About The Samosa Index

The Samosa Index tracks crowd-sourced samosa prices in Canada and the UAE and plots them against the official cost of living. The samosa is a stand-in for everyday spending — when its price climbs faster than inflation, your money is buying less snack than it used to. Each country is tracked in its own currency — nothing is converted.

• Samosa prices are submitted by visitors. Every point on the chart is a real price someone reported — we never generate or estimate prices.
• The first prices were not submitted by visitors. To start the index honestly, they were read from restaurants’ own published menus in Canada and from restaurants’ Talabat listings in the UAE on 17 September 2026, one plain vegetable samosa per business. Delivery-app prices can run higher than counter prices. Everything since has come from visitors.
• Inflation is annual consumer price inflation for each country as published by the World Bank, which compiles figures reported by national statistics offices.
• The dashed line on the chart is a projection, not a price anyone paid: it takes the first recorded samosa price and grows it by official inflation, so you can see whether real prices have run ahead of it.

The Samosa Index began in Toronto with an article about what a samosa should cost, and one person who took it far too seriously. It was built as a gift, for an audience of one. When life moved to Dubai, the index came along, and it has tracked both cities since.

A note from the one keeping count: for a long time I got the numbers right and the maths wrong. The index is still running. Not to prove anything to the market. Just because keeping honest count, every day, is the only way I know to be worth reading again.

This is a fun, community project, not financial advice. Prices vary by city, vendor, and size, and inflation figures are official but summarized.