Cut your grocery budget by half with residents’ shopping hacks

Cut your grocery budget by half with residents’ shopping hacks

Bachelors who share accommodation have found new ways to stay afloat.





With job losses and salary cuts, residents are wading through uncharted waters. They are finding new ways to cut corners but are constrained by choices. Contracts for home rent, phone, Internet and TV can't be changed; school fee has to be paid; and electricity and water bills can be managed to an extent - but one, and arguably the only thing, a person has any control over is grocery. You can decide what to eat and how much to spend. And that's what many residents have done.

Bachelors who share accommodation have found new ways to stay afloat. Mubarak Ali, who has been a UAE resident for more than 27 years, was able to cut his grocery budget in half by turning to vegetable markets and flour mills.

"When faced with salary cuts, we need to make judicious planning to survive. In March, self-cooking started. It was then that I noticed the difference in prices at vegetable shops and flour mills compared to hypermarkets," said Ali who works at a private company.

He found that 1kg of onion is being sold at around Dh1.50 to Dh2 at a vegetable shop,