Best Buys for Weekend of 18th October

Full roasted chicken straight from oven at €3.99 from Joutsensilta K-Supermarket on Friday. Two per buyer. Go before 16:30. Bananas whole weekend at €0.99 per kg. On Saturday Apple Hearts pastry packet of 440.gm (8 per packet) at €0.99 and two packets per buyer.

Potatoes at Lidl at 0.39 per kg. Small mandarins at€0.99 per kg. Orange/ Mango juice at €1 for a litre carton. Also at Lidl. Freshly made Finnish traditional Karjalan Pirakka at €0.25 each. Small but very good.

Some good buys at Tokmanni

Yesterday I informed you about Oranges at € 0.49 at Tokmanni. When I was shopping, I saw that potatoes were just € 0.20 per kg in a 5 kg sack and they were 1st quality Finnish potatoes. A great buy.

I also noted that some Polish apples were on offer at € 0.79 per kg. As they are loose, you can pick up the really good quality lot from them.

I bought 10 kg of potatoes and 5 kg of apples along with around 9 kg of oranges. All for under € 10!

The Tokmanni at Toppila does not sell fresh foodstuffs.

Oranges on Saturday

Wow, great price for Oranges this Satturday in the KKK Supermarkets.

The competition is hotting up. They will be just € 0.39 per kg compared to the already rock bottom price of € 0.59 at PRISMA.

Just to say that the potatoes in PRISMA at € 0.19 per kg are really good. The skin is clean and very thin. They are also € 0.19 in the KKK Supermarket, but the ones in PRISMA are better quality.

I usually eat my boiled potatoes with the skin as most of the nutrients are in that layer.

These potatoes are great tasting.

Saturday best Buys

Thank you for all the messages about the potatoes. It was indeed an excellent buy. Look around, as you may still find some available at that unbelieveable price of € 0.10 per kg!

Today, saturday, we have a couple of good buys.

Oranges at PRISMA are only € 0.59 per kg. We use about 5 kg a week. These oranges may last a couple of weeks, so it is certainly a good buy for us.

Bananas are just € 0.89 at Lidl. Worth a buy, although at most other shops they are just € 0.99 per kg. If you eat as many bananas as we do, then buying raw green ones so that they can ripen over the week would be a Best Buy.

Today at Halppa-Halli in Toppila you can get Chicken legs at € 0.99 per kg. An excellent buy if you are a non-vegetarian.

Do send me your comments.

Potatoes at rock bottom price

Today, Sunday, I went out shopping, even though it was bitterly cold in the afternoon.

I went to PRISMA and I saw a sight that in all my life I have never seen before in Finland.

Potatoes are the staple food of Finns. They consume it in many ways - plain boiled potatoes, mashed, fried, roasted, grilled, sliced, curried, etc. Any way you think you can prepare potatoes - that is an accepted way.

So when I came across the price of Euro 0.99 for a 10 kg sack, it is a price I have never ever seen in my 26 years in Finland.

In our book "Handbook for Survival in Finland" published in 1994, the lowest price reported for a 10 kg sack of potatoes is 15.90 Finn marks, which is Euro 2.70. This price of today is almost a third of that lowest price which I had noted between 1984 and 1994!

The farmers must be having a real hard time, as this was a sack of Quality 1 potatoes which they must have harvested late summer or early autumn. Such a price would hardly give them the price of fertiliser they would have used to produce this crop,

Though I feel sad for the farmers, it is good for those on the hunt for value for money.

If you want to live like a Finn, then switch to potatoes, pick up a few bags, and enjoy the various delicious ways you can prepare this carbohydrate! At € 0.10 a kg, you can certainly experiment all you want.

Considering I earned a 10% bonus on my purchases of today using my PRISMA card, that wored out at € .90 for 10 kg or E 0.09 for a kg of potatoes)

Can anyone tell me whether you can pick up potatoes at this price (Rs. 5.85 per kg) in India?

Good prices at K-Citymarket

The low prices for oranges, mangoes, and a few other vegetables, continue today at K-Citymarket. 5 kg of potatoes are available for € 0.99, which works at less than € 0.20 per kg.

Certainly worth a buy.

Bananas are still cheapest at Lidl, where they were € 0.89 per kg. Basmati rice is cheapest at Lidl at € 2.49 per kg. Both Prisma and K-Citymarket are selling Basmati rice closer to € 3 per kg.

I took an Indian friend to Lidl yesterday and he found the price of shower gel here to be the same as in India!

He also commented that the hand creams he has brought from India are not suited to this cold climate as they sort of crystallize because of the low temperature.