G is for Groceries.

Before moving to Germany we were living with our parents; so I was never worried about cooking, much less grocery shopping. My MIL spoiled us, whenever her and my FIL traveled for long periods she would pre-cook meals for us and leave them in the freezer (with a check list so we always knew what was available). Leaving us the option to choose something else if we wanted too.

So learning to cook was seriously something new for me when I first moved to Germany. Going grocery shopping was complicated because when I had to buy certain ingredients I had to look for them in German! 

But it doesn't stop there...

The hours of operation of stores in Germany is usually 8:00 - 20:00, Monday to Saturday and closed on Sundays and on holidays. If you happen to go to a store a day before a bank holiday (more specifically on a Saturday before a Sunday & holiday Monday) there will be chaos, everybody taking a lot of everything and super long lines at the registers.

In Germany, it is customary to provide your own shopping bags, so make sure to come prepared, if you forget to bring your own bags or don't have any worry not, you can buy one for ten cents at the check out counter. This is something that really confused me when I visited the US and Mexico during Christmas, not letting the bag-boy do it or when the clerk himself does it in Target. 

Once it's time to check out; the clerk will start scanning your items so fast you won't know what to do, this is quite annoying because the people behind you will give you "mean" stares if you hold up the line and you will end up throwing everything in the cart and bag it at your own pace after you pay. Don't worry they have special areas to do this sort of thing.

Food Prices

A random week of ours would look like this: two big trips to the grocery stores (it can be more than one store per trip but still considered one trip) and an additional trip to get fresh produce.

here's a spreadsheet example of a random week from last month:
March     Store Name            70.00
3/14/2015 Kaufland    29.55 40.45
3/16/2015 Kaufland     17.52 22.93
3/18/2015 Netto          15.79 7.14

To see what sort of things I generally buy you can check out my meal plans (I sometimes include a shopping list)

Have you shopped abroad? What was your experience like?

Tweet This PS. Are posts like this okay, or would you like for me to add some pictures?