Sunday, September 16, 2007

An Economist From Birth

Once I told my father's cousin-in-law (is there such a relationship?) in Israel that I liked to visit stores when I travel and see what the prices are like in different countries. She said: "You are an economist from the womb and from birth", which sounds a lot better in Hebrew: "Ata kalkalan mibeten umilayda!" Anyway we just made our first shopping trip in Australia. I did live here before but that was five years ago and the Australian Dollar has appreciated tremendously since then. Conclusion is that Americans will find prices reasonable here for groceries and meals but some things are especially expensive. We checked McDonalds for the "Big Mac Index". Actually the "Value Meal Index" - One combo was priced at $A5.65 which is $US4.75 and so cheaper than in the US. At the supermarket some particularly expensive items were:

Apples: $A6.99 per kg = $US2.67 per pound
Bananas: $A3.99 per kg = $US1.54 per pound

We didn't buy any, but salmon is $A26 per kg = $US9.93 per pound

As I remembered, wine isn't especially cheap, which is surprising. Only a few bottles below $A10 (=$US8.50). I guess the price is comparable to the US.

Now we are in the process of trying to rent a car.

4 comments:

enoughwealth@yahoo.com said...

Fruit and Veg are very expensive at the moment due to the ongoing drought in NSW and QLD. But you can still get good quality bananas for $2.99/kg if you shop around, and bags of quality red delicious or granny smith apples are only $3 or so per kg.

Rafi (S) said...

Can we have the USD prices in kg so that I can understand them?

mOOm said...

Just multiply the original price by 0.85 :)

i.e. apples = $US5.94 and bananas $US3.39

We did see bananas later for $A2.99 and there are apples for $A4.99. Bananas usually cost $US0.59 per lb in our part of the US.

Rafi (S) said...

That's way expensive. I buy apples for NIS 6-8 (~USD 1.40 - 1.90) per kg all year round.