First visit to the supermarket

One important thing when you go to live in another country is for sure food, and food prices. After talking with several people, they explained me which supermarkets are the best (cheapest with variety of different products). In Belgium, main supermarket chains are DelHaize, Colruyt, Aldi, Lidl. As everywhere Lidl is the cheapest one, but variety of different products and manufacturers is not so good. You can choose just one kind of product for a cheap price. Let's say for example, they are not selling Pepsi and Coca Cola, they just sell Pepsi for the cheapest price. This is the strategy of Lidl, one kind of product, and a lot of it, for a cheap price. Aldi is also a cheaper supermarket with several kinds of product. Prices are a bit more expensive then Lidl but more cheaper then DelHaize and Colruyt. DelHaize is the most expensive supermarket, with a high variety of products. This was my first choice, because when you enter supermarket, atmosphere is really pleasent, everything is nicely presented, and clerks are also pleasent. In Lidl and Aldi you can't see that, because everything is stored in boxes, it is not so visually nice. Colruyt is something in the middle, they have almost all product like in DelHaize but price is a bit lower, because when they see the price in DelHaize they lower it down for a few euro cents. For one month average expenses are around 100 euro. But I have to say that I am buying a lot of necessary things (chocolates, chips, peanuts...) so you can save a lot of money there. During workdays I have lunch at comapny's restaurant, and I am paying around 120 euro per month for that lunch. It is not so good, but it is something. Also I have advantage, because I have lunch vouchers from my company, so I am paying monthly 25 euro for 20 vouchers (depend on days you worked in the past month). Every voucher is worth 6 euro. So at the end for 25 euro I get around 120 euro. So for 145 euro I have lunch at my company and food and other things that I eat at my home. Let's say that for normal monthly expenses for meet, fruit, vegetables, and some sweets and chips, you will spend around 100 euro. I can't post detailed prices of some products because I forgot them, but if somebody is interested I can post that also. To compare this situation with my country. Prices in Serbia are a bit less, so for one person, for one month you can live with 70-100 euro. To compare average payment in Belgium and Serbia. For Belgium average payment is around 1300 euro. So 100 euro for food is 1/13 of payment. In Serbia, average payment is around 350 euro, and 80 euro for a food per month, that is 1/4 of payment. So you can clearly see a difference. So if you are asking yourself, is it expensive to eat in Belgium, my answer is no, but one hint. Avoid restaurants as much as possible, because it is really expensive, and for one meal you can spend to 30 euro. If you prepare that dish by yourself you can save to 20 euro for sure. Once I went with my colleague and his wife to Greek restaurant. Meal for three persons with aperitif, salad, main meal and desert was 120 euro. I was astonished with the price, becuase those meal I can make by myself.