Budapest is a brilliant city to stay in a holiday rental and settle in for a while. Food, wine, culture, and beauty aside, this Budapest shopping list shows it’s a fantastically affordable place to live for a European city.
We still have a few destinations to go on our yearlong grand tour dedicated to slow, local and experiential travel. But as the New Year is approaching I thought I’d compare the Price Check totals for all the places we’ve stayed this year, and Budapest fares very well.
Budapest is currently at number 12 out of 15 on the lower end of the scale, i.e. cheapest. Only Jerez, Marrakech, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City are cheaper, with Mexico City being the cheapest place so far on our grand tour to buy groceries. With only European cities left, we’re unlikely to find a cheaper city. So let’s share some insights into Budapest prices.
Price Check Budapest – What Things Cost in Budapest, A Shopping List
There are a couple of items on the Budapest shopping list that skew things a bit, such as good olive oil (which was bafflingly expensive in Budapest) and a good bottle of drinkable wine, which you need to fork out more money for.
You can buy a bottle of wine in the supermarket that is far cheaper than the price we’ve listed below – you could pay as little as $3 if you wanted – but we didn’t think they were good for much except cooking.
If you sacrificed your olive oil and drank the cheaper plonk then Budapest would in fact be our cheapest destination of the year to shop so far – even cheaper than Mexico City. But I’ll comment more on why that’s the case and why cities like Istanbul rank close to the top, just beneath New York and Tokyo, in another post.
If you’re staying in Budapest for a while, you will find shopping not only affordable but an absolute breeze with no need to trek very far to find what you want. There are wonderful market halls and open-air markets scattered around the city (the Central Market Hall being the best and our favourite; it’s a foodie’s idea of heaven!), but there are also supermarkets or at least mini-marts on almost every block.
Supermarkets in the centre vary greatly in quality from good supermarkets where you can find everything you need – even ranges of Thai and Mexican ingredients if you’ve been travelling for a while and have cravings – to tiny 24-hour grocery stores that offer basic supplies and seem to exist mainly to sell cigarettes and liquor.
If you are staying in the centre of Budapest, we recommend that you buy your fruit and vegetables, meat, salamis, cheeses, spices, etc, at the Central Market Hall or another market (we strongly recommend you do Carolyn Bánfalvi’s excellent Markets Tour before you shop anywhere) and get everything else you need at the nearest supermarket.
We found Match supermarket, just a block from our apartment, to be just fine, although there was also a Tesco, 10 minutes away on foot and by tram, on the way to the Central Market Hall.
In the basement of the Central Market Hall there’s also a supermarket and excellent Asian mini-mart. The supermarkets also have deli counters (though much of what’s beneath the glass is the same as what’s on the shelves) and bakery counters.
The supermarkets also have liquor sections, if you can’t make it to a good wine shop, though the quality of wine at a wine store is far superior. More on wine in our next post!
A couple of tips for shopping at the supermarket: plastic shopping bags cost, so take your own canvas bags or, once you buy your plastic bags, don’t forget to take them with you when you head out; and once you pay at the checkout the standard practice is to keep your groceries in your basket and take them over to a dedicated bench to pack them into your plastic bags.
Price Check: A Budapest Shopping List
| 2 litre water | HUF210 | £0.66 | US$1.05 |
| 1 litre milk | HUF240 | £0.75 | US$1.20 |
| Bottle of local wine | HUF2200 | £6.86 | US$10.96 |
| 330ml beer | HUF265 | £0.83 | US$1.32 |
| 100g Nescafe | HUF550 | £1.72 | US$2.74 |
| 250g coffee beans | HUF340 | £1.06 | US$1.69 |
| 50 tea bags | HUF260 | £0.81 | US$1.30 |
| 1 kg sugar | HUF160 | £0.50 | US$0.80 |
| Jar of jam | HUF330 | £1.03 | US$1.64 |
| 1 loaf of bread | HUF550 | £1.72 | US$2.74 |
| 250g quality butter | HUF440 | £1.37 | US$2.19 |
| 200g cheese | HUF380 | £1.19 | US$1.89 |
| 500 ml olive oil | HUF2540 | £7.93 | US$12.65 |
| 1 doz organic eggs | HUF480 | £1.50 | US$2.39 |
| 1 kilo tomatoes | HUF300 | £0.94 | US$1.49 |
| 1 kilo onions | HUF200 | £0.62 | US$1.00 |
| 1 kilo apples | HUF300 | £0.94 | US$1.49 |
| 250 g pistachios | HUF540 | £1.68 | US$2.69 |
| Erős Pista paprika | HUF560 | £1.75 | US$2.79 |
| Total: | 10845 | £33.86 | US$54.02 |
Price Check is a series of posts from every destination we visit where we settle in for a while, that could serve as a shopping list for you to stock the kitchen at the start of your stay, as well as a cost of living index, giving you an idea as to what things cost in that place. We include some basic items to get you started, plus a local specialty or two from the place.
Settling into Budapest for a while? See our Local Guide to Budapest and tips from expat Molly for an idea of what things cost.
“once you pay at the checkout, the standard practice is to keep your groceries in your basket and take them over to a dedicated bench to pack them into your plastic bags”
It’s the same in Japan! I wish more and more countries follow suit. I can’t understand why people just stand there and watch the grocery packer pack their things.
That’s right! It was like that in Tokyo. It makes so much sense. I hate waiting for people to finish packing, and hate people waiting for *us* to finish packing, so agree with you!
Thanks for dropping by! :)
One tip on olive oil: Gastronomia Pomo d’Oro in the 5th district sells olive oil out of stainless steel vats. You can buy an empty bottle to fill there, or bring your own. Great quality oils and regularly trucked in from Italy. I find this more economical (and better) than buying the name brand olive oils in the grocery store.
Excellent tip! Thanks, Molly, that’s a great way to save on one of the more expensive items on the list but still not sacrifice quality – and that’s always the problem we have with Price Check. Another item that sometimes drives the totals up is free-range eggs which can be much more expensive than factory eggs.