The price is right...

Well it’s a cold, rainy Sunday night here in Maputo. I’ve got a pot of chili on the stove and cornbread in the oven. As I was cooking today it occurred to me that many of you readers would enjoy a post about the ACTUAL costs of living here. So I pulled my grocery receipt out of my purse and I will quote you some “real life costs”. First let me include some basic conversion rates for those of you mathematicians out there who want to convert the kilograms to pounds and the metacais to dollars. So here you are: there are approximately 2.2 pounds per kilogram and the current exchange rate of dollars to metacais is 27,400 metacais per dollar. Now that rate ONLY applies if you exchange dollars for mets at a Cambio (money exchange bureau). If you use a credit card to pay for groceries the exchange rate is more like 24,000 mets to the dollar. And if you withdraw metacais from the ATM the rate is closer to 26,000. So now that you have all those details here are the prices of some items:

Penne pasta (500g) - 15000 ------Apples (1 kg) - 50000
White rice (1 kg) - 19000 ------Bananas (1 kg) - 15000
Beef stock cubes (240g) - 55000 ------Tomatoes (1 kg) - 35000
Pasta Sauce (405 g) - 65000 ------Onions (1 kg) - 40000
Canned diced tom (410g) - 38000 ------Peppers (1 kg) - 35000
Canned beans (800g) - 46000 ------Cucumbers (1 kg) - 50000
Brown sugar (1 kg) - 16500 ------Carrots (1 kg) - 25000
White sugar (1 kg) - 20000
Powdered sug (400g) - 16000 ------Chicken (whole) - 42000
Flour (2.5 kg) - 35000 ------Chicken (breasts) - 85000
Crackers (200 g) - 45000 ------Chicken (quartered)- 60000
Juice (1 liter) - 48000 ------Ground beef (1 kg)- 150000
Eggs (1 dozen WARM!) - 56000
Milk (1 liter) - 41000 ------Batteries (AA – 4 pack)- 34734
Yogurt (1 kg) - 82000 ------2-ring binder (think 3)- 125000
Cheese (1/2 kg) - 141350 ------Risk board game - 1,400000
Cereal (various) - 95000 to 145000 ------Ziplock sand bags (30 bags)- 70000
Butter (500 g) - 99000 ------Paper plates (50 total) - 83000
Peanut butter (400 g) - 57000
Coconut milk (400 ml) - 45000 ------Hard cover book 12056000
Kleenex (not really) - 49000 ------Children’s board book 230000
Shampoo (200 ml) - 169000
Laundry soap (1 kg) - 115000
Liquid dish soap - 85000

As you can probably tell these are some of the things we tend to buy frequently (except the books and game of course). We spend roughly around 2,000,000 mets when we go to Shoprite. I buy my produce at the local fruit stand and bread (usually little rolls for 15000) at the bakery. If there are other things you’re curious about the cost on send us an email and ask! Hope you enjoyed using your math skills!