RM50.00 Challenge for Ramadhan Bazaar. Fail or Sucess?

Hello everyone 👧.

Ramadhan bazaars or street food markets started during the fasting month for Muslims until Hari Raya or Eid. Many bazaars have been organized in many places throughout Ramadhan (especially near my home and workplace). I love Ramadhan bazaars and will not miss visiting there trice a week for a month in prior years. This year I had to refrain from going to Bazaar frequently due to the recent significant increase in food prices, which made me think twice. Thus, I had to set a benchmark for how much I would spend on food at the bazaar.

RM50.00 cash money

For my recent visit to Ramadhan bazaar with my Mum and @butwo at Sembulan, Kota Kinabalu, our limit is to spend RM50.00 (USD11.4) only to buy food or dinner for 5 family members at home.

@butwo and Mum

We arrived at the bazaar quite early around 3.30pm to avoid the crowds during peak hours after 5.00pm. Even though there are not many people at the bazaar, we have a hard time finding parking lots nearby the bazaar. Perhaps, the nearby parking lots were occupied by vendors' vehicles. My Mum, @butwo and I have to walk quite a distance to reach our destination.

Locals and foreigner customer

I'm amazed that many foreigners visit this bazaar too. Maybe they came from Sutera Harbour Resorts or other budget hotels nearby this bazaar. I think they probably walked to this bazaar from the hotel they stayed at.

My Dad requested fried noodles for his dinner

For a container of nasi ayam penyet, the cheapest price is now RM8.00 (USD1.8). My Mum bought her favorite kuih that looks like a UFO saucer just beside the nasi ayam penyet

The cheapest price from this vendor selling grilled food is RM2.00 (USD0.45) for a chicken wing or meat skewer.

The price for a container of dessert such as red bean porridge and cendol with brown sugar and coconut milk is RM3.00 (USD0.68).

Would like to buy these foods, have to skip it for the challenge.

This cute ladybug appearance pastry I tried it once before few years ago. It's taste like egg sponge cake without butter.

The name of this dark-colored pastry if translated directly from Malay to English is called cow poop cake. I just bought it to try it out.

I'm in a dilemma in choosing which type of beverage I should buy. Got 3 of them are my favorite.

My last purchase in the bazaar, my favorite pastries, kuih kukus jagung and kuih pelita.

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The results

I think we will spend more because there are too many foods we would like to purchase. Fortunately we set our spending limit so that we did not overspend on food. Okay, let's calculate the total costs we spent buying the foods from the bazaar we went as mentioned above.

What we bought	Prices
Avacado juices. I just bought four of them in the same flavor (except for my Dad). This makes the vendor feel more easy when preparing the same beverage we ordered.	RM 12.00 (RM3.00 each cup)
Kuih Pelita. As I accidentally dropped the plastic on my car floor, I almost wrecked this pastry shape.	RM 3.00 (RM1.50 each pack
Kuih kukus jagung. This is my all-time favorite pastry that I will buy if I see it at any street food market.	RM 3.00 (4 pieces)
Kuih penjaram. My Mum favorite pastry. It a must contain a certain level of sugar to get this pastry in UFO saucer shape when frying it. So, it's impossible to get less sugar for this pastry.	RM 3.00 (6 pieces)
Cow poop pastry. Basically, it's a chocolate cake coated with cheese. Will not buy it again next time. Lol.	RM 4.00 (4 pieces)
Fried noodles and one piece of fried chicken. My Dad and @butwo eat the same thing for dinner. However, I ate my Dad's fried chicken 🙈. My Dad consumes less food in his old age now.	RM 12.00 (RM 6.00 each)
Gado gado. An Indonesian salad with spicy peanut sauce. My Mum, Sister and myself for dinner.	RM 18.00 (RM 6.00 each)

Were we successful in our RM50.00 challenge? The answer is NO 🙅‍♀️. The total cost we spent on the above food is RM55.00.

Although we failed at this challenge, we managed to control our budget to buy the necessary food for dinner. Some of the pastries we bought we did not finish and we finish it on the next day. Therefore, food and money are not wasted.

That's all. Thanks for reading my post 🤗.