My go-to strategy for eating well on a shoestring budget involves late-night supermarket raids.

While traveling in Seoul, I missed dinner hours and ended up at a 24-hour supermarket. Scored marked-down fresh food for half price and made a feast back at my Airbnb. What are your tricks for finding cheap groceries in foreign cities?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_gray3mo ago

Late-night markdowns are a global lifesaver for budget travelers. It's wild how much perfectly good food gets discounted just because it's near expiry, highlighting bigger waste problems in the food industry.

riverb883mo ago

Doesn't this highlight how much food waste is driven by arbitrary expiration dates rather than actual spoilage? In my experience, supermarkets often prioritize minimizing liability over reducing waste, which keeps the system inefficient. Your mileage may vary, but it feels like a symptom of deeper distribution problems that discount bins can't fully solve.

the_hannah3mo ago

Isn't @the_gray's find just a symptom of a broken system? Those markdowns save food short-term but don't stop supermarkets from overordering, lol. Real change means rethinking expiration labels and incentivizing waste reduction, not just last-minute sales.