Supermercado vs Mercat

While living in Spain we have shopped and ate at a lot of different places so far.

I wanted to give a little insight to the reality of living in the Andalucía region vs other areas in Spain based on food shopping and eating out. Although it’s only been a month so it’s still relative don’t take this literally because everyone has different experiences.

When living in Conil we shopped at Día, Aldi, Mercadona, and El Jamón. These were the bigger stores that had what we needed at a decent price. We also shopped at the local markets and frutería a few times, but then we would need to do multiple trips and it was often too small to bring our stroller inside.

Here are some of the receipts from the grocery stores in Barbate at Lidl, Aldi and Mercadona.

The first one was a rare moment spending less than €1 for a 1.5 L water bottle, a large baguette of bread and a small roll of bread 🙌🏼 The other ones were a lot more food and still worth the price!

The longer grocery lists include items such as broccoli, water, pasta, tuna, bananas, bread, juice, eggs, rice, apples, ham, hummus, chicken, etc. and it was a total of ~€50 each visit. On average, we get about 20-30 items and they last us about 3-4 days or up to a week. Obviously this can be less if you buy different foods that are less perishable, but we are always mindful of the prices and quality of what we are buying when we can.

We also went to the local Mercat in Conil and Barbate, but we just bought fish, meat, a few fruits and then some cafe and snacks. We even tried Morena (ocean snake) for the first time and it was delicious!

The pork for chicharrón in the Mofongo € 6

+the free container of pork fat spread

The fish fillets to make fried fish € 8

The grapes and pear that smacked on while waiting for the fish € 2

The two mini pastries similar to baklava € 2

The two espressos, two juices, toast and morena (snake) and one beer € 13

Total spent at the Mercat in Barbate: €31

While eating out at this place called Creperie in Valencia we got a few things and it was €33

I didn’t take photos of all our receipts eating out but usually this was our average or maybe more or less depending on what we got and where we were. In the cities, everything cost more even at the local places.

Down in Andalucía, the prices are better but even tourist spots in Conil were similar to the city prices. Barbate and Chiclana are places that had affordable eats and felt less touristy so far overall.

This is just a glimpse into the life here and the costs of food. We hope to keep exploring and finding the best eats to enjoy and share!

Thank you for reading and always remember it’s a great day to be alive!

Xoxo

-GloboMama