Food prices

I've heard lots of differing opinions comparing food prices in the US to those in Germany. Germans in the US told us food was way cheaper in Germany, I've had some Americans friends here comment on how much more they spend on groceries here as compared to the US. I think when you average it all out, prices are basically the same here. However, some things here are much cheaper, and some things are much more expensive. So if you know what to shop for, you can get great deals.

Beer is cheap. It's not "good" beer, but the discount grocery has 6 packs of beer for €1.69, and they're bigger than US beers. Dylan likes them fine, so we save money on beer.

Wine- as in the US wine prices vary, but you can get a lot of French wines very cheap here, which is difficult to find in the US. We're not huge wine aficionados, but I've enjoyed everything we've drank, and I don't think we've spent more than €4 on a bottle of wine, including the sparking wine we had for valentines day.

Cheese- Dylan and I really love cheese, in the US we would frequently spend $5-8 on a small wedge of "fancy" cheese like brie or gouda. Here, I found gouda for €1 for 100 grams, so about €3.5 for a big wedge of it, and today I bought a 250g (a little bigger than the stand 8oz rounds in the US) round of camembert for €1.29. I haven't tried to buy it yet, but apparently cheddar cheese here is quite expensive.

Milk- Is similarly priced I think. A liter, so a little more than a quart is €.59 for store brand, so a gallon would be €2.40 or $3.20 for whole milk. So pretty similar.

Fruits and veggies- seem cheaper, but it's a little hard to say with the packaging being so different, and the conversion from euros to dollars. Today I bought a large bag of brussel sprouts (like way more than we would eat for one meal) for €1.49. A few days ago, I bought three peppers (a red, a green, and a yellow), I know in the US I bought three peppers like that for $4.99 (not on sale) and here it was €1.79. I bought a very large bag of potatoes (lasted 3 or 4 different meals) for €.99. I've also bought big bags of clementines for €.99, they we're great though, probably a 3rd of them were too sour to eat.

Meat- Is mostly more expensive. Beef seems very expensive. I spent about €7 for some stew meat, maybe a pound. Definitely not a great deal. It depends what you buy though, I got a similar amount of pork for €3. In general, pork, ground meat, and sausage are going to be cheapest. I bought some frozen fish the other day (enough for 2 people) for €2 on sale.

Snack items- Are generally more expensive. A small bag of chips not much bigger than what you would buy in a vending machine in the US might cost €1.5. But this depends on what you want to snack on, I saw Ritter sport chocolate bars today for €.79, and in the US they would probably be at least $2.5. I've been buying James a fresh pretzel to munch on while we're out and about, and that only costs €.25-.40.

In general it seems like if we want to eat exactly the way we did in the US, it will not be cost effective. Things like chips, peanut butter, and mac and cheese (not that that's the sort of stuff we ate anyway...) that were fairly affordable there, are not here. However, if we're willing to take advantage of the things that are cheap here, and give up the more expensive things that we're used to, food prices seem quite reasonable.

Tonight for dinner we're having cheesy-bacon-potato soup with fresh bread from the bakery, and the whole meal will cost around €5.