Korean Job Discussion Forums

[whitestboyalive]

The frozen soup thing is excellent. Nothing like a good bowl of soup and some bread to dip it in.

Also, get a Costco card. Buy the chicken in bulk, steak in bulk, salmon, whatever. You can freeze it too. Meat seems to stay very well in the freezer and you just take it out and put it in the fridge a day beforehand.

[eamo]

[gem]

I got here when it was cold and didn't necessarily want to go out each night for meals, so I bought groceries. Everything costs more here than in the grocery stores back home...simple staples like eggs, fruit, and bread costs double or more. Even the ramen is more expensive. Trips to Costco just aren't worth the time and effort for me. Eating out is much cheaper if you can stomach Korean food. If you can't, you can't, and I do understand. Its not the greatest, but tolerable for a year.

[UknowsI]

I find it hard to cook good meals much cheaper than eating out. I've heard Daejeon is a little cheaper than Seoul, some of my favourite dishes are hwedopbab at 5000 won, ddalgalbi at 7000 won, Pizza Maru 6000 won for two people (if you are not big eaters). If I cook at home I might cut the price with 1000 won, but if I get too many leftovers I wont save anything at all.

But it is of course easy to eat cheaper than this. If you eat cereal, bread, ramyeon, egg-bacon-beans, rice with kimchi and such meals you can easily eat for 1000-2000 won a meal. It is however easy to see that this is not exactly quality food, and you'll get pretty bored if you eat it 3 times a day. For me it works well to eat these cheap dishes for breakfast, sometimes lunch, sometimes evening meals and so on, but to usually eat out for dinner. It also doesn't make many dirty dishes. However, brewing my own coffee probably saves me more money than eating in.

[Illysook]

During my first year here, I had a freezer that was big enough for a few ice cubes and I lived in the middle of nowhere. The market near me had very few options. I would go into Seoul every weekend and attend a lot of church functions with free food. Then, on Wednesday nights, I would eat at a coffee shop in Jeongja where they had reasonably priced dinner sets and a weekly worship service. This meant that i cooked 3 days a week. I could eat ramyeon, spaghetti, pizza, or chicken from a roaster truck 3 nights a week without being too upset about it.

This year, I live closer to Seoul, have a large freezer, and a costco membership. I spend more, but it's higher quality, so I don't mind.

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

Ooh. I also get the big pack of frozen burrito tortillas and make a lot of quesadillas. I make a big pot of refried beans (not really refried, though, because I don't fry them up in lard after the initial stewing and mashing), and freeze them in ziplocks as well. Bean mash, salsa, and cheese in a lovely quesadilla is one of our go-to easy dinners.

[ocean_panther]

I have not really gone out to eat very much - only a few times in the couple of months that I have been here. I am vegetarian so I figured cooking and eating at home would be much cheaper and easier. I think that the price of fruits and vegetables was one of the biggest shocks I have had here though. It just seems like in the US it can be very cheap to have a simple healthy diet but that here the produce is much more expensive.

I think that eating out probably could be pretty cheap though. I think the reason for this is that restaurants probably buy produce in bulk and therefore don't charge too much when there are vegies in a dish. But if you are just buying your veggies and fruits at a local mart, then you are probably paying more since not in large quantities. But of course there are cheap restaurants and expensives ones, pricey home meals and budget ones.

I think that my school buying me a rice cooker helped tons. With that, I think I am spending less than I would otherwise if eating out.

[allovertheplace]

Eh...it can work out to be the same amount.

My cooking would be adding an egg, veg, and some hot sauce to a noodle bowl.

But working until 9:30 didn't really make me want to cook. I did make a big pot of soup on the weekend though but as a single male, I would just eat 14 bowls of soup on saturday and pass out

[robinsoncrusoe]

[Adam Carolla]

Cereal for breakfast.

Kimbap Nara for lunch.

Kalbi and beers for dinner.

I don't think I ever saved less than half a paycheck in 8 years. Not really seeing what the issue is here.

[RMNC]

The problem is that that's a really unhealthy diet and will make you fat.

[Adam Carolla]

[PatrickGHBusan]

The answer as you can see is: it depends.

It depends where you eat and where you buy your groceries. It also depends on what you eat.

So its pretty hard to come up with a definite answer.

We found it was cheaper to eat at home with the occasional restaurant thrown in. We cooked for a family however.

When I was single, I found that eating out was cheaper.

It will vary.

[naturegirl321]

I'm one who blows a lot of my money on food and don't touch alcohol, but I guess I have a good excuse since I'm pregnant.

I think a lot of the issues with food is that we throw a lot away. For example, if you go out to eat, take what you don't eat home. Plan your meals well and go shopping around what you need. DOn't go when you're hungry and don't buy things simply because they're on sale. YOu'll end up not using stuff and chucking it or it'll go bad before you can eat in.

Since you have to recycle food here, you'll see what I mean. Buy just what you can eat and plan accordingly. That should help cut down on your spending.

[robinsoncrusoe]