Getting Groceries in Mexico

So...I could get by on $200 a month for groceries.  If I did like my Mexican neighbor and went to the pescaria (fish shop), fruiteria, and the discount Walmart called Aurrora Bodega.  If we made corn tortillas and other assorted corn things our main starch.  (Order Chinese food and get a pile of corn tortillas with it...the people here eat everything in a corn tortilla, and tortas, and tostadas, and the biggest cornception:  Elote Street Food:  A bag of corn chips, sliced open, with corn masa put on it, with grilled corn with onions on that, and hot sauce. CORNCEPTION.)

A man with a cart comes by selling this every evening. 

Like my neighbor I could Make eggs (they're cheap here and not refrigerated) and beans the chief proteins along with the weekly fish if there's a good catch and good deals (literally have the fishermen walk in with their dripping fish nets, lots of oyster beds here too).  And by the way, that's her budget for a family of four.  

There's bags of dried textured tofu here for $20.  That's $20 pesos.  So $1.  And you put it in spaghetti bolanase and you can't tell it's not beef.  These bags are not refrigerated.  And I bet I'd like it if I tried it instead of the 400 gram ground beef tubes I buy for $50 ($2.50).

And all the videos and guides here said the same thing, groceries are cheap--if you shop like a local.

But do we shop like locals?  No.  No we don't.  

We just went to fricking Sams Club and spent $4,400 on American groceries like the spoiled brats we are.  That's $220USD if anyone's counting, and already over budget for eating like a local.

We have to have our stupid diet sodas (which I have to order online because you can only find two liters of coca cola light or coke zero around here and we want convenient cans or small bottles).  We have to have meat centric meals of steak, chicken, or ribs.  And when we buy fish it's the fricken frozen tilapia we used to buy in the USA.  I still haven't been to a pescaria yet!  And there's about three on the way to the drive to the Chedraui!

(As an aside, we went out for lunch today at one of the many seafood restaurants.  This one was introduced to us by that same neighbor so we went back.  I ordered something...wasn't sure what...and I got a whole bass fried and open with rice, potato salad, and greens salad.  It was delicious.  I picked that fishbone clean.)

We also expect to have black cherries this time of year, which I gorge on because I love them so much, and crunchy grapes, prunes for my mother, piles of cat food pouches to feed the strays, Splenda for my coffee, lots of sugar free chewing gum, and meat, meat, meat.

On top of this, when we do shop at the Mexican grocery stores we don't go to Aurrora Bodega or Casa Ley like my neighbor.  No.  We go to Chedraui, the most high end Mexican grocery store in my 2 kilometer range.  

Chedraui is really nice to shop at.  Clean.  Wide open aisles without stuff piled all over.  Everything neat and organized.  But never come on the 1st or 15th because that's when everyone in Mexico gets paid and the lines are LITERALLY an hour long.

It's the nearest place with ATMs to get cash out for the month.  So we always end up just shopping there because we have to go there for cash anyway.  But we can't resist the monthly Sams Club haul, despite the traumatic memories of my mom falling there last month.  (I'll never park in that section again.)

Chedraui is a warehouse size store where we also bought some furniture and electronics.  It's owned by Walmart, because of course it is.  So is Aurrora Bodega.  But the prices are still cheaper than in the USA.  

I say this, but Mexican prices are becoming so ordinary for me I really think I'm blanking on if there's any discount.  Sam's Club does have lower prices in Mexico than in the USA, but not THAT much lower.  I mean two pints of cherries is still $7, a double package of pork ribs will still run $15.  

And I could just buy all my produce at Aurrora Bodega.  Yes, there's fruit flies, and some rotten produce, but you can still find the good stuff and manage.  Or better yet, I could go to a fruiteria right?  

Well, I went to one and got some nice mangos, but it was the end of the day and all the bins were empty.  Like you have to hit the little stores early it seems

I went to a carcineria (butcher) within walking distance to my house (there's SO MUCH in walking distance!) but what do I buy?  Prime rib.  And it was $36 and smelled a little off.  But...the meat in the grocery stores always smell a little off to me, too.  I'm realizing it's not that it's going bad, but that they don't douse it with chlorinated water like in the USA.  It's probably healthier for me too.  Fewer nitrates for coloring here too.

Anyway, if we weren't spoiled we would keep going to the gringo side of town for Sams Club and Dairy Queen.  We wouldn't be importing Science Diet cat food for Scrappy.  And we wouldn't be getting our Bimbos at the Chedraui instead of the Aurora Bodega (hey I think I finally spelled it right!).  Bimbos being loafs of bread of course.

But anyway, I blew $220 on Sams Club and that leaves $280 for the rest of the month because my mom and I get a $500 grocery budget.  More than twice as much as my neighbor, for half as many people.  SHAME ON US!

Anyway...I'm going to walk to the Oxxo now to get that fucking menthol candy I'm re-addicted to.  That's all for now!