Don't frighten yourself by reading the Coop website. I like Coop a lot, but they are probably the priciest of the big chains.

As someone said, Aldi or Lidl are significantly cheaper. You also need to get to know the little tricks like shopping late in the day when they sell off the short-dated stock at half price.

All supermarkets have weekly bargain items and promotions, so just shop around. Often the small ethnicy groceries have great prices is you are happy to buy in bulk.

If you like walking in the forest, for the next month or too there are many ripe berries and if you know which ones to look for, mushrooms, that can make a tasty meal…

God's kitchen is always free

Some can be deadly!

Swiss cantons bid farewell to mushroom inspector

Sure! I always have too much food in the house.
I plan my cooking for around 14 when there are only 2 of us.

Who eats 3x/day?

I eat dinner only.

I was living on that for a few months in Zurich, but that was in '82, and my rent was 300/month!

Tom

1 kg spaghetti, 100 g chocolate with hazelnuts and half a litre of beer will cost you 2 sFr, if you buy within the budget-priced product lines of the (otherwise expensive) market leaders Coop and Migros.

Just think of all the potential fusion food recipes - spaghetti al cioccolatto, hazelnut beer goulash...

What? No. The cheapest spaghetti M budget 1 kilo is 1 CHF, 100 gram M budget hazelnuts chocolate is almost 1 CHF (4x pieces = 3.5 or something CHF) and the cheapest beer will be like 1.8/1.9 CHF for 0.5 liter... So it will be at least 4 CHF and not 2.

1.8 CHF for a 0.5l is EXPENSIVE beer, cheap is 0.45 CHF!

Tom

I manage to do all my shopping (food, cleaning products and toiletries) on around 300 chf per month. But that is just eating. Your calculations don't seem to leave any 'wriggle room' for if you have a medical emergency (your health insurance won't cover all your costs until you've passed your franchise and even then you have to pay 10% of your bills), if you need to buy books or other supplies for your studies, haircuts, or if something breaks and you need to replace it (example: I dropped my iron on the floor this month and had to buy a new one. 50 chf).

I think if you have savings, you should use them. You can always transfer them back when you've finished your studies. But you don't want to end up in a situation when you're saying "I really don't feel well / have hurt my ankle / have toothache... but I can't afford to go to the doctors / dentists...". Neither do you want to find yourself in a position where money is so tight you start worrying on the 25th of every month if you have enough cash to keep you going. That won't help your studies.

To keep your costs down, one thing you need to consider is how much storage space you will have for food. As others have said, look out for the special offers - but will you be able to store them - especially fresh items? The problem I find is that I don't have a freezer, just a little ice compartment. So I can't take advantage of some of the good deals to buy a multi pack of meat and freeze it, or cook it and then freeze the results, because I don't have room...

Me right, you wrong. Maybe you look too foreign, so they let you pay the expat tax. *

Again, for 10 sFr. you could have bought at Migros today:

- 2 apples Golden (discount price 2.70/kg): 0.80
- 500 g half-white bread: 1.15
- 1 kg M-Budget spaghetti: 0.95
- 500 ml tomato sauce: 1.15
- 2x180 g banana flavoured yoghurt: 1.10
- 450 g M-Budget minced meat: 4.25
- 100 g M-Budget chocolate with hazelnuts: 0.60

I don't know if all this products are tasty, but you certainly don't have to starve, even if you spend less than 10 sFr a day on groceries.

* (@ sk83_za: there is no such thing )

But no matter how hard you tried you couldn't have bought a beer for 0.45 CHF, 2 CHF, or even 5 CHF

Why not?

Buy yogurt when on sale. If not:

Fruit/Veg: Buy what's on sale/in season! Apples seem to always be cheap compared to other fruit
Yogurt: 60rp a day
Bread for sandwiches: 1/2 loaf a day = <2 CHF a day (freeze leftovers and toast to make sandwiches instead of letting it go stale).
Sandwich fillings: CHF 1-3/day (buy meat + cheese when on sale, freeze butter in slices to prevent it from going off, always take a small jar of honey/jam with you, that's for very cheap days)
Dinner: CHF 1 for 300g rice/noodles
Drinks: Live on tap water or buy a SodaClub if you don't want to spend CHF 3 a day for 2 1.5l bottles of whatever you fancy. If you need soda, buy when on sale.
Sandwich wrappers: M-Budget and Prix Garantie aluminium/plastic foil is the cheapest.

Sandwiches in general: I'd buy everything (bread and toppings) when on sale, fix sandwiches and freeze. Thaw when needed). If you like toast, the M-Budget one for about 1chf/500g is really good.


Expensive things will be:
Meat (cheapest is Aldi/Lidl (or go shopping in France/Germany)
Unplanned snacks/eating out
Drinks (small bottle of soda is >1 chf while tap water is free)

Still, you'll have to limit your range of foods if you can't go out of the country to shop... if you want cheap food, I'd recommend Denner/Migros, not Coop or Manor.

Thank you all for such great advice!I will be landing on the 10 Sept and im feeling so much about it all. Im just so busy packing!How does one pack for a year in Switzerland into 30kg of luggage?

You pack your most comfortable clothes, and when you get here, go looking for a 2nd hand clothing shop - lots of folk have off-loaded their hardy winter clothing from last year and it sells now for a fraction of the new prices in shops. 2nd hand clothing is only accepted by these shops if it`s clean and in good condition.

Bon Voyage and best of luck in your venture!

Wear all your winter clothes on you and then pay the extra $50 for a second suit case.

Denner now has 24x5 cl Löwenbräu Hefeweiss for just 14.40. If you need cheap beer always check out the special offers from Denner.

http://www.denner.ch/de/news-aktione...ash=f2810e4376

... which is beer, Jim, but not as we know it.

If you want to eat cheap, I recommend always buying the halbweiss bread. You can always get a decent-sized loaf (to feed a single person) for less than one Franc.

That's Swiss beer, I know. But from time to time they also sell cheap german stuff.

You Aussies actually think your stuff is better?