What Will Ten Dollars Buy Where You Live?

CNN wanted to know what people could buy with ten dollars in the current economy, so they issued a challenge to their website visitors.

As you might expect, what people could buy with ten dollars (or the non-American currency equivalent) varied widely according to where each person lived. Some people bought used clothing, books, and records. A man in Taiwan bought “24 new pairs of socks and 10 new ties.” In California a woman used coupons to purchase a “huge stash” of processed foods, and another woman shopped at Whole Foods and bought “enough food for four meals.” In Bhutan a woman spent ten dollars to buy an entire week’s worth of vegetables at a farmer’s market.

So what would ten dollars buy here? Figuring how much produce ten dollars will buy this time of year is a bit discouraging, even with this week’s sale prices. For ten dollars I could buy:

  • about fifteen medium-sized apples (almost tasteless) and about fifteen medium-sized, thin-skinned, so sour you can’t eat them oranges, OR…
  • ten large thick-skinned oranges that are sweet and taste good, OR…
  • two heads of iceberg lettuce and two large bell peppers, OR…
  • a ten-pound bag of russet potatoes and a five-pound bag of carrots.

We’ve been buying seeds for our garden recently… ten dollars would buy two or three packets of heirloom vegetable seeds. It would also buy almost two gallons of rBST-free organic milk.

And ten dollars would pay almost seventy percent of ONE day’s worth of real estate taxes for our house and land.

What does ten dollars buy where you live?

Written by Shirley | Filed Under Frugality, Miscellaneous, Simple Living, Voluntary Simplicity

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Comments

Comment by Alma:

$10 will pay for the gas to go visit my grandchildren. Another $10 will pay for the trip back.

Comment by Corin:

This morning $10 paid for three pounds of chicken breasts on sale at a supermarket chain here in Maine. I saved $1 per lb. The chicken breasts will be meat for tonights supper for 6 of us. (Me hubby and 4 kids ages 6 to 12).

Comment by surviving and thriving on pennies:

10 lb bag of potatoes $2.99
2 bell peppers .79 cents each
2 lb carrots .99
1 lb mushrooms 1.99
1 lb strawberries 1.99
And you would get some change back.
Where I live it’s pretty good priced. We have lots of farms around.

Comment by MamaC:

I live in Northwestern Canada where grocery prices are high.
A gallon of regular milk is $4.25, it would be $7.97 if I wanted organic.
I can get a pound of lean ground beef for $2, on a good sale
A head of lettuce for $1 and some crappy tasting tomatoes for $1.97 a pound.

Comment by MelissaL:

$10 is bus fare for three days and 2 books from the library book sale

Or 4lbs of really cheap cheese (and I don’t mean “inexpensive”)

Or 2 containers of organic soy milk and a cup of yogurt

Comment by Willow:

3 bundles of fresh asparagus, 1 onion, 1 garlic, 1 bundle of carrots (tops still on), fresh spinach, fresh kale– all from our local farmers market.

Comment by Sreekala:

Hmmm… $10 is equal to around 500 Indian rupees. For that we could buy…

1. Fresh vegetables to last our vegetarian family for around 1.5 months. Or

2. Around 20kg of Indian apples. Or

3. Rice (our staple grain) enough for 1.5 months for our family of 4. Or

4. Half of our one month’s’ milk budget. Or

5. A month’s school bus fee for my son.

6. Enough gas for two weekends’ worth driving around for shopping/movies/eating out. (My husband takes the company bus to office and I’m a homemaker, we seldom take the car except in weekends.)

Comment by Sreekala:

Oh, and if we bought chicken with it, we could get around 5 kgs of dressed chicken – 6 lbs.

Comment by Lars Dahlin:

Well, $10 will get me 1,2 gallons of fuel.

Comment by Natalie:

Here in Alaska $10 will get me 3 gallons of gas;
or
A 10 lb bag of russet potatoes, 2 lbs of apples, and two heads of red leaf lettuce
or
5 packets of heirloom seeds from Seeds of Change

Comment by Kopka:

Hello, nice blog you’re keeping, I really enjoy reading it.

Here in Holland ten dollars is about 7,50 euros. With that amount I could get one bread and a bag of fruit, to last my family of three for a week, at the market. Or I could buy 4 liters of gas. Haven’t got a clue what that would be in gallons. Weird enough it could also buy me two fleece-sweaters, made by little, asian children I suppose, so I won’t buy them.

The world is full of contradictions, that’s for sure.

Love, Kopka

Comment by Marigene:

Right now it will buy me 10 quarts of fresh leaf lettuce or 6 lbs. of fresh asparagus at the little farmers market in town.

Comment by Evandro:

Yesterday I had a haircut for US$6 (of course, at a very cheap place) and four pounds of apples and pears for the remaining US$4.
The exchange yesterday was 1US$ = 1.8BRL.

Regards!

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