Build your food budget from an ordinary week
A holiday meal pattern is rarely a useful household budget. Hotel breakfasts, spontaneous lunches and evening restaurant visits may suit a short stay, while longer periods bring workdays, shopping lists and leftovers. Write down where you would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner during an ordinary week. Include coffee stops, snacks, guests and the nights when nobody wants to cook.
Then separate meals you genuinely want to prepare from meals you think you should prepare to make the numbers look attractive. A realistic purchasing decision preserves the lifestyle you want. If dining out is a priority, give it its own allowance instead of expecting an apartment kitchen to change your habits after handover.
Compare the products you would repeatedly buy
Build a repeatable basket around your preferred breakfast, a few regular dinners, fruit, drinks and household essentials. Record pack sizes and substitutions, not just product names. Imported favourites, dietary preferences and branded cleaning products can make your basket very different from another household’s. Compare the cost of a usable quantity; a larger pack offers little value if part of it is discarded.
The Spinneys Egypt catalogue provides categories for organising this exercise. Its store finder is a separate starting point for checking store information. Confirm the selected location, availability and final price yourself; a national catalogue does not establish Hurghada delivery coverage or a citywide price.
Cost of living in Hurghada: compare two meal patterns
Here is an original four-week planning exercise for two adults. Both patterns provide for groceries and meals outside the home; the difference is how the household allocates its own allowance. Every amount is an invented EUR budgeting input, not a measured Hurghada price, restaurant quote or verified local average.
The €180 difference between these examples is a difference between chosen envelopes, not a saving promised by cooking at home. Replace each row with your actual basket, intended number of outings and current quotations. If you prefer the second lifestyle, use its spending pattern when judging affordability instead of adopting the first simply because its total is lower.
| Spending allowance | Mostly home meals | More meals out |
|---|---|---|
| Groceries | €280 | €230 |
| Restaurants and takeaway | €100 | €280 |
| Cafés and snacks | €40 | €80 |
| Food contingency | €30 | €40 |
| Four-week total | €450 | €630 |
Illustrative allocations only; not current local prices or surveyed averages. Excludes housing, utilities, transport, alcohol, appliance purchases and other household costs. Replace the inputs before making a purchase decision.
View the kitchen as a daily working space
During a viewing, imagine preparing your most common evening meal. Identify where ingredients would be washed, chopped, cooked and served. Open cupboards and appliance doors to see whether two people can move comfortably. Confirm which appliances are included, their condition and whether the refrigerator has enough practical storage for your shopping rhythm. A decorative kitchenette may be perfectly suitable for short visits but frustrating for regular cooking.
Think about where groceries arrive, where packaging is stored and how waste leaves the apartment. Small practical details affect whether the planned routine feels easy enough to sustain. Our guide to usable apartment floor plans helps connect these daily tasks to the layout you choose.
Count the whole shopping trip
The relevant distance is from your apartment door to the shop you would actually use, including the gate, crossings and the return journey with bags. Check the route at a time that resembles your normal routine. A nearby shop may suit frequent small purchases, while a larger shop may work better for a planned weekly trip. Neither arrangement automatically produces the lower total.
Put shopping transport and delivery charges in your transport allowance, or in your food allowance, but never both. Decide how you will handle heavier items and periods when you are busy or have visitors. Keep one backup shopping option so a stock shortage does not force an unplanned restaurant meal or repeated journeys across town.
Choose the apartment that supports your real routine
Give your broker a short, concrete brief: how often you cook, how often you host, which shops matter and what storage you need. Request photographs of the actual kitchen and the included appliance list. For an unfinished property, work from the written specification and price any changes separately rather than assuming the show apartment is the contractual standard.
If furniture is part of your decision, read our furnished or unfurnished buying guide. Your shortlist should explain why each kitchen fits your routine, alongside the purchase price and other ownership costs. A home becomes easier to assess when its everyday use is as clear as its photographs.
Your buyer checklist
- Write one ordinary week of meals before setting a food allowance.
- Price the same brands, pack sizes and quantities at the location you will use.
- Confirm the included appliances and test practical kitchen circulation.
- Walk the grocery route with the return journey in mind.
- Count delivery or shopping transport once, in a named budget category.
Build your Hurghada shortlist
Compare the home, its location and the cost of using it against the life you want in Hurghada. Request current availability and a written cost breakdown for the exact properties you select.