Buy Whole, Not Processed, and Let the Kitchen Do the Math
A 500g packet of pre-cut, pre-washed salad at a supermarket costs roughly three times what the same weight of loose vegetables costs at your local sabzi mandi. The convenience markup is real, and it compounds across every aisle. Switching to whole grains, whole dals, and unprocessed staples, and doing the cutting and soaking at home, can trim a family grocery bill by ₹800 to ₹1,200 a month without removing a single dish from the menu. The discipline is in the weekly planning: write the week's meals before you write the shopping list, not after. Buying without a list is how atta gets bought twice and the bottle of chyawanprash you already have at the back of the shelf gets bought again.
