Food
Watch out for prices of food which are not what you expect. For example, spinach in January, courgettes were marked at a couple for dollars per 100g but when you get to the checkout your half dozen courgettes are costing you S $10! (£5). (S$ is Singaporean dollars, currently about two to £1, not necessarily the same as US dollars.)
Even allowing for the fact that Marketplace is an upmarket supermarket chain brand, if you opt for familiar vegetables they can be dearer than the local ones.
You can buy in the local 'wet markets' (open air stalls which are open air and used to have wet floors from rain and spillage - now kept much cleaner). However, you may need to adapt to local vegetables. In ethnic areas such as little India you will also find unwrapped vegetables at cheaper prices. The seller has lower overheads. Possibly the wobbly shapes of the vegetables are just as tasty but not looking nor fitting into the evenly shaped packaging trays.
It helps to know the local names for the vegetables if buying specific items for a recipe. However, if you just want to buy what it is available, you can simple point, and look up recipes for whatever you bought after you get home - or put small items such as bean sprouts into a large basin shape wok for a stir -fry, or chop the sold vegetables to go into a slow-cooker or casserole. (You can buy slow cookers locally at all sizes in the department stores as well as on offer in drug stores and all sorts of shops.
Looking for cheaper shops? Locals will buy in the suburbs, not in Orchard Road. For example, take the MRT to Toa Payoh.
Here are some of the cheaper stores:
NTUC FairPrice
Valu stores
Tiny shops like corner shops with shelving like warehouses with floor to ceiling shelving. Crammed space between shelves, scarcely
room for one person. You have step over boxes and to back out to
let somebody through. Looking for Nutella or cleaning materials like Jif/Cif/local brands bleach or a pack of ten pens or three toothbrushes in a pack, this is the place.
Japan Home
Cheap plastic everything with pictures of princesses and Teddy bears. Loads of stuff such as toys for toddlers and for Mum there's frying pans with colourful bases. Er - not $2 for a frying pan, it might be $20 or $30, still cheap for what it is but sorry, no good if you've only $S10-20 or $50 maximum cash, aren't carrying a credit card for fear of pickpockets.
Popular Bookstore
Huge shop like the UK's W H Smith. I found three varieties of watercolour pencils. I wanted a box files. I was shown plastic box files, half the size of the cardboard ones posting about £4 each in the UK but twice width and twice the price of the slim A$ files for S$2 in Daeso.
A Diary
At last I found a diary in Singapore's Popular stationery and book shop in Toa Payoh (end of January). Fairprice supermarket in Toa Payoh no longer stocked the diaries. In the UK you can buy diaries all year, at assorted reduced prices depending on when the diary dates are running out. For example in the huge department store size Tesco which is on one of two floors and open 24 hours (one in Watford - others in most major cities - but you might need a car to get there), diaries from January to January and also 18 month diaries and school year diaries starting September.
Daiso - spaciously laid out. Staff very helpful. Wide central aisle - looks like a cross between the UK's Marks and Spencer and British Home Stores and Homebase.
Basement market stalls:
The basement area of major malls will be filled with stalls selling tote bags, pillows and sheets and curtains sets. Some are stalls from the building's major retailers. You buy from the stall seller, then are escorted by her/him to the cashier who acts for the whole area and can take credit cards.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Watch out for prices of food which are not what you expect. For example, spinach in January, courgettes were marked at a couple for dollars per 100g but when you get to the checkout your half dozen courgettes are costing you S $10! (£5). (S$ is Singaporean dollars, currently about two to £1, not necessarily the same as US dollars.)
Even allowing for the fact that Marketplace is an upmarket supermarket chain brand, if you opt for familiar vegetables they can be dearer than the local ones.
You can buy in the local 'wet markets' (open air stalls which are open air and used to have wet floors from rain and spillage - now kept much cleaner). However, you may need to adapt to local vegetables. In ethnic areas such as little India you will also find unwrapped vegetables at cheaper prices. The seller has lower overheads. Possibly the wobbly shapes of the vegetables are just as tasty but not looking nor fitting into the evenly shaped packaging trays.
It helps to know the local names for the vegetables if buying specific items for a recipe. However, if you just want to buy what it is available, you can simple point, and look up recipes for whatever you bought after you get home - or put small items such as bean sprouts into a large basin shape wok for a stir -fry, or chop the sold vegetables to go into a slow-cooker or casserole. (You can buy slow cookers locally at all sizes in the department stores as well as on offer in drug stores and all sorts of shops.
Looking for cheaper shops? Locals will buy in the suburbs, not in Orchard Road. For example, take the MRT to Toa Payoh.
Here are some of the cheaper stores:
NTUC FairPrice
A supermarket with small sections on stationery and home wares.
Valu stores
Tiny shops like corner shops with shelving like warehouses with floor to ceiling shelving. Crammed space between shelves, scarcely
room for one person. You have step over boxes and to back out to
let somebody through. Looking for Nutella or cleaning materials like Jif/Cif/local brands bleach or a pack of ten pens or three toothbrushes in a pack, this is the place.
Japan Home
Cheap plastic everything with pictures of princesses and Teddy bears. Loads of stuff such as toys for toddlers and for Mum there's frying pans with colourful bases. Er - not $2 for a frying pan, it might be $20 or $30, still cheap for what it is but sorry, no good if you've only $S10-20 or $50 maximum cash, aren't carrying a credit card for fear of pickpockets.
Popular Bookstore
Huge shop like the UK's W H Smith. I found three varieties of watercolour pencils. I wanted a box files. I was shown plastic box files, half the size of the cardboard ones posting about £4 each in the UK but twice width and twice the price of the slim A$ files for S$2 in Daeso.
A Diary
At last I found a diary in Singapore's Popular stationery and book shop in Toa Payoh (end of January). Fairprice supermarket in Toa Payoh no longer stocked the diaries. In the UK you can buy diaries all year, at assorted reduced prices depending on when the diary dates are running out. For example in the huge department store size Tesco which is on one of two floors and open 24 hours (one in Watford - others in most major cities - but you might need a car to get there), diaries from January to January and also 18 month diaries and school year diaries starting September.
Daiso - spaciously laid out. Staff very helpful. Wide central aisle - looks like a cross between the UK's Marks and Spencer and British Home Stores and Homebase.
Basement market stalls:
The basement area of major malls will be filled with stalls selling tote bags, pillows and sheets and curtains sets. Some are stalls from the building's major retailers. You buy from the stall seller, then are escorted by her/him to the cashier who acts for the whole area and can take credit cards.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
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