Is ₦10,000 too much for a bowl of stew?

The fact is Nigerians spend too much on food. Half of their income goes to feeding and this should not be so.

The right answer to the question is it depends. It depends on who the food is made for, imagine the cost of cooking a family of six, the length of time you want the soup to last, if you have no foodstuff and if you are buying everything from scratch e.g., salt, seasoning, groundnut oil and the kind of protein you want in the meal. Let’s say you want to have ponmo, fish, turkey, and beef all in the stew then the money won’t be enough.

Anyways the truth is you can cook stew with ₦500 or ₦1000 or ₦3000 or ₦10,000. If it's ₦500 then ₦100 onions ₦100 tomatoes ₦200 dried fish ₦100 pepper let’s say you already have groundnut oil and seasoning, and your stew is made.

If you want to cook stew cheaply. Here is what you need to do;

Buying things from the roadside or if you live in Lagos, the Island is a mistake.

You can get a good deal on almost everything by literally changing the market or the days you buy foodstuff at.

The only thing you should be buying repeatedly is fresh produce like meat, fish and turkey or tomatoes. Having groundnut oil, seasoning and other condiments handy reduces your chances of spending so much.

In this sachet economy, you can minimise your cost by buying sachet oil, sachet tomato paste, half a kilo of chicken instead of a full one and generally chosing other cheaper alternatives.