A Trip to the Store

Today I made our bi-monthly trip to Carrefour to buy some food staples that we were out of. Usually I buy our produce at the bazaars and I buy things like flour, sugar, and eggs (either really heavy stuff or really fragile stuff) at the small stores that are only a 5-minute walk away. But some things are just a lot cheaper at Carrefour, and some things I just can't find anywhere except Carrefour. So, today I got this:



a pack of napkins
spaghetti noodles
fettuccine noodles
olive oil
chickpeas
diced tomatoes
2 liters of milk
chocolate chips
breadcrumbs
a block of cheese
4-pack of baby yogurt
4-pack of strawberry yogurt
2 avocados
1 head of lettuce (not pictured)
250-gram wedge of Parmesan
dried oregano (or thyme...the word is the same in Turkish so I'm never really sure...)
dried basil
dried onion flakes (kind of like onion powder, but not. It's the closest we can get here, though.)

I am always amazed at how expensive food is here. In North Carolina, I could feed Shannon and myself for $50 a week. We ate well. I shopped sales and used coupons, but even if I hadn't used coupons, I probably could have done it on $60-65. Enter Istanbul. We definitely spend more on food and toiletries here than we ever did in the States.

So, here's something for you all to do, if you want to and/or are bored and up for a challenge. Sorry, no (big) prizes this time.

Try to put my groceries in price order from most expensive to least expensive (per item). If anyone can get this list correct, maybe I'll go buy you a fun pair of earrings. A hint: the Parmesan was the most expensive and the oregano was the least expensive. You cannot participate in this if you live or have lived in Turkey.

And, for fun, what do you think my grand total on groceries was? Remember, I got no meat and no produce (except for 2 avocados and head of lettuce).

Maybe one day I'll have perfected the art of sticking to our grocery budget. But for now...each month I go over. Sigh.