Charles has obtained a price of $190.50 for this week’s shopping list, only six percent higher than the cheapest price if we could shop all the stores.

Since no single store had all the groceries we needed, this week’s table demonstrates how close each store got to exclusively providing the items in the cart. Each store on its own will cost a shopper anywhere from seventeen to fifty-eight percent more, a whopping $103.28 extra.

Finally a word on brands for a friend who is reading and asked us if we would mention them. In our experience, brand loyalty can raise our costs. In this week’s cart, we include our favourite whole grain Dijon mustard from Metro, an old-style prepared mustard that is part of their no-name, generic brand called Irresistible. It is much cheaper than Malle Old Style at 3.99 where Malle is $9.49, more than twice the price, with a similar flavour. It is on sale from Food Basics, a Metro-owned store this week, so we’re getting four jars of it. We use it on our sandwiches and also in our basic salad dressing.

For the Asian prepared sauces, our local Asian stores down the street tend to charge more than Independent Grocer, so while we get much of our produce from Kowloon, we don’t get things like soy sauce or rice vinegar there. Spices, however, are much cheaper at the Asian grocery stores. The closer you get to less processed and whole ingredients, the cheaper it is.

Image description: 3 bottles: Marukan Rice Vinegar/A Taste of Thai Fish Sauce/Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce.

Image description: Table with 4 rows: Header: Cart/Cost/%Extra/Items; Best/179.47/0%/46.00; Actual/190.50/6%/46.00/Super C/209.59/17%/40; Maxi/226.51/26%/43/MetroRideau/228.99/28%/42.00/Food Basics/231.83/29%/44.00/RCS/237.10/32%/44.00/Metro.ca/240.13/34%/43.00/Loblaws/263.36/47%/43.00/YIG/264.21/47%/43.00/Voila.ca/282.75/58%/42.00

An interesting result of adding the two Gatineau stores was that both were lower in price than any of the Ontario stores.

I wish you nutritious, delicious and affordable meals, lingering conversations with loved ones, joy and whimsy.

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