What to Expect in Brasilia (Focusing on Prices)

I was told several things about Brasilia that I didn't find to be accurate once I got here. The first was that everything is 3x the cost here compared to the U.S. This is not true. There are things that cost 3x as much as in the U.S., but it is far from everything.

We went shoe shopping for our kids' athletic activities last weekend. Athletic shoes cost exactly the same here as they do in the U.S. if you go to the right store. I had been warned that shoes would cost more, but having bought shoes for growing boys a lot in the past year, I knew what current prices were.

Food might cost 3x as much as in the U.S. if you are accustomed to buying prepared foods. Breakfast cereal is terribly expensive. Ice cream is really that expensive. Oats are nearly impossible to find, and when you do find them, they are expensive. Peanut butter is crazy expensive - around $10/lb (one small jar). However, some of these items can be purchased at the commissary, if you are with the embassy. Peanut butter is still more expensive there than back home, but I can handle $3.74/lb, as the cost is seriously offset by produce prices. I was also warned about olive oil, but haven't noticed the price or quality issues I had heard described.

If you normally shop around the outside edges of the supermarket (produce, dairy, deli, meat), you will find that most foods you buy are at or below the prices you will find in D.C., with the exception of milk. Milk is more expensive, but not as bad as I was thinking it might be. I was also told that it was hard to find, but it is everywhere. Maybe it is harder to find in Asa Sul or Asa Norte, but in Lago Sul, I have seen it at every grocery store. It is in 1 liter bottles or bags. The bags are cheaper, and for those of you in the upper midwest, they resemble the bagged milk at Kwik Trip, but are half the size. One bag of milk will cost somewhere between $.75 and $2 USD. Different stores seem to have widely varying prices, and there are frequent sales at some stores. The bottled milk tends to be about $.50 USD higher than bagged. It is certainly more convenient, but the quantity we go through has made me a fan of the bags. Chicken and beef are the meats of choice here for our family. We tried sausage once and didn't like it, but maybe we need to experiment with more varieties before we make a decision on it. Beef is pretty cheap here. Ground beef is about the same price as back home, but steaks are a fantastic price here, and the cuts are high quality. Chicken is about the same price as back home, but not as well-cut. We can even get rotisserie chickens from a nearby grocery store, and they cost about what they did back home...maybe a little more than Costco, but about the same as a regular grocery store.

The difficulty buying oats surprised me, but I had to laugh when I finally found the flour after searching the grain aisle for 10 minutes. They put it in 1 Kilo bags. That's about 8 cups of flour per bag. I'm used to dealing with 25 lb. bags of flour at a time, so I bought about 10 to satisfy my cookie-making sons. As for the price, I think it was a little higher than back home, but don't quote me on that one. I was in a hurry and didn't calculate it out fully. That's one thing about this new lifestyle...we get a COLA adjustment, and it means that I don't have to be as careful with our grocery budget. It is there to make up for the areas where things cost more.

The other items in Brasilia that are seriously expensive are housewares. Some things line up with prices back home, but then other things don't. For example, pillows. I figured we would buy pillows here, as we threw ours out in MN and used the ones that came with our furnished apartment in VA. We have pillows in our welcome kit, but ought to buy our own. Pillows that look like cheap Target pillows back home cost about $15 or $20 USD. I'm thinking I'll see whether I can order vacuum-sealed pillows on Amazon so they don't constitute a bulk shipment.

I'm not sure why so many people told us that prices were so high here. One guess is they haven't lived in the U.S. for a while. Milk used to be $1/gallon in the States not that long ago. Now, it is $2.50-$3.50 per gallon, depending on the state. I can also remember when I could get cereal for $1/box without going coupon-crazy. Nowadays it isn't uncommon for it to be upwards of $4/box. But I can see where if someone lived outside of the U.S. for the past decade, they might not have a good basis for comparison. Food prices really inflated after corn started being used for Ethanol production.

I am really glad we have the commissary, though! There are certain items you just can't get here. Salsa, certain chips, cake mixes, syrup, peanut butter, jam...I love the commissary. In fact, I think I will go there now.