Cost of living

Would you be interested in having an idea of how much it costs to buy stuff here? Of course you would. Lucky then that I retained my receipt from the supermarket.

When I looked it up last night, the exchange rate between the Kenyan Shilling and the British Pound was : 120 KES = £1.00. According to one of the girls in class 6, that means I need to divide all the Kenyan prices by 120 to get the price in pounds (it’s very complicated). So here is my shopping list with the original Kenyan price and the corresponding price in sterling:

. Mixed fruit drink: KES139 or £1.16
. Salt 500g: KES10 or £0.08 (I know! I calculated that one 3x as I couldn’t believe it either)
. White paper serviettes (100): KES60 or £0.50
. Cotton ear buds: KES 59 or £0.49
. Kleenex toilet paper (4 rolls): KES105 or £0.88
. Washing up soap: KES70 of £0.58
. Rice 2kg: KES250 or £2.08
. Sugar 500g: KES95 or £0.79
. Bar of soap (Cussons’ Imperial Leather I’ll have you know): KES64 or £0.53
. Penne pasta 400g: KES79 or £0.66
. Cooking oil 1l: KES122 or £1.02
. Scouring pad: KES38 or £0.32
. Honey 500g Jar: KES160 or £1.33
. Blue Band Margarine 250g (remember that?): KES48 or £0.40
. Loaf of brown sliced bread: KES57 or £0.48
. Harpic toilet bleach 500ml (triple strength mind you): KES131 or £1.09
. Clothes washing soup: KES67 or £0.56
. Washing up sponge: KES35 or £0.29
. Tin of Heinz baked beans (beans means Heinz): KES106 or £0.88
. 2 Bottle of water (3l): KES210 or £1.75
. Bottle of water (500ml) to drink whilst sweating carrying all of the above: KES20 or £0.17

Grand total: KES1925 or £16.04

Does that sound reasonable to you? Having lived in Paris for the last 11 years and one time spending €60 on 4 cod fillets, I have completely lost touch with reality, but it seems good value to me. The beans seem a bit steep but they are more than cancelled out by the not possibly possible low price of salt (Kuna kosa kwenye bili - there's a mistake with the bill)

Finally some other commodities that might make into your weekly shopping trolley:
. Kilo of beef: KES300 or £2.50
. Mango: KES25 or £0.21 (or 1p, yes that’s 1p, if you pick them up from a boy on the road)
. Foot pump: KES295 or £2.46
. Baby chickens: KES75 or £0.63
. Cow: KES15000 or £125.00 (any farmers amongst you? Is that a good deal?)

I’ll have to find the price of a Big Mac and a beer…probably easier for most of you to relate to!

PS: Did you know they also have 3 different coins for the 1 Kenyan shilling? That’s confusing.