Grocery store $ vs a local cook?

[gowenback]

Used to visit every year, skipped last three winters and now we are throwin a towel at winter and headed back 100% spur of moment.....(.pretty cool eh?,) Last 4 or 5 seasons we visited it was a nice mix of cooking in the board house, and going out for some meals. New roof this time,same area, and now we have option of a cook. Any recent trips with same choices? By the looks of most Negril websites food pricing has gone up fast the last three years. Coin is an issue for us this trip, we will be only 1 store trip for a 10 day stay. Choice tween a cooks markup (and availability of local), or fixed gouge price at grocery(like the locals)..........cooking/cleanup not an issue.....just overall costs. ANY input would be oh so nice.......Thanx

[Jim-Donna]

I really enjoy having a cook. In my job I have to cook for many all the time so no cooking is a true vacation for me. However I know I could cook cheaper.
Where we stay they ask for 30.00pp per day. seems like a lot to me.
Jim and I are not big eaters. Fruit and eggs, toast for breakfast, tuna or cheese sandwich for lunch, chicken or fish for supper.
The trouble with me is I have yet to see a receipt for the food.
Also one day a woman with a few items for sale stopped by and I bought a couple of things. As she was leaving she said something curious...and I quote " Spend your own money" ....nothing more was said.
Was she trying to tell me something? There has never been any $ left from the food kitty.
This year we will be with my brother and his wife, so the $ has to be accounted for.
We will be insisting on all food and drinks receipts.
So we will see how it goes.
Anyone else have any insight our experience with cooks?

With all that said I LOVE having a cook.......makes me feel like a "queen for a week"

[Chrispy]

When we went last year we sent some money ahead for the chef to buy some basics as well as cooking supplies - oil, flour spices etc. I was a little skeptical as well so we did the rest of the shopping in Mo Bay before driving to TB. We then bought fresh produce, fish, and lobster there in TB form locals. Produce car drives by each day and will stop at each house. We bought fish and lobster straight from the boat on the beach. Our chef had the receipt for the stuff she bought as well as change she used to buy fresh chicken. There are also many good little cook shops that have cheap meals, 3 dollar lunch at Likkel Diamond! Overall I thought the prices for food and drink at most places were cheaper than Negril.

[TAH]

Where is Likkle Diamond?

[gowenback]

Thanks for the input.Really will do to ease our minds. The difference between an ordeal and adventure is all in attitude!!! 1 sleep,5 hours and vroom vroom, goodbye snow.

[JitterBug]

gowenback, how did it go? care to share?

[JitterBug]

I really enjoy having a cook. In my job I have to cook for many all the time so no cooking is a true vacation for me. However I know I could cook cheaper.
Where we stay they ask for 30.00pp per day. seems like a lot to me.
Jim and I are not big eaters. Fruit and eggs, toast for breakfast, tuna or cheese sandwich for lunch, chicken or fish for supper.
The trouble with me is I have yet to see a receipt for the food.
Also one day a woman with a few items for sale stopped by and I bought a couple of things. As she was leaving she said something curious...and I quote " Spend your own money" ....nothing more was said.
Was she trying to tell me something? There has never been any $ left from the food kitty.
This year we will be with my brother and his wife, so the $ has to be accounted for.
We will be insisting on all food and drinks receipts.
So we will see how it goes.
Anyone else have any insight our experience with cooks?

With all that said I LOVE having a cook.......makes me feel like a "queen for a week"

donna, your quote seems self explanatory . . . read it again . . .

[Jim-Donna]

Well for us it was perfect.
In advance, I made sure Miss Millie knew a close record of expenses needed to be kept. Food Kitty was set at 700.00 for four adults 7 days.
That included 8 crates of red stripes and four cases of water and all the food.
We had a full breakfast daily, Miss Millie would make up something for lunch if we wanted.
Sometimes we just ate leftovers for lunch, or ate out. We even threw a little party for my Brother, and a lot of people came we had chicken and lobster salad ( from Frozen lobster) birthday cake potato salad....It was a fun evening. At the end of our stay Miss Millie gave me all the receipts and 100.00 us change.
I felt it was fair.

Jitterbug.....you are correct ~~

[Rumghoul]

$700 for 7 days for four is very reasonable. We always send money ahead to fully stock our kitty then we stop in Black River for our beer, wine, rum, wata and mixers so our cook doesn't have to carry the heavy stuff since we have a driver. We have stayed in a few different villas and for the most part have always gotten our receipts and a quite a bit of $$ back. Love having a cook for sure - I have now perfected my own rice and peas and coconut shrimp! Last year our cook gave me several seasoning packets she uses to take home with me.

[Jim-Donna]

Sweet Rumghoul~~