This week I did a biggish shopping trip – nothing major compared to my big stock-ups in the US, but I got a nice amount of staples for this month.  Since I spent a  little over 500 shekels, this trip comprised about 1/4 of our monthly food budget (which is 2000 shekels), and people have asked me for more specifics of what I buy and how much I pay, I’m sharing the details of my receipt here. 

This is the store that I get the bulk of  my vegetables, grains, and beans from.  I was delighted when in December they began offering home delivery, since it was physically very exhausting for me to bring home even enough food for a week for our family by bus.  Then I switched to calling a taxi to bring my order home, but I still had to pack up the groceries (cashiers here don’t bag your groceries unless you’re paying for home delivery), load them in the taxi, unload them at home, and carry them up a flight of steps to our apartment.  I’m not complaining, just explaining why it was a real physical effort to go shopping in the past at this store, particularly for the quantities we need.  But now for just 15 shekels, I can have my order packed up and brought into my house!  While I used to go every week and would consciously think about the weight of every item I wanted to buy, knowing the physical effort involved, now I can make a big order once or twice a month and not have to deal with it – I LOVE this! 

Here’s what I bought:

• red lentils (8.99 shekels kg x 3.94 kg) – 35.42
• dried chickpeas (9.99 shekels kg x 3.065 kg) – 30.62
• buckwheat (12.99 shekels kg x 2.475 kg) – 32.15
• quinoa (18.99 shekels kg x 1.100 kg) – 20.89
• black eyed peas (10 shekels kg x 2.085) – 20.85
• split peas (11.99 shekels kg x 4.85 kg) – 58.15
• rice (6.99 shekels kg x 5.165) – 36.10
• brown lentils ( 7.99 shekels kg x 3.125 kg) – 24.97
• popcorn (6.99 shekels kg x 2.130 kg) – 14.89
• navy beans (7.99 shekels kg x 4.070 kg) – 32.52
• coarse cornmeal (2.77 shekels -500 grams x 8 pkg) – 24.26
• broccoli (4.99 shekels kg x 3.465 kg) – 17.29
• avocado (4.99 shekels kg x 9.425) – 47.03
• granny smith apples (4.99 shekels kg x .460) – 2.30 (this was snack for ds2 who was with me, plus some to share with his siblings when they got home)
• fennel (4.99 shekels kg x 1.080 kg) – 5.39
• 2 large heads lettuce (2.99 each) – 5.98
• cucumbers (3.99 shekels kg x 1.015 kg) – 4.05
• tomatoes (1.99 shekels kg x 3.140 kg) – 6.25
• 3 –  1 kg containers of prepared hummus (9.99 ea) – 29.97
• 6 – 580 gram cans tomato paste (4.99 ea) – 29.94
• 2 – 540 gram cans sliced olives (7.99 ea) – 15.98
• 1 – kg sugar – 4.99
• 1 – 150 gram container powdered ginger – 6.99

My intent for this trip was to get enough staples to last through the end of the month; this was 77 pounds of grains/legumes and I think that will be enough.  The grains are purchased from the bulk bins; there’s someone who works there, and I tell her how many kilograms I want of each item, she bags and prices everything for each customer.  That’s why the grain/legume amounts aren’t in standard bag sizes of 500 grams or 1 kg.   This is cheaper than buying the prepacked bags of these same items, usually about 20 – 25% cheaper.  Someone  last week said about a 6 shekel item, ‘Oh, it’s only 2 shekels less like that”, and I explained that paying 4 shekels a kilo instead of six was a savings of 30%!  Small sums add up, though people often get stuck on the tiny amounts saved instead of looking at the overall picture of how much is saved in a month when you buy everything at discounted prices.

This time, I bought a couple of the more expensive grains that I’ve been avoiding for cost reasons until now: buckwheat and quinoa.  By the way, I find it very funny that in Hebrew, it’s called kee-no-ah, based on the English spelling (instead of the proper pronunciation, keen-wa), so I have to consciously say the word incorrectly even though it’s an English word!  I added these grains in because I wanted some more variety; meals were feeling too repetitive to me.  I didn’t get a lot of them, just enough for to add a little something different to the menu.  I had oats and barley at home. 

As far as the vegetables, these are intended to last for a couple of weeks until my next trip, not through the end of the month.  However, this trip isn’t representative of my typical buying habits since I usually don’t buy vegetables unless they’re under 3.99 kg (except for avocados), and really try to stay closer to 1.99 shekels a kilo.  But I realized I haven’t been eating many fresh veggies, since the inexpensive root veggies that I’m buying at this season aren’t appealing when eaten raw.  And then I end up not having such a good breakfast (I try to have protein and vegetables for breakfast) since I want to make something quick, and instead end up eating grains for breakfast and throughout the day.  So call it a pregnancy splurge if you like, but the option is eating bread with hummus for breakfast, or what ends up happening more often is I don’t eat breakfast until lunchtime. 

When I shop at the other supermarket I go to, I stick with the loss leaders on vegetables, usually limited to 1.99 kg (.25 cents lb).  At this place, I get what is the best buy.  I was really suprised that tomatoes were so cheap- why should tomatoes be only .25 cents a pound in the winter?  They’re local, too.  The heads of lettuce were huge and looked beautiful, which is typical of greens in this season.  This produce is supplementing what I already had at home: carrots, onions, potatoes, kohlrabi, mushrooms, garlic, peppers,  green and red cabbage, clementines, and grapefruits.  So I have a decent variety of vegetables to use. 

I buy prepared hummus rather than make my own, even though I have a really good recipe, it’s not hard, and would save me money, because I don’t have an immersion blender or food processor to make it with.  So I buy it at the best price I can find it, and use this for the kids’ sandwiches for school every day, as well as for a spread on Shabbos.  I bought the sliced olives with the intent to add it to the sandwiches sometimes, but saw that once I opened the can of olives, they all got snacked away, so I probably won’t do that often!

For those who may be wondering, no, we aren’t vegetarian.  This shopping trip also supplemented the chickens, giblets, and liver that we bought last week (that order was also around 1/4 of our monthly budget).  We usually have a meat meal daily, for lunch; I use the chicken that we buy as an ingredient in a dish, which extends it significantly over serving each person his own piece of chicken (which I do on Shabbos).   We also buy about 7 trays of eggs every couple of weeks (a tray is 2.5 dozen), so that works out to about 32 – 35 dozen eggs a month (we used to buy 60 dozen a month). 

Dairy has become a real splurge here.  Last week dh picked up some milk and high fat yogurts for me to have for breakfast (because I seem to be reacting with indigestion to everything I eat, similar to what I usually feel in the ninth month of pregnancy, and I’m trying to figure out what proteins won’t trigger it).  But dairy products are expensive here.  For example, a liter of milk is about 5 shekels ($5.70 gallon).  Cottage cheese, and cheese spreads are sold in these little containers that are about a cup big, enough for one person, but are over 5 shekels each ($1.40 per cup), single serving yogurts are cheaper at 1.50 – 4 shekel each.   The  organic cottage cheese and sour cream I used to use as a staple, as well as the shredded cheese I regularly cooked with is definitely a thing of the past! 

Though prices aren’t low, I feel we still eat well.  It’s true that we have more beans and grains, and hardly any nuts, no raw milk or pastured eggs, but we still have plenty to eat!  My monthly budget is lower than it was in the US, and despite the higher prices here on every single category of food except produce, we’re managing just fine.  We were sent what we needed in the US to stick with our budget, and the same One who took care of  us there continues to send us what we need here in Israel!

Avivah