Singapore Expats

Curious -Is grocery shopping cheaper in Malaysia ?

Is it worth the hassle ? I know Petrol is way way cheaper there ! Any idea about other stuff in places like Giant or carrefour or courts ?

tina1980 wrote:Curious -Is grocery shopping cheaper in Malaysia ?

Is it worth the hassle ? I know Petrol is way way cheaper there ! Any idea about other stuff in places like Giant or carrefour or courts ?

No groceries isn't cheaper there. I had visited and compared prices at Tesco and Jusco Tebrau City and found that most stuff are about the same price or higher in JB. May be because SG is a duty free country and MY isn't so stuff that is imported will be more expensive in MY.

But it's cheaper to eat in restaurants there. Places like Pizza hut is about half the price of Pizza hut here and same goes for hawker's stall prices as well.

BTW, is your question so serious that it should appear in this "Strictly Speaking" section?

Snacks and junk food is cheaper there.

and +1 on eating out.

revhappy wrote:BTW, is your question so serious that it should appear in this "Strictly Speaking" section?

You got me !! Apologies - guess this was more of a general discusion

I was surprised how expensive booze is in Malaysia, for some reason thought it would be cheaper but in some bars in KL it didn't seem any cheaper than Singapore Maybe JB is cheaper, never been to know

That's probably because Alcohol is heavily taxed by the govt to dissuade people from drinking -Its a religous thing.

JayCee wrote:I was surprised how expensive booze is in Malaysia, for some reason thought it would be cheaper but in some bars in KL it didn't seem any cheaper than Singapore Maybe JB is cheaper, never been to know

yea booze is not cheap....if u buy by the bottle it is much cheaper unless i am missing some secret places in singapore....

JayCee wrote:I was surprised how expensive booze is in Malaysia, for some reason thought it would be cheaper but in some bars in KL it didn't seem any cheaper than Singapore Maybe JB is cheaper, never been to know

Well, given that Malaysia is predominantly Muslim-governed, expensive booze is unsurprising.

Booze is damn cheap in Langkawi, because it is a duty free island. Everything is cheap there including car rentals and buying cars. May be there are other duty free regions in MY where it will be cheap.

IIRC, a can of Tiger beer was like 2.5RM and a can of coke was like 2RM. I think I drank more beer than water when I was on a trip there.

Phuket is ripoff in comparison. Boleh Malaysia

I guess 'surprised' is the wrong word to use, I knew it would be more expensive than say the Philippines or Thailand but I just didn't think it would be Singapore price, even HK and Tokyo are cheaper to go drinking in than Singapore so it just seemed crazy that a less developed country like Malaysia would be charging the same, muslim or not.

And yeah, I've been to langkawi, that was better for prices Although I wouldn't go back because it was boring as sin, give me Phuket any day

I generally find a lot of the groceries are cheaper except for the import stuff from Australia or Europe then it's similar to here.

Over all I think it's worth filling up the car with lots of stuff you regularly buy that is cheaper in JB then have a good lunch for RM20. You'll only have to time it well that you go over the causeway and not second link as the difference in price negates basically all the savings from going over in the first place.

It's a day out of Singapore though, so not all bad.

JayCee wrote:I guess 'surprised' is the wrong word to use, I knew it would be more expensive than say the Philippines or Thailand but I just didn't think it would be Singapore price, even HK and Tokyo are cheaper to go drinking in than Singapore so it just seemed crazy that a less developed country like Malaysia would be charging the same, muslim or not.

They subsidize petrol and diesel prices big time. So I guess Alcohol foots part of that subsidy burden. The majority are muslims who dont booze so they wont complain. So its drink less drive more if you are in MY

How are HK wine prices, now that duty on wine has been scrapped? Have stores passed on the good news to consumers or are they keeping most of the "tax savings" for themselves?

revhappy wrote:Booze is damn cheap in Langkawi, because it is a duty free island. Everything is cheap there including car rentals and buying cars. May be there are other duty free regions in MY where it will be cheap.

IIRC, a can of Tiger beer was like 2.5RM and a can of coke was like 2RM. I think I drank more beer than water when I was on a trip there.

Phuket is ripoff in comparison. Boleh Malaysia

Yep Tioman too, duty free. A big can of Heineken from a shop is like RM3-3.50. The whole range of wine and spirits are available. Decent bottle of Aussie wine maybe RM25. So when you go and have dinner you simply do a BYO* (Bring your Own).

I seem to recall that you could buy cases of 24 small tins for c. RM48-55 (Skol 48, Tiger 55)


* That said I'm not sure I'd BYO beer at the Chinese owned restaurants, but wine would be fine. There is one quite 'halal' restaurant called Lisa, but if you point to your bag and ask 'is ok?' they're cool. The local (bumi) places seem fine, as long as you are taking in something they don't stock... of course polite to ask if it's ok. Berjaya, from memory it charges corkage...

aster wrote:How are HK wine prices, now that duty on wine has been scrapped? Have stores passed on the good news to consumers or are they keeping most of the "tax savings" for themselves?

I was in HK a couple of weeks ago and supermarkets are filled with cheap beer and wine. You can get a reasonable bottle of red for under S$10 with the exchange rate being near 6.3 these days.

There is the real fall-down-drunk stuff as well...... HK$100 for two bottles of a litre each. Yes, litre bottles are quite common and fit very well into the SG duty free allowances Most deals were buy two for HK$70-120, or buy two get a third free so buying just individual bottles seems a bit trickier though as i said you could still buy just one around $60 or as low as $35-40 for what probably tastes like it should be on your fish supper.