Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jzrossef]

From what I see here, it sounds like the grocery (especially fruits and veggies) are going up to near Western price. Last time I was in Korea for summer, Korean sushi on the street was worth like 1000 won... now people are saying 2500 etc etc...

But when I talk to some Koreans here, (including my parents) they doubt it unless it's expensive brand organic products or imported goods. They can see how meat prices could go up, but most local Korean and Chinese food shouldn't be expensive. It's really hard to check that stuff here in Canada, and my last contact in Korea has been working overseas 2 years ago.

So what should I expect? I'm planning on a relatively tight budget, but I wouldn't want to be overly cheap with food expense as health is still my priority. I am planning on eating Korean and Korean-based Chinese cuisine, and I'd imagine I'd be sticking with homecook. I get free lunch from school for weekdays and Sundays.

I will be living in Yeongpong Eup... if that makes any difference. I'm hoping that the cost would be more manageable than Seoul since it's a rural area... but I'm told that it could work the other way around due to less competition.

FYI, I'm aware of the fact that food prices are going up everywhere. I'm just thinking how bad it is in Korea.

[Caffeinated]

Don't PS school teachers pay for school lunch? I know mine is deducted form my pay monthly.

There's not a long list of grocery items that I find overly expensive in Korea: coffee, cheese, cantaloupe, watermelons. If you stick to Korean foods to cook at home you'll have an easier go at budgeting.

[billyjudd]

It's going to get really bad.

Inflation in Korea is now at 4.1 percent.

The Korea Times says it's going to get worse.

[eamo]

You'd need to be blind to not have noticed the big rises in food prices here over the last few years.

Especially fruit and veg..........if the Korean farmers have a poor harvest then we all pay through the nose. So there are lots of price spikes for certain foods at certain times of the year.

Good news for meat lovers is that US beef is cheap and becoming more and more available.

[Scamps]

Im not sure what everyone is talking about. My food bills haven't changed. I just buy a big bag of rice and lots of vegetables. I'm a vegetarian so I don't worry about meat which is probably costly.
My grocery bill is generally around 35,000 a week and I eat a lot of vegetables! The 35,000 isn't only vegetables, sometimes I need household things too..like cleaners, shampoo, soap, etc.
I'm sure if there's a wet market/farmer's market near your place you could get fresh fruit and veggies at an ultra low price.

[jzrossef]

[uklathemock]

So, you're surviving on like the 4 or 5 vegetables available here? =)

[AsiaESLbound]

It gets high if you like cooking Western food like spaghetti, steaks, and great stuff like that, but I'm not using the cheapest options, I'm using the 7,000 won jar of high quality sauce.

This is one country severely lacking natural resources other than water so things other than water are going to cost 2X to 5X more than it's fair market price back home. They just don't have lots of rich fertile soil laying around in big fields to grow lots of nice food stuff with nor lots of supply of anything natural other than water, trees, and rocks. Much is imported and there are lots of nice import items available, but import taxes are sky high as to protect the domestic farmers even though domestic farmers don't have the means to produce much in adequate quantities. Spent BBQ ashes from those small round artificial bricks with holes, chemicals, PVC plastics, trash, and human feces to enrich the already spent soil from thousands of years of cultivation? Yep, when they plowed the fields a month ago, the excessive trash blow around all over from illegal dumping was just tilled and turned into the soil instead of plucked out to keep it out of our food. With their high prices, couldn't they clean it up a bit to produce higher quality? If cleaned up and done with more effective methods, yields would probably also increase. I get sticker shocked, because the prices are excessive for small quantities also noticeably lacking quality. Imports are high too, but often half as cheap as Korean stuff while offering top notch quality and more choices. One example of this is Australian beef is much nicer quality at exactly half the cost of Korean. Import everything you can get is the way to go if feeding a family of one. It's going to cost more to live here either way you go with it.

[Scamps]

[atwood]

[Scamps]

I think the carrots here are just fine. Never had a problem with carrots anywhere. Even my pet rabbits who are picky like the carrots (and no not all rabbits are nuts about carrots - that's just a stereotype). I buy the pre-washed kind.

The algae section is pretty vast. You can find many varieties served all sorts of ways. Dried, roasted, pickled, in olive oil, grapeseed oil, salted, plain, small sheets, large, strips, etc.

[Dazed and Confused]

Vegetable prices went up in early fall because of the typhoon. I remember cucumbers being 1,100 EACH and bell peppers as high as 5,000 EACH! We actually started buying canned tomatoes from Homeplus because it was cheaper. The good thing is with the economy in the US the beef is fairly reasonable.

[sojusucks]

Food prices have been steadily increasing. Anyone who hasn't noticed simply isn't paying attention.

[GoldMember]

Who cares about food prices. These days Emart has cheap German beer at below 1600 won a can.

[Mr. BlackCat]

Food prices have sky-rocketed. Maybe not so much in the last year (they still went up) but in the last decade? oh yes.

When I first got there I thought produce prices were a bit higher. They went up here and there, but whatever. Now I'm back in Canada and I can easily say that I buy most produce without anymore thought than a pack of gum. I make veggie stir fries for a couple of bucks here. And it's REAL produce, not skanky stuff.

I bought into the whole "If you eat Korean then everything is cheap!" idea when I lived there, which is partly true. If you don't mind eating fermented cabbage as your veggie requirement, or rice as half your calories (which is really overpriced anyway). Get ready for that ulcer and higher rate of stomach cancer! But if you want a more balanced meal it is cheaper in North America. Yes, cheap unhealthy options are available and I know about 16 posters behind me will say every single person born in North America is obese (except for themself). I'm talking about options here and the option to eat a healthy balanced meal here is cheaper than Korea. The main thing is choice. In North America you can choose to eat bad things and it's cheap and easy. You can eat good things and while it's cheap it's not as easy. In Korea you eat the 10 different things they have or you pay alot for getting something else, which is usually just expensive bad things.