Montreal has become a glorified foodie town and there are many excellent restaurants here which help the tourist industry and give prestige to the city. But unless you own or work in such an establishment, they're just killing your bank account.
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In recent years the restaurant industry has exploded in Quebec as Montrealers apportion far too much of their meagre after-tax income at such places.
We spend about five times more than by eating something similar at home.
Why? Because grocery shopping is inconvenient and time consuming.
In recent years we've heard the term food desert used increasingly to describe various neighbourhoods, (although desert is hardly a word that springs to mind when you look out the window at this hellishly cold winter).
The province created those deserts by driving half of all corner stores out of business over the last 30-or-so years. Quebecers once bought a good percentage of their groceries at such nearby, convenient locations, which were sacrificed for the glory of the much more distant grocery stores.
Getting to a grocery store and hauling back groceries can be difficult for non-car owners and young people are increasingly not buying cars.
I used to sling heavy laden bags on the handlebars of my mountain bike, an awkward and ungainly method but others are forced to take a bus or a taxi.
So grocery shopping is cumbersome and inconvenient and time-consuming to many but it's still worth it.
Grocery shopping by phone or through the internet has - rather incomprehensibly - never taken off in spite of repeated large-scale efforts, presumably because people want to see what they're buying.
But you've got to find a way to get those groceries, because your $14 restaurant meal is no better than what you can cook for yourself at home in your underwear and that $6 beer only costs you about a buck at home and ...hell invite your friends over, it'll still be cheap.
Plopping down $9 for your lunch is equally obscene when you can just bring a can of soup and a Lord Sandwich that'll cost you less than a buck, so stop going out for lunch while at work, you're just being a dick.
While restaurants are expensive, groceries are almost obscenely cheap now. We spend about 10% of our household incomes on groceries now, whereas we used to spend about 25% in the 70s.
So imagine next time you're at the cash of your local grocery store, multiply the bill by 2.5 and recognize that you are miraculously blessed that you're not forced to pay that much.
The money we save in groceries is clawed back through increased housing costs anyway, which take far more of our budget than they did during the 70s and 80s.
Restaurant-eating also comes with bragging component that grates on the nerves. I often hear people babble with bravado and showoffery about eateries they munched at but it's much more impressive to whip something up for yourself and you'd get far more esteem by inviting friends to eat chez toi and showing them what a great cook you are.
And if you're really inclined to brag, go shop at some exotic grocery joint like the farmers market and then blow people away with your grocery shopping know-how instead.
Creator > discerning consumer anyway.
So you need to get yourself logistically organized and learn a few basic recipes and learn the discipline of grocery shopping and restaurant-avoiding.
Meanwhile who wants to partner with me in a simple old fashioned venture: we buy a cheap old cube van to drive around selling fruits and vegetables to homes along the route.
The F-and-V rig would be souped up with a bell as well as a GPS app so people can know where you are and ask you to pass by their place. We'll make a buck and let water flow to the food desert.
In recent years the restaurant industry has exploded in Quebec as Montrealers apportion far too much of their meagre after-tax income at such places.We spend about five times more than by eating something similar at home.
Why? Because grocery shopping is inconvenient and time consuming.
In recent years we've heard the term food desert used increasingly to describe various neighbourhoods, (although desert is hardly a word that springs to mind when you look out the window at this hellishly cold winter).
The province created those deserts by driving half of all corner stores out of business over the last 30-or-so years. Quebecers once bought a good percentage of their groceries at such nearby, convenient locations, which were sacrificed for the glory of the much more distant grocery stores.
Getting to a grocery store and hauling back groceries can be difficult for non-car owners and young people are increasingly not buying cars.
I used to sling heavy laden bags on the handlebars of my mountain bike, an awkward and ungainly method but others are forced to take a bus or a taxi.
So grocery shopping is cumbersome and inconvenient and time-consuming to many but it's still worth it.
Grocery shopping by phone or through the internet has - rather incomprehensibly - never taken off in spite of repeated large-scale efforts, presumably because people want to see what they're buying.
But you've got to find a way to get those groceries, because your $14 restaurant meal is no better than what you can cook for yourself at home in your underwear and that $6 beer only costs you about a buck at home and ...hell invite your friends over, it'll still be cheap.
Plopping down $9 for your lunch is equally obscene when you can just bring a can of soup and a Lord Sandwich that'll cost you less than a buck, so stop going out for lunch while at work, you're just being a dick.
While restaurants are expensive, groceries are almost obscenely cheap now. We spend about 10% of our household incomes on groceries now, whereas we used to spend about 25% in the 70s.
So imagine next time you're at the cash of your local grocery store, multiply the bill by 2.5 and recognize that you are miraculously blessed that you're not forced to pay that much.
The money we save in groceries is clawed back through increased housing costs anyway, which take far more of our budget than they did during the 70s and 80s.
Restaurant-eating also comes with bragging component that grates on the nerves. I often hear people babble with bravado and showoffery about eateries they munched at but it's much more impressive to whip something up for yourself and you'd get far more esteem by inviting friends to eat chez toi and showing them what a great cook you are.
And if you're really inclined to brag, go shop at some exotic grocery joint like the farmers market and then blow people away with your grocery shopping know-how instead.
Creator > discerning consumer anyway.
So you need to get yourself logistically organized and learn a few basic recipes and learn the discipline of grocery shopping and restaurant-avoiding.
Meanwhile who wants to partner with me in a simple old fashioned venture: we buy a cheap old cube van to drive around selling fruits and vegetables to homes along the route.
The F-and-V rig would be souped up with a bell as well as a GPS app so people can know where you are and ask you to pass by their place. We'll make a buck and let water flow to the food desert.